From Feb. 17-27 Festival en Lumière (the Montreal Highlights Festival) takes over the city. From workshops, to samples, to lunches, brunches, happy hours, dinners, and culinary tours, there's something for everyone and every budget.
You can download the interview I did with M. Demers on CKUT 90.3FM here, and see below for his recommendations for the "best of the fest". For my recommendations, check Midnight Poutine starting January 24th.
Complexe Desjardins Festival of Quebec Cheeses (Free! Plus tasting coupons for wine – optional): Cheese from Quebec and wines from the wine-makers you will find at the Festival’s Finest Tables Dinners at the city’s top restaurants. A very affordable way to try the best wines of the festival.
Jean-Talon Products of Charlevoix workshops (free, with samples) – Jean-Talon Salle Mandoline (upstairs)
Happy Hour at L’Accords Restaurant
Dinner at La Fabrique
Dinner at Laloux
Lunch at Le Restaurant de L’Institut
Brunch sponsored by Lebanese restaurant, Zawedah
$13 multi-course lunches at Byblos, Rumi, or Mogador
And, M. Demers’ take on the city’s best cannoli:
Alati-Caserta
vs.
Cafe International (but do they serve Alati-Caserta’s cannoli??)
Montreal Highlights Festival en Lumière: Interview with Spokesperson Jean-Francois Demers
Ristorante Sapori Pronto
Montreal, QC
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8 out of 10
Italian
After a bit of disappointment at Le Samuel de Champlain, I decided to take one more kick at the Montreal Highlights Festival proverbial can. Everything should be sold out by now...but it's not. When I called for a reservation for Happy Hour at Italian restaurant Sapori Pronto I figured I'd get a quick "Non, c'est complet", all booked up. Instead, I was asked if my party would be staying for dinner afterward...As the dinner menu was a $75 5 Italian course, 3 glasses of Portuguese wine and 1 liqueur (I assume port) affair, I opted for the $25 Italian "snacks" and 3 glasses of Portuguese wine Happy Hour. At least partly based on common sense. Mostly out of nostalgia.
Happy Hour in Italy is an experience. Bars and lounges throw open their unpretentious doors to anyone looking for a 7 euro drink to be accompanied by what's supposed to be a snack, but in some places more than constitutes a meal of bar-type food. This is not North American nachos and wings. This is polenta, bruschetta, tapenade, thin-crust pizza, rice salads, pasta salads, prosciutto, melon, foccacia, and sometimes pastries. It's more of a buffet. So I was really interested to see how upscale Sapori Pronto would present Italian snacks. I assumed they would have a bar or lounge area in the restaurant where all the Happy Hour guests would sample the wines and snacks together - a kind of party atmosphere.
I suppose there's a reason this is Montreal and not Italy. I suppose there's also a reason this is a restaurant and not a bar. The atmosphere is old-school Italian. For the music, think an Italian version of Star Académie or Canadian Idol if it was made in the 60's. The place was empty and we were seated at a table...alone. No bar. You certainly can't set up a buffet for three people.
Naive, I know.
Not that the food or wine was disappointing. Our waiter was from Venice, and as he poured the first glass of a fairly sweet white Portuguese wine, he admitted he knew nothing about it. From a server at a good restaurant, this was a bit shocking...I'm quite sure he would never have admitted it to someone who looked like they could possibly know anything about wine (aka not me). Like the older gentlemen with nice watches who walked in an hour later. About Italian wines, however, he was an expert. He did come from the Veneto after all, and he was more than accommodating in telling me the Italian origins of the olive oil and balsamic.
After the white, a dry rosé. Again, it didn't seem particularly important to know anything about it. Just to know that it went well with the incredibly thin-crust spicy tomato-sauced pizza. The Italian snacks were very well executed, and were certainly a step up from even most Italian bars. The half pizza-circle of tomato was complemented by a second half of spinach pizza with cream and the tiniest dusting of parmesan. The pizza was for the table to share, but the next course of appetizers (hurray!) was presented on large individual plate: Mozzarella di bufala on giant slices of tomato, grilled zucchini, two kinds of salumi (I believe soppressa and prosciutto with melon), olive tapenade on crostini, and two potato croquettes.It's really hard to avoid cheese in an Italian meal. I was bound to get sick. At least the cheese wasn't abused. It served its purpose and no more, to avoid masking other flavours. The pizza and the croquettes both had parmesan (though I was not warned about the croquettes...), and the mozzarella...well, I was given the zucchini as a replacement. The zucchini was heavily salted (I loved it...), grilled to perfection, and doused in olive oil, along with the otherwise bland, though meaty, field tomatoes. The fresh black pepper did spice it up a little. The kalamata olive tapenade was not too salty because it was diluted with so much calming olive oil, but the soppressa stole the show. The prosciutto was nothing special (though the melon was sweet and rich) ,and not worth more than a first bite, but the spicy flavour of the soppressa was absolutely perfect with the final red Portuguese wine offered (It came from Douro, the wine, but all the wines at the festival seem to come from Douro...so I'm afraid I'm of no help to anyone who would like to try this beautiful red). I very rarely eat pork, but this was worth it.
Oh, a note on Italian bread. It's not crusty baguette like France, and thus is not what you generally get in Montreal. It was a treat to have soft, creamy, fresh-from-the-oven small loaves brought to accompany the oil and balsamic. One of the meal highlights was our lovely Venician waiter pouring oil into little rectangular dishes for each guest, and topping them with artistic drops of balsamic vinegar. Kind of like if the server at a sushi restaurant lovingly poured each guests' soy sauce for them...but the wasabi unfortunately wouldn't be able to turn the result into an abstract work of Italian art.
This was certainly enough to have as a meal. For a grand total of $32 per person, three glasses of wine and a very authentic spread of Italian delicacies, this experience certainly would entice me to return the restaurant another time with a larger budget for what I'm sure would be an incredible evening of Italian gourmet from Chef Peppino Perri.
Price: $25 for 3 glasses of wine, pizza and antipasti
Expect to Pay: $32
Hours of Operation: Mon to Thurs: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m, Fri & Sat: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m, closed Sun
Payment: Amex, Debit Card, Diners Club, Mastercard, Visa, Cash
514 487-9666
www.saporipronto.com
Le Samuel de Champlain Restaurant: Montreal Highlights Festival
1, Place du Canada
Montreal, QC
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5 1/2 out of 10
Portuguese
It's nearly impossible to get a reservation now for any Montreal Highlights Festival restaurants, so I was surprised when I called Le Samuel de Champlain to make a reservation and I had my choice of lunches, dinners and happy hours. I crossed my fingers that they just had a big space, not that nobody was coming. The menu itself was supposed to be inspired by visiting Portuguese chef, Pedro Nunes, who had spotlighted at the restaurant the week before: 5 courses featuring seafood, both a Quebec and Portuguese specialty, and I had been told the meal would include octopus, lobster and lamb. To be fair, I went in looking to judge. I expected things to go wrong. It was in a hotel, so probably a big dining room with very formal service. The food would probably be alright.
The evening started off with a greeting from the host, who was a bit, well, creepy in a funny kind of way... I had to swallow a laugh when he placed the palate-cleansing sorbet (does this count as a course?) in front of me and whispered, "Sorbet!", then moved to my companion's right side, placed the sorbet and repeated for his sake, "Sorbet!". Magic! Voila!
Then there was the menu and the wine. The octopus was there with green apple salad, a few coins of chorizo and a line of balsamic reduction...because there's always a balsamic reduction (1), followed by the aforementioned magic(!) mandarin sorbet with sweet basil, translated from "sorbet" in French and Portuguese to "sherbet" in English (2 - but to be clear, sherbet is not sorbet...trust me, I've gotten sick enough to know), then red wine-braised lamb shank with smoked ham and turnip (3), and finally a mango mousse with 'chocolate delight' (4 - translated to 'moulleux au chocolat' which doesn't really make any sense since moulleux is an adjective, not a noun, and means soft and smooth. So what I imagined was a 'melted chocolate thing').
Hmm...
Wasn't there supposed to be lobster? Weren't there 5 courses? Did all the lobsters fall out of the bag and run screaming from the kitchen? I have it on good authority from a friend with much more lobster picking-up experience than I that this never actually happens. Their speed on land is very slow. No less terrifying, however, even when you think of them as ugly turtles.
The point is, how can you call it a seafood menu when the main dish is lamb? The octopus was actually incredibly tender, but the few thin pieces qualify more as an amuse-bouche than an appetizer. In fact, I have a feeling that it was meant to be the amuse-bouche and the lobster got bumped.
So the wine...there were two suggested wines, one red and one white, from José Neiva Correia (he had been at the restaurant himself along with Chef Nunes for the big dinner on the 18th on which this evening's meal was based). We tried both the white Arinto and the red Touriga. I was nervous because when you order what is supposed to be a glass of good wine, the server should hold the glass by the stem, but glasses of red were being placed on tables around us with paws wrapped around the bowl of the glasses. To a wine afficionado there would in effect now be no reason to taste the wine as the temperature and thus the flavour would be affected by the heat of the hand. For the same reason you hold a glass of wine by the stem when you drink (if it's a wine that you care about), it should be served from the stem as well. For the white I really wouldn't have cared, as it wasn't very good with the octopus anyway. I think it was supposed to pair with the escaped (magic?!) lobster, but it was too sweet, as my companion noted, for the mild octopus.
Just one more quick note about sub-par things before I mention the things that were good: In a hotel that does so much formal service for banquets, it's normal for the servers to be trained to place every dish a certain way. The table is set precisely, the wine glasses have no water marks (the servers may actually be fired for not checking the glass before they place it in front of a guest), the plates should be placed so that each guest is faced with the identical positioning of a plate's particular design, as well as the orientation of the food and cutlery on the plate itself. Basically it's the perfect job for, and was certainly created by, obsessive-compulsive people. Now maybe you don't care about these things, but it's something that will differentiate a highly-trained server or serving staff from the rest. Think the Four Seasons or the Bellagio versus a Holiday Inn or the Tropicana. Anyway, the restaurant, situated in a Marriott hotel should have fallen somewhere closer to the Four Seasons, and sadly didn't.
Okay, good things. Octopus. Check. The sorbet was actually pretty good. It was fairly smooth and not too sweet, though it lacked the acidic bite you want from a palate-cleanser. The sweet basil (maybe an inspiration of the Vietnamese head chef?) actually tasted like basil, not like chewable green, which is always good.
Then the lamb. Simple, incredibly tender, ample braised lamb shank. The tips of the lamb were kind of cold, as was my companion's turnip...but it was awfully cold in the dining room, so the fact that the rest of the food was still warm was more impressive than the cool parts were disappointing.
So shank is a cheap cut of lamb, requiring it to be marinated and cooked for hours in an acidic sauce (often red wine) to make it delicious. And it was. There was really nothing complicated about the dish. It was just a half a turnip, a few luscious pieces of shank, a cabbage roll (a cabbage roll?) and a sprig of curly parsley. The dish was monotonously red as the turnip was cooked with the lamb and the cabbage roll was somewhere between red and translucent. This felt like a hearty, country meal. Not what I expected, but certainly not bad. Not what you expect from the Highlights Festival, though. And I'll repeat - a cabbage roll? To be honest I checked to make sure the lamb shank was traditional Portuguese fare and sure enough, braised lamb is standard, as is the red wine sauce, but no luck with the cabbage roll. It wasn't filled with rice or beef like a Polish roll, so maybe the fusion element of some kind of sweet bread and maybe ham inside justified its inclusion.
Dessert was cute. I got more sorbet. Not so cute. I like sorbet for dessert only slightly more than I like fruit salad, and I harbour a great resentment for fruit salad at a nice restaurant. The watermelon sorbet was nice enough, and I was happy to see that the only fruit were blueberries. My companion got the mysterious 'moulleux'. Two slightly-flattened timbit-shaped cakes covered in cocoa. It took us a long time to figure out what was inside, as you couldn't cut through the first one. After sawing into it, the inside turned out to be a pure piece of white chocolate. Not so moulleux (adjective). Oh! I understood! The white chocolate was supposed to be melted! Oops...
The second moulleux (noun) proved me right, as it was heated to the proper temperature and the inside was heated to a smooth and soft consistency. Microwaves are fickle things...
The most interesting part of the plate were the little multi-coloured pebbles upon which the ball of mango mousse sat. Now that I think about it, they may have been the colours of the Portuguese flag, and were actually composed of two different textures. The plain ones just soft sugar and butter and the coloured ones were crunchy (think the size and snap of pop rocks candy). That was probably the most imaginative food-type thing put in front of us the whole evening.
So, the meal was good, but certainly not as good as we had hoped. It lacked creativity and innovation, which is a huge part of what gets Montreal diners to splurge on expensive meals in the middle of the restaurant off-season. It's hard to get people out of their homes when it's cold outside, and offering simply-presented home-style cooking is not the impetus that cold Montrealers are looking for. The meal was fairly authentic Portuguese (there were only 3 green things - a sprig of parsley, a piece of basil, and a few pea sprouts on the octopus, but the fruity olive oil for the bread will make me dream of Portuguese summers).
This is not what Le Samuel de Chanplain will serve on a regular basis, and so Chef Thach-Ngoc Vo pulled off the actual cooking very respectably. Maybe on another day the service would have been impeccable, the presentation stunning, but wait until at least the end of the festival to give this place a chance. Perhaps by then the lobsters will have wandered back into the kitchen from the grocery store with a few, much needed leafy greens.
Price: $38 for Festival Menu, $10-$15 for a glass of Portuguese wine
Expect to Pay: Too much for just a decent meal ($65 a person including tax and tip)
The Montreal Highlights Festival
Once a year Montreal goes from being a place with great food and restaurants, to absolutely busting at the seams with haute cuisine. From February 18th to 28th the tastes of the Eastern Townships will be somehow combined with Portuguese wines, New Orleans spice, 40 Quebec artisanal cheese producers, table d'hote dinners, lunches, cooking demonstrations and happy hours across the city, all under the direction of guest Portuguese chefs and our own local culinary miracle-makers. It's basically like the joy of Christmas has come again in the form of the most gourmet food and talent the city can offer or import, without the stress and ridiculous knitted sweaters.
After salivating for days over the event schedule, crying at the ridiculous prices, sighing over the impossible array of options, and analyzing how to make the most of the event, here are my festival top picks:
Dinner at Restaurant Julien Feb. 18th or 19th ($50, or $57 including a glass of wine)
Lunch at Europea Feb. 18th, 22nd-26th ($29.50, including a glass of port)
Tapas at Vertige Feb. 18th or 25th ($35, or $49 including wine pairing)
Brunch at Cocagne Feb. 21st or 28th ($45, or more with wine)
Cooking Class (Non-participatory) at Europea Feb. 18th-26th ($35, including a glass of wine)
Happy Hour at Pullman Feb. 18th or 19th ($45)
Bargain Lunch at Restaurant Douro ($13, or more with wine)
(Tax and tip not included)
Don't see what you're looking for? Here are a few more options and a bit more information on the choices above:
For Everybody (Complexe Desjardins)
1. Micro Festival of Quebec Cheeses (Feb. 17-20th). 40 Quebec cheese producers set up shop surrounded by Portuguese wines. Expect long lines, but delicious samples.
2. The Crossroads of Flavour (Feb. 23rd-27th). Local producers and artisans kick the cheese-makers out, or into the milk store. Featuring a bakery, a boutique, a specialty liquor store, milk and milk products store, and a general store (reminiscent of a quaint Quebec village) alongside tastings and and culinary workshops.
For the Big Spender: Festival Feasts
Yes there's a $300 grand dinner...ridiculous.
For diners looking to splurge a little: Festival's Finest Tables
No dinners at the festival are really affordable, but here's a list of the top picks under $60 (not including wine, tax or tip). See below for lunch or brunch options, but the stars shine at night. These restaurants are set to impress with special evening meals (not Sunday/Monday) featuring invited chefs, mostly Portuguese, French or local cuisine, and Portuguese wines.
Bistro Le Repertoire Feb. 18th-17th. 6 courses of Portuguese standards.
$45 before wine, $65 wine included
Reservation: 514 251-2002
La Fabrique Feb. 22nd & 23rd. Guest chef Danny St-Pierre only had to come from Sherbrooke, not Portugal, but he's a guest and should be treated well as such. He's also got the CV that demands attention. French-trained, he worked at Toqué and Laloux, so if you can't make it to his home kitchen, Auguste, in Sherbrooke, now's a good time to check him out.
$45 before wine, $75 wine included
Bu Feb. 23rd 24th. Skip the tasting menu and buy something à la carte to accompany your six carefully chosen wines. Bu is all about the wine anyway.
$34, sampling of six Quinta do Portal wines with the purchase of one dish
Chez Queux Feb. 26th
An even better deal, depending on the quality of the wines, the owner of the Dona Maria estate in Alentejo, Portugal will be in attendance to serve tastings of his own vintages.
$Free, with the purchase of dishes à la carte! I assume this means the tastings are free...not entrance to the restaurant and watching this man is free.
$37.50 before wine, $64.50 wine included
Le Jolifou - Sri Lankan Night Feb. 18th-27th
One of the only non-Portuguese dinners, but it looks like one of the most interesting.
$55 before wine, $85 wine included
Decca77 Feb.19th. The deal includes five shared dishes (Shared with who? Tapas style? Or big plates buffet-style? If you go, let me know what this means...)
$30 before wine
"After winning the 2006 Créativité Montreal award, the restaurant is opening its wine cellar and inviting you to partake of a buffet of oysters from near and far."
$20 before wine, who knows how much after
DNA Restaurant Feb. 27th
What would happen if the Sommelier took control of the kitchen (because he's Portuguese) and the chef took over the wine pairings? This could be interesting. It could also be just decent, and not worth the money...but that's what makes it fun. It's apparently for diners "with a sense of adventure":
$45 before wine, $85 wine included
Le Samuel de Champlain Feb. 22nd-28th. 5 courses, Quebec and Portuguese seafood
$38 before wine, $50 one glass of wine included
Les Cons Servent Feb. 23rd. New Orleans cuisine!
$55 before wine, $95 wine included
Les Deux Gamins Feb. 18th-20th
Pan-fried black cod, La Belle Excuse sauce vierge, braised veal cheeks, Porto reduction... France and Portugal emulsified in seven courses!
$55 before wine, $85 wine included
L'Inconnu Feb. 19th-20th. The Sherbrookian "bistronomy" of Geneviève Fillion's Le Bouchon takes over the unknown kitchen.
$55 before wine, $85 wine included
Restaurant Julien Feb. 18th-19th. BEST deal on Louisiana cooking. This guy, Brian Landry has served multiple Presidents at his home restaurant, and won a slew of US Cooking Awards)
$50 before wine, $57 one glass of wine included
Tapas
Vertige Feb. 18th and 25th
Six tapas per person in two courses. A mixed bag of appetizers and then another mixed bag of appetizers. Cross your fingers. It could be good, especially since the wine is relatively affordable.
$35, before wine, $49 wine included
Cocagne Feb 21. The most decadent brunches you've ever eaten...
$45 before wine - "Fish and Seafood"
Feb 28
$55 before wine - "Truffles and Foie Gras"
$32 before wine, $43 wine included
La Porte Feb. 18th-26th
4-course French/Portuguese meal including a glass of wine.
$32, one glass of wine included
Europea Feb. 18th, 22nd-26th (selling out fast because it's one of the best deals around). A 5-course portuguese lunch
$29.50, one glass of port included
Cocagne Feb. 18th, 19th, 25th, 26th
$25 before wine, and while tax and tip is not included, an aperitif is! You just have to trust the chef...and have no food allergies and not be a picky eater, because it's a set menu with no exceptions.
Cooking Classes:
Italian Cooking Class
Sapori Pronto - Feb. 22nd & 23rd. 5 courses with Portuguese wines, but you're paying to watch your dinner be made. Kind of like an open kitchen where you get play-by-commentary and can ask questions. If you're just there to enjoy the food, wine and company, it's not such a great deal.
$55 before wine
Dessert Workshop
Europea - Feb. 18th-26th 10:30am, 2:30pm, 4:30pm. Watch award-winning pastry and dessert chefs craft Portuguese and International delicacies. Includes a glass of port and goodie bags. Just watch the creating, though. Don't play. This is not participatory...
$35 including a glass of wine
Happy Hours!!!
Ristorante Sapori Pronto Feb. 22nd-27th. The festival's most affordable happy hour features 3 Portuguese wines and Italian snacks. I'm not sure we're talking polenta diamonds and tramezzini triangular tea sandwiches here, but you never know.
$25, wine included
Koko Restaurant and Bar Feb. 22nd-24th. Wine aficionados can have a relatively affordable glass of wine by a highly-esteemed wine maker. He'll apparently be around to pour you the glass himself.
$10 for a glass of wine. Hope you don't get hungry.
Feb. 25th - Want something stronger? The wine maker will leave on the 24th and in comes the Port.
$12 port wine cocktails
Le Samuel de Champlain Feb. 18th-28th. 3 course meal or happy hour tapas...your choice. This seems more like a meal with a $5.50 glass of wine, but it's listed under the Happy Hour category of the festival.
$24.50 before wine, $30 one glass of wine included
Pullman Feb. 18th-19th. Wines from the Quinta do Mouro estate. Tapas included.
$45 for an undetermined amount of wine. This is probably not about the tapas. As usual at Pullman, focus on the alcohol.
February 20 and 27: Port, from savoury to sweet
February 23 and February 24: The Douro Valley
February 25 and February 26: Vinho Verde
$40 for 3 wines and tapas
Festival's Lunch Menus: Feb. 18th-28th. This is different from the lunches that are part of the Festival's Finest Tables. They're the only representatives (Besides Lebanese...?) of cuisines that aren't either French, Portuguese, Quebecois, Italian or Cajun. The festival could almost justify it as places upon which the Portuguese had some influence, and where their cuisine and culture has been fused into traditional dishes. Really, it just shows that the whole festival is only using Portugal and the Eastern Townships as a loose theme to the good food in the city for a few weeks. These lunches are also a whole lot less expensive, and still not always worth it. Here are the the places where you're getting a good deal on a $13 prix fixe meal, even though you're free to go at any other time of the year for a very similar culinary experience:
La Khaima (North African/Moroccan), Ong Ca Can (Vietnamese), Restaurant Douro (Portuguese), Mogador (Moroccan), Rumi (Middle Eastern)