Tag Archives: bonaparte

Montreal: Talking About the Food

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I’ve published pictorials for Les 400 Coups, as well as the tasting menu and wine/beer pairings at DNA, and that’s just about all you’re gonna get for pics from this year’s restaurants. One of the downsides of eating at a bunch of fun bistros is that it’s dark: no workable photos.

Perhaps that’s for the better because I tend to put the phone away and enjoy the meal, and my friends, more.

But in lieu of pictures, here are some thoughts that can serve as an addendum to my pre-holiday post about food.

This year’s menu:

I wrote earlier this month that I think the bistro is one of the best expressions of great eating in Montréal. In fact, there’s a cranky argument on Chowhound right now about whether Montréal has world class restaurants. I don’t think it does, but I don’t give a crap: for me, the issue isn’t world class, it’s about good food, and how a city expresses itself in its restaurants.

So where were we? Ah yes, the bistro. I made most of the 2011 trip a celebration of the bistro. Nora Gray, Chien Fumant, and Liverpool House are small format bistros, seating around 40 at the maximum (Liverpool House somewhat more than that). Le Local and Garde Manger are larger format bistros. Bonaparte is old-style French fine dining, and Les 400 Coups and DNA are what I would characterize as modern fine dining. So, when you look over the list, that’s four nights of bistros out of eight.

The best meals we ate this year? Here’s our top four:

  1. Les 400 Coups
  2. DNA
  3. Le Chien Fumant
  4. Liverpool House

I’ll let the pictorials of Les 400 Coups and DNA speak for themselves. Le Chien Fumant and Liverpool House excel at offering ever-changing menus of delicious food: pork belly, calamari, halibut, duck confit, charcuterie, etc, etc. Both have enjoyable and affordable wine lists. But both get a push over the top for their ambience – their vibe – and the quality, friendliness and attentiveness of their service. Garde Manger is good, loud, fun, but it doesn’t surpass the aforementioned. Nora Gray is so new it’s hard to make a sweeping comment about it, especially after only one meal, but it shows real promise, it’s a pioneer in the neighbourhood and it nicely straddles the Italian food Nonna used to make and the stylistic characteristics that define modern Italian cuisine. Nora Gray bears watching, and we’ll likely go back.

One extra note about all those bistros: it’s probably just me, but after about five days, all I wanted was a vegetable. Or an ethnic meal. PLEASE! Well, that’s my fault… and I’ve made a note to address that meat overload in next year’s planning, probably with a lighter meal of some kind on one of the nights. It’s all in how you stack the deck when you’re planning meals, and there’s also the reality of dining in winter when local fresh vegetables are out of season.

What are priorities for next year? Each year’s dining list is a mix of old favorites and new entrants. Next year, I’ll add a couple new places – Le Comptoir is one, the other to be determined. Au Pied de Cochon will return because we’ve not been there since 2008, and so we’ve just now finished working off the caloric input from that meal. Besides, since the world is ending on December 21, 2012, it would only be right to have five different preparations of foie gras for our Last Meal on Earth. (Yes, I will be making reservations after 12/21, so you know where I stand on the End of the World question.) And I’m going to try very hard to find a cool, comfortable place for dinner on Christmas Eve. Bonaparte is enjoyable and good, but I’ve eaten there every Christmas Eve since 2004.

Suggestions? Let me know!

Christmas: Where to Eat?

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I’ve asked this question before on the blog: Where do you go to eat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when you’re a tourist in another city and you don’t have friends in town?

Many restaurants close on Christmas Eve, and most are closed on Christmas Day. The options? There’s always Chinese. We enjoyed a fun dim sum lunch at Ruby Rouge in Montréal’s Chinatown on Christmas 2008. As for dinners, we’ve found our best bet to be hotel restaurants, most of which stay open for their guests, however small the number of guests might be. Our go-to’s for the past 6 years? Bonaparte, which creates a rather beautiful and delicious French/Quebecois meal on Christmas Eve and Christmas night; and Otto at the W Hotel, which offers Italian-inspired food, also quite good.

Otherwise, be prepared for everything to be closed, from shops in the Underground City to the Couche-tard down the street. Particularly in the Old City, it’s not a good day to be in need of a quick snack, a toothbrush or a box of tissues, so think ahead on 12/23 or Christmas Eve so you’re not caught.

In other words, it’s really not that different from a Christmas Day back home, but back home you’re not restricted to what’s in your suitcase. If you’re staying at a hotel or auberge that offers a breakfast, there’s an extra guaranteed meal that you won’t have to think about.

Chowhounders are discussing what restaurants will be open in Montréal this holiday season – check out the conversation and join in, if you have any suggestions. If you’re staying in the city over the holidays, your concierge can help you, and you can consult OpenTable to see which of its participating restaurants.

What’s our plan for this year? Bonaparte on Christmas Eve… and on Christmas night, most likely Otto, unless something more intriguing grabs our attention.

(photo: Laloux on 12/20/09)

Montréal Holiday v7.0: 30 days away

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A month from today, we’ll be on our way to Montréal for 10 days in the city – our longest trip there. Here’s an update.

The restaurant plan: thus far, reservations are in place for Toque!, DNA, Les 400 Coups, and Bonaparte. I expect more reservations for Laloux (11/28 now made) and Au Pied de Cochon this weekend, with some “gap-filling” over the next couple weeks.

  • 12/17 Toque!
  • 12/18 DNA
  • 12/20 Laloux
  • 12/21 Les 400 Coups
  • 12/24 Bonaparte

Another note, while I’m here: Marie-Claude Lortie has an interesting review of DNA in La Presse. Push it through Google Translate if you need to, it’s worth reading.

I’ll leave late morning on 12/17 and should arrive mid-afternoon in Montréal. My friends, my now perennial holiday revelers in the city, arriving late Thursday.

Trip Countdown: Dinner List

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With less than 40 days remaining before this year’s trip to Montreal for the holidays, the dinner plans are starting to fall into place. First, a reset: Each year, we spend the Christmas holiday in Montreal, with a trip of 6-8 days. We’ve done this since 2004. We do it because it’s relaxing, a nice time to reconnect with friends who join us, and it’s become, over time, its own holiday tradition. We like to eat good food, and so a big part of our planning for the trip is actually planning where we’ll eat. Each year, we choose a mix of favorite restaurants, as well as a few new ones to try. This year, with 8 nights to fill and perhaps a 9th, here’s the plan:

There are long-time favorites like Toqué and Au Pied de Cochon; restaurants we tried last year and enjoyed, like DNA and Laloux; new restaurants on the list, like Trois Petit Bouchons and Newtown; and the Christmas Eve tradition, Bonaparte. In the case of Newtown, we’re following the chefs, Marc-André Jetté and Patrice Demers, from Laloux to their new venue.

I’ve written about this before, but one of the factors Chuck considers when he’s working on the plans is the style and type of restaurants on the list. He likes a mix of “signature experiences” and homier fare. Naturally, he wants all of it to be good. Now, he’s figuring out whether we’re too heavy on a certain style of bistro cooking – expressed differently at each restaurant, but still similar in style and concept. If that’s the case, I expect we’ll see a replacement of the dinner for Monday night – jumping into one of the ethnic traditions, perhaps. More to come.

Where to eat on Christmas Night

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So here’s the open question: Where can we eat on the holiday?

This is the question that vexes the traveler who isn’t planning to spend the holidays with family or friends. And the holidays are a great leveler because whether you’re new to a city or a frequent visitor, you can still be frustrated when you start to feel hunger pangs and you face the prospect of block after block of closed restaurants.

We’ve been spending the holiday in Montreal for 6 years now, and every year, we subject our long-considered list of desired restaurants to the reality of holiday hours. Most of the time we can make it all work out. We arrive about a week before Christmas and leave shortly thereafter, so we can manage our reservations around what’s open on a particular night.

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But it’s not easy. Not only do most restaurants close for a few days (or longer) but others close capriciously – and here’s what I mean by that: last year, we reserved at Bronte about 3 weeks before our trip – it had been on our list for a couple years and we wanted to check it out. A week before our trip, Bronte called. They wouldn’t be able to fulfill our reservation on Open Table because they were actually closed that night. Why they’d not communicated that with Open Table? I’m not sure, but during the phone conversation they told us they’d be open on Boxing Day and they could accommodate us. So, we reserved for 12/26. On the afternoon of 12/26, Bronte called again: “We’re sorry but we won’t be open tonight.” It’s likely they looked at the number of reservations for the evening and decided it wasn’t worth bringing in the staff. Understandable, but frustrating, and Bronte is now off our list.

Christmas Eve is usually workable. A number of reputable restaurants are open because families and large parties often eat out before Midnight Mass or other celebrations. Christmas night is another matter. With the exception of hotel restaurants or Chinese restaurants, most everything is closed. Our Christmas dining record? Four Christmas night meals at Otto (W Hotel) and one dinner at Koko (Opus Hotel).

Whenever I mention Otto as the Christmas Night meal, it seems, a Chowhound or foodie will write to say something like, “I hardly think Otto is a great choice for someone interested in food.” To which I always respond with a sanitized version of, “Duh, but please suggest a better restaurant that’s open on Christmas Night.” I’ve never received a suggestion.

Chinese restaurants are a well-known option for Christmas Night because many of them are open. That’s something we’ve considered, except that our other Christmas Day tradition, dim sum for lunch, provides us with enough Chinese food for the day.

Locals can’t often provide much help with this question because most of them are at home with family and friends, recovering from a huge Christmas dinner.

But surely someone – tourist or local – has gone to a restaurant on Christmas Night in Montreal. If you’ve done so, where have you gone? What can you recommend?

photo: Christmas Day dim sum consumption at Ruby Rouge

2009 holiday plans, v. 1.0

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Well, with only(!) 110 days left before the next trip to Montreal, and our sixth holiday spent in the city, our restaurant plan is beginning to take shape. Readers of this blog know that food matters a lot to us, and on a vacation where the goal is to relax and do little or nothing, planning meals takes center stage.

Each year, we choose a mix of old favorites, as well as new restaurants to try, and for our 8 dinners this winter, here are the 10 restaurants that have made the first cut:

  • Laloux
  • Newtown
  • DNA
  • Le Club Chasse et Peche
  • Toque
  • Mas Cuisine
  • Au Pied de Cochon
  • Restaurant La Chronique
  • Bonaparte
  • Otto

Favorites:

Laloux is now helmed by Eric Gonzalez, and the initial reviews are good, as expected. We ate his food at Cube in 2006. We went to Laloux twice in 2008 and loved it.

Newtown is where you now find Marc-André Jetté and Patrice Demers, lately from Laloux. Their review in the Gazette in July was more guarded, but we were so impressed at Laloux that we’ll head to Newtown.

DNA is impressive; we had an excellent meal there in 2008, and our friends enjoyed it again in May of this year. Plus it’s kind of fun to sit in a space that looks like a Borg cube and watch the holiday fireworks over the Old Port.

Toque has had its ups and downs with reviewers, but we’ve had two excellent dinners here in 2007 and 2008, so we’ll return. The wine list is also quite good.

Au Pied de Cochon – well, what can we say that hasn’t been said? A dinner here is de rigeur.

New Entrants:

La Chronique has floated around the planning list for a couple years now, and I think this will be the year when we give the bistro a try.

Le Club Chasse et Peche is another restaurant that’s landed on our restaurant list at least twice, only to drop off. Not a statement about the quality of its food, but more the result of difficult choices. 

Mas Cuisine is run by the former chef from Bruinoise, which was a restaurant we loved in 2006, now just a memory. Brunoise is still fresh in our minds, so we’ll hope for a repeat at Mas Cuisine.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Night: These two days present their own challenges, since so many restaurants close for one or both days. Hotel/Auberge dining options are usually reliable, and while Bonaparte and the W Hotel’s Otto aren’t what I would call stunning, each is reliably good. And as I’ve said so many times here, Bonaparte is kind of special on Christmas Eve, with its traditional, beautifully cooked, French/Quebecois food.

I’ll say more as we get closer and start working the list against our calendar and each restaurant’s plans around the holidays.

Going Back

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This is an annual tradition – the trip to Montreal over the holidays. As with any tradition, there’s the familiar comfort of sameness, but we try to balance that with an injection of new elements each year. Some of them are one-time experiences; others return the next time around.

A few of the returning favorites:

1) Les Passants du Sans Soucy – I love this little auberge, situated along the oldest street of the Old City. During the day, it bustles with tourists; at night, there’s the clip-clop of hooves, carriages transporting people down the narrow streets after dinner. And late night, there’s quiet. The rooms are wonderful, the staff delightful and accomodating, the omelettes what one would expect from a fine French kitchen.

2) Bonaparte – this is a fine hotel, too. We have dinner there on Christmas Eve. Our eating is broadly ethnic and weighs heavily toward The New, so a traditional, perfectly prepared French meal (with Canadian influences) on the night before Christmas is a treat.

3) Mont Royal – We walk from the Old City to Mont Royal on Christmas Day, usually leaving around 10am, generally arriving back home around 2pm. If the weather is too cold, we “cheat” by walking through the Underground City for much of the way there. Let’s face it, there’s not much else to do when you’re on vacation on Christmas, and the walk is a good way to get a little exercise outdoors.

Those are what I would call the mainstays. We’ll piece the rest of the trip together as we go.