In a city that does bistro well, Laloux is a whole lot more than duck confit.
Bistro: well-priced, quickly-plated French food in a small neighbourhood establishment. Things are usually slow-cooked or quick seared: tender lamb shank, duck confit, steak-frites, probably some kind of poached egg dish (asparagus in spring, mushrooms in fall and winter) and if you’re lucky, boudin (blood sausage) and/or os à moelle (salted bone marrow with toast). And there’s always fresh baguette.
Traditionally in bistro fare there are no foams or gels or fussy bits involved—just a lot of the usual suspects accompanied by seasonal vegetables. It was never meant to be fancy.
Also, traditionally, if your local bistro didn’t have a good house wine or local list with a couple of above par options by the half carafe, you’d move.
Laloux is definitely a little more haute cuisine, but I would fault no one who moved to Avenue des Pins to be next to Laloux. In fact, I would become their best friend so we could go there all the time, slightly fussy garnishes included.
Please don’t tell my friend Max that this is why we’re friends…
Maybe I should just make friends with the chef, Jonathan Lapierre-Réhayem. Fortunately, he’s on Twitter. It’s much less intimidating that way than meeting someone in person who can run laps around my knife skills.
First, wine. In a bistro with an adjacent wine bar with a mostly biodynamic, natural and private import wine list, I trust the sommelier. There are a lot of selections by-the-glass, most of the options (glass or bottle) are French, and there’s really nothing bad. Just some things pair better with certain dishes than others. The sommelier brought us three whites from which to choose and we went with a Domaine Philippe Tessier Cour-Cheverny 2010 called “La Porte Dorée” (the golden door). It was mineral with a little bit of acid, like a lot of bottles coming from the Loire Valley. The Romorantin grape is related to Chardonnay, but it’s not oaky.
This one tasted a little more like a chablis, and complemented the sweet guinea hen broth of the black cod appetizer:
1st course: black cod in a consommé made from guinea hen with sea asparagus (salicorne), preserved lemon peel, toasted sunflower seeds (instead of imported pine nuts), honey mushrooms, and anonymous nordic herbs.
The chef foraged the herbs and the server couldn’t name them. I wouldn’t have known them anyway. They were green and wild and did their job soaking up the mildly sweet and incredibly savoury broth. The black cod was, I think, seared with a kitchen torch because its skin was blackened but the sear was very much on the outside and didn’t overcook the adjacent flesh of the fish at all. This could also have been done because the fish is so tender and fatty that searing it in a pan might make it fall apart?? And the preserved lemon peel was much milder than a fresh slice or juice, balancing the whole dish.
If I could eat pasta, I would have wanted the asparagus carbonara (’tis the season, after all) with lardons, fried shallots, and low temperature egg. “Low temp,” aka sous vide, is how a lot of chefs are choosing to poach eggs to the exact temperature they prefer (some even say their favourite is 62.5 C for maybe 30 minutes. Depends on the chef. I’m not sure what Laloux’s temperature is. When you try it, let me know.
Does it taste like 62.5 C??
And I missed out on the lobster salad with smoked dulse, fiddlehead, sea asparagus and pop wild rice because it had dairy in the sauce. Hopefully you don’t have to.
2nd course: Sustainable Arctic char with Quebec asparagus, lemon peel purée, shellfish foam, whelks and confite tomatoes vinaigrette.
Did you notice that foam bit? Not traditional bistro fare, this, but it’d be curmudgeonly to complain. The char was perfectly seared—pan-seared this time, as the sear extended partway down the flesh. In this case I think it’s better this way because you get more variety of texture in the dish.
That preserved lemon peel from the appetizer made a guest appearance, renewing my faith in preserved lemon peel. It makes me want to stuff lemon halves in salt and juice and wait. And wait. And wait. It probably takes less time to convince my friend Max to go to dinner with me than the month it takes for the lemons. No reason I can’t eat well while I’m waiting, though.
Whelks are an easy thing to mess up. Like octopus and squid, they turn to rubber with just a little bit of overcooking, but the ones with the Arctic char were chewy in a good way. And with the sweet confit tomatoes and un-wilted spinach, the dish below was perfect. And since the foam had dairy in it, the kitchen didn’t have to bother. You’re welcome. Normally seared scallops on one side only are beautifully grilled and charred on the top and silky, soft and sweet on the bottom. These ones were seared halfway with that kitchen torch, making a gorgeous pattern halfway down the side of each scallop. Instead of overcooking the scallop, though, the sear was superficial, leaving the insides sweet and very gently cooked. They came with bursting, sweet roasted tomato, seared baby zucchini, radishes, pea sprouts (I think) and Thai sweet basil.
The tomato was for me the highlight. Not too acidic—as though its greenhouse didn’t understand what winter means. We should all be so lucky.
Speaking of winter, the ultimate winter dish is still on the menu, and should stay: beef flank steak with oyster mushrooms, green onions, black garlic, fingerling potatoes, and a shallot pan sauce. There’s a little green bean in there to make it seem like you’re getting your vegetable, but we all know it’s for show.
Look at that art. Look at that blood. That’s how it should be done.
Sorry, vegetarians. There’s a handmade cavatelli for you with egg yolk and smoked pecans, but, well…it’s not like this.
And of course there are sweetbreads. Don’t be scared of sweetbreads. The veal thyroid sounds much more disgusting than it is. Really, it could pass for the best chicken finger of your life. And it comes with creamy polenta, Quebec fiddleheads, cherry tomatos, morel mushrooms and a textbook Vin Jaune sauce.
The cheese course: I didn’t mention there’s a raw cheese list, did I? There is, and there’s a raw sheep’s milk cheese I hadn’t seen at Jean Talon or Atwater. And I look, since those are the only ones I can eat from time to time. There’s also the award-winning Louis d’Or and the Bleu d’Élisabeth. A small portion of one is enough for two people, so share, dip in the Dijon-spiked apricot puree, and munch a couple almonds.
You probably don’t need dessert, but there are luscious chocolate things (Araguari chocolate with yoghurt and Dulce cream, pecan shortbread and hazelnut ice cream), fruitier and lighter things (a pot of strawberries with yogurt mousse, peanut powder, and Anicet honey), and icier things (an orange-skinned, partridgeberry-like local sour fruit with a white chocolate dulce de leche cheesecake, gingerbread and apple). I guess you do need dessert, then.
There’s also a great dessert wine list, with some not-sweet options, including a Jurançon 2010 Cuvée Marie-Kattalin from Domaine De Souch. It’s heady but not heavy like Scotch and not sugary like Port. It comes from the Pyrenees, from a vineyard 300 metres up in sandy clay soils. It’s a pale yellow, low-yield, biodynamic wine.
It’s something you need to try at least once.
Just like Laloux. At least once, but probably a lot more.
Laloux
250 Avenue des Pins East (a block and a little east of St-Laurent)
Hours: Mon-Fri: 11:45-2:30, 5:30-11; Sat-Sun: 5:30-11
How Much: ~$65 per person for an appetizer and main with tax, tip and a glass of wine. More with a $14 glass of that Jurancon, plus cheese, and dessert. There’s also a $20 “entracte” light dinner that includes two appetizers and dessert for $20.
514-287-9127
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