Exclusive: Gordon Ramsay taking over Montreal resto

[ToxiK]

Toronto is pissed!

 

http://www.thestar.com/living/food/article/889274--montreal-not-toronto-lands-gordon-ramsay-s-first-canadian-restaurant

 

Comme je l'ai déjà dis auparavant: si c'est prestigieux, Toronto considère que ça lui revient de droit. Ils doivent se demander là-bas comment Gordon Ramsay a pu choisir Montréal alors que Toronto existe....

[Ornello Mastrocola]

I like Toronto for what they are doing in urban development, but this attitude of we're the centre of the universe and all good things must pass through us first ticks me off to no end.

[yveslachance]

LOL!! Sincèrement, le titre de l'article me fait rire tellement c'est triste/pathétique! Fallait vraiment que le titre soit ''Montreal, not TORONTO'' et non pas juste ''Montreal''.

Entk, moi aussi je trouve leur petite attitude ''centre de l'univers'' vraiment chiante! Arrêtez de vous prendre pour Tokyo ou New York mes petits amis ontariens!

[IluvMTL]

Ramsey will be here for the opening on Wednesday.

 

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110808/mtl_laurierbbq_110808/20110808/?hub=MontrealHome

 

 

 

Updated: Mon Aug. 08 2011 11:28:38 PM

 

ctvmontreal.ca

 

Laurier BBQ – a 75-year-old institution – is getting a jolt of new blood.

 

Notoriously foul-mouthed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is taking over the Laurier Ave. rotisserie chicken joint and making it his own, while still maintaining some of the core elements that made the restaurant popular for so many years.

 

Many of the 65 staff at the new restaurant are holdovers from the older version, and the desserts that regulars at Laurier BBQ used to love will remain on the menu.

 

"The inspiration was carrying on the same theme that was previously customary here," said Ramsay's hand-picked executive chef Guillermo Russo. "So we're doing family style dining in a family setting."

 

Still, there will be some new additions that draw on traditional Montreal food that falls outside the realm of rotisserie chicken. There will be poutine, smoked salmon on bagels from the nearby St-Viateur bagel shop, and a Montreal spin on a classic from the southern U.S.

 

"So this brisket was steamed for about two hours, and we're going to pull it apart and make some macaroni and cheese with smoked meat in classic Montreal fashion," Russo explained.

 

The main dining area can seat 170 people, but the restaurant now has a new bar and wine cellar, and the upper area that has been closed for 15 years will be available for private parties.

 

The menu has been kept reasonable, with the most expensive appetizer – a roasted chicken salad – running for $16 and the steak frites being the most expensive main course at $26.

 

With Ramsay's name on the front of the building – and his face splashed on TV screens everywhere on shows like Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word – the new restaurant is sure to be popular when it officially opens its doors Wednesday.

 

"We want to attract them all," said Danielle Lord, a partner in the restaurant, "and with a name like Gordon Ramsay outside--we're going to attract them all."

[jesseps]

St-Viateur bagels Guess I won't be having any smoke salmon at this restaurant.

[LindbergMTL]

Les bagels de Saint-Viateur, les meilleurs au monde! Ca serait marrant d'aller au Laurier et d'entendre Ramsay gueuler dans les cuisines. Au moins, il ne touche pas au mocca chaud!

[jesseps]

Les bagels de Saint-Viateur, les meilleurs au monde! Ca serait marrant d'aller au Laurier et d'entendre Ramsay gueuler dans les cuisines. Au moins, il ne touche pas au mocca chaud!

 

Sorry, but I am a Fairmount Bagel guy.

 

 

I wonder if he will start freaking out LOL

[jesseps]

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay arrived with what he hoped would be reassuring news for fans of the landmark Laurier BBQ restaurant he has taken over.

 

“The mocha cake is staying,” he announced Tuesday. Just don’t bloody ask that it be heated in the microwave, as had been the custom. “From a chef’s point of view, to stick a dessert in the microwave, it hurts,” he said. “God it hurts. It’s like sticking a knife in, twisting and putting it even further.”

 

For generations, Laurier BBQ has been an institution in francophone Montreal, where families dined on the same rotisserie chicken and mocha cake, served by the same waitresses, surrounded by the same folksy décor. Over the restaurant’s 75 years, a who’s who of Quebec society has slipped into its booths, from Pierre Trudeau and Robert Bourassa to Celine Dion and actor Donald Pilon.

 

The news last year that the Michelin-starred, foul-mouthed Brit was taking over the Outremont restaurant for his first Canadian venture felt a bit like the twisting of a knife to faithful customers. In the weeks before it closed for renovations in April, the place was more packed than it had been in years, with people sitting in for a nostalgic last meal.

 

As he prepared for Wednesday’s opening of the rechristened Laurier Gordon Ramsay, the chef described his initiative as a mere “repositioning” of the restaurant, but he made it clear that this is not anyone’s grandmother’s Rotisserie Laurier.

 

“Unfortunately businesses don’t survive on nostalgia, and this business was ignored for the last 10 years,” he told reporters. People pining for the old days should consider that the alternative was losing the restaurant altogether, he said.

 

“The business would never have survived. That’s the sad thing about it. Did I want to see it closed, knocked down and a shoe shop or clothes shop in the place of it? No. It’s got too much history.”

 

La Presse food critic Marie-Claude Lortie, who ate one of her first restaurant meals at the Laurier and took her own children there as babies, is among those nostalgic for the old Laurier BBQ. It is the place where Mr. Trudeau ate coconut pie and debated politics into the night during the 1960s, the restaurant of choice of her own father-in-law, the late Quebec Liberal leader Claude Ryan.

 

“A lot of the fun of going there was to be in that retro atmosphere and to feel it was exactly the same as when I was a kid,” she said. The menu preserves variations on many of the old favourites, including poutine and rotisserie chicken, but the interior has undergone a complete facelift, with a gleaming new bar and glassed-in wine cellar.

 

“It’s difficult to imagine that the spirit will continue, that you will still go there and find the university students and the grandparents and the young parents with young kids, who went there themselves as young kids,” Ms. Lortie said.

 

Mr. Ramsay made no apologies for targeting a new demographic, for whom an innovative cocktail list and bottles of Pol Roger champagne will be the draw as much as the comfortingly familiar chicken.

 

“We have our existing clientele that will be here at 4:30 in the afternoon, a little bite to eat before bed time,” he said. “Then at 6:30, when you finish work, we’ll have a nice hip, funky, moving bar in there.”

 

The pairing of Mr. Ramsay, whose restaurant in London’s Chelsea district holds three Michelin stars, the maximum awarded by the gastronomic bible, and a fairly humble chicken joint raised plenty of eyebrows when it was announced last fall.

 

Mr. Ramsay, who oversaw development of the Laurier menu but will leave cooking to Montrealer Guillermo Russo, said the formula is right for difficult economic times. Aside from a rib eye steak at $26, the most expensive main courses on the menu are $16.

 

“We’re not going fine dining. We’re not going Michelin star. We’re going for affordable glam,” he said. “In England, it’s called shabby chic.”

 

Mr. Russo, 31, who has previously worked at Lucien and The Black Hoof restaurants in Toronto, grew up a few blocks from the Laurier. He feels the pressure of taking over the kitchen of an institution and promises not to stray too far from its roots. “Montreal is in my heart and it’s in my mind when I’m creating the menu,” he said. He plans to buy as much of his food locally as possible. And he won’t be using a microwave.

 

(Courtesy of the National Post)

Modifié 10 août 2011 par jesseps

[IluvMTL]

http://fr.canoe.ca/artdevivre/cuisine/article1/2011/08/09/18532086-qmi.html

 

Le restaurant Laurier BBQ a officiellement cédé son flambeau mardi à nul autre que l’étoilé Michelin Gordon Ramsay.

Le réputé chef, Gordon Ramsay, lors de l'ouverture de son nouveau Laurier BBQ, à Montréal. | © Chantal Poirier / Agence QMI

 

Catherine Lefebvre

 

MONTRÉAL - Plusieurs centaines de personnes, jeunes et moins jeunes, étaient de la partie pour vivre ce passage dans l’histoire gastronomique montréalaise.

 

Véritable institution de la restauration familiale montréalaise, la rôtisserie Laurier BBQ a fermé ses portes en avril dernier, après 75 ans de service, en raison d’une baisse marquée de l’achalandage.

 

Certains employés y travaillaient depuis plus de 30 ans. C’est le cas de Reine, présente à l’ouverture mardi soir et toujours employée. La dame s’est dite très fière des changements apportés au restaurant et de faire encore partie de l’équipe. Elle a même déjà de nouveaux plats préférés: les guédilles de crevettes et crabe et le macaroni au fromage.

 

C’est à Montréal que Gordon Ramsay a décidé d’apposer sa signature sur le premier restaurant de sa collection en sol canadien, lui qui a une panoplie de restaurants partout sur la planète, notamment à Londres, New York, Tokyo et récemment Melbourne.

 

«Lors de mon premier passage à Montréal, il y a 5 ans, j’ai été impressionné par la culture et aussi par la diversité et la qualité gastronomique, a raconté Gordon Ramsay. Puis, quand j’ai réalisé qu’une institution comme celle du Laurier BBQ se vidait à vue d’œil, j’ai eu envie d’intervenir, de la faire évoluer, afin de ne pas la perdre complètement.» Malgré la réticence de certains habitués, il a su bien s’entourer pour prendre la relève et faire renaître la rôtisserie chérie de plusieurs.

 

Pourquoi avoir embauché Guillermo Russo comme chef de ce nouveau Laurier BBQ? «Parce qu’il est jeune et qu’il avait une vision, la même que la mienne à l’égard de la rôtisserie», a expliqué M. Ramsay. Le jeune chef sera tenu de respecter les standards de qualité imposés par l’entreprise du coloré chef britannique.

 

D’origine péruvienne, mais né à Montréal, Guillermo Russo, 31 ans, a su répondre aux attentes de l’entreprise de M. Ramsay lors de son entrevue, au cours de laquelle il avait dû présenter un menu dégustation de 15 plats et 10 accompagnements.

 

«Je ne savais même pas si [Gordon Ramsay] voulait en faire une adresse haut de gamme, comme la plupart de ses restaurants, ou conserver l’authenticité de l’institution montréalaise», a confié M. Russo.

 

Intuitivement, il a préparé des recettes classiques, mais améliorées, comme celles qui figurent sur le nouveau menu.

 

Lorsqu’il a rencontré M. Ramsay pour la première fois, il a apprécié sa vision, qu’il partage parfaitement.

 

«J’admire sa détermination, la finesse dans sa technique et ses choix d’ingrédients de qualité, comme le poulet élevé au grain et en liberté qui se fera rôtir toute la journée, a-t-il expliqué. Je serai là 7 jours sur 7, afin de travailler pour les gens d’ici et faire de mon mieux pour respecter les grands classiques de l’institution, tout comme les exigences de l’équipe de Gordon Ramsay.»

 

Ce jeune chef est un bel espoir, bourré de talents et d’une irréprochable modestie, ce qui laisse croire que la renaissance de la rôtisserie sera une réussite.

[LindbergMTL]

C'est vrai que le restaurant battait de l'aile (excusez le jeu de mots) avant qu'il n'en prenne les renes.