I’ve been meaning to try La Porte during Festival en Lumiere for years and this year I finally made it. I went in wondering if Montreal really needed another French restaurant six years ago when La Porte opened, and came out convinced that it most definitely did.
This year’s menu concept is to take the most popular items that have ever appeared on the menu, and let you choose the best of the best. Now that’s my kind of birthday party…and here’s how the party went:
La Porte seemed clean and stiff – business lunch-y, with tall vases full of fake green vines above the bar and mini lights elegantly hanging from branches – but the back room reveals the restaurant’s inner romantic where a short bench set in front of a low table seems perfect for an intimate souper à deux.
For the first lunch served of La Porte’s Festival en Lumiere week and a half (reservations are still available for next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) the fast pace of the open kitchen run by Chef Rouyé and son didn’t even seem stressful.
I would tell you what’s best on the $35 prix fixe lunch menu, but six years of patrons have already spoken and they got it right – everything is good. $35 isn’t small potatoes, I know (their regular lunch table d’hote goes for $25 for three courses, but the glass of wine included here probably makes it possible to set such a low price point for the rest of the meal); it’s a whole lot to pay for lunch, but for cod brandade with seared blood sausage, sweet and creamy celery root rémoulade, mashed potatoes and lobster emulsion, it’s worth it. And that’s an appetizer. The other apps are parsnip soup with a single scallop and a twirled fried chip, and crispy salmon tataki with Asian vinaigrette. And apple foam is pretty fun, whatever it tops.
Mains include a salmon filet (unsustainable…but perfectly cooked – rare inside, just like the sweet scallop) on top of red cabbage – cooked with apple and absorbing the salmon juices – next to a line of bitter-sweet apple reduction and a drizzle of toasted buckwheat. The included glass of Californian Chardonnay and nuttiness toasted buckwheat upped the flavour of the whole dish.
The other mains included paella with rabbit, squid and chorizo sausage, grilled game, and local Gaspor pork with heirloom beets and carrots delicately cooked with just a touch of butter in a rich sauce (paella isn’t from Brittany like the chefs, but the butter sure is).
Desserts weren’t toss-offs either. No crème caramel here. Instead, a brownie chock full of nuts, topped with apple compote, light-as-air pear sorbet and Chantilly cream. Another option did miraculous things with caramelized dried fruit, though I’d never skip anything stacked and crunchy here, like the paper-thin corn syrup brittle layered with caramelized apples and sided with molasses-thick apple reduction, simple apple sauce and sorbet – hot, cold, crunchy, smooth, chewy, sweet, bitter…heaven.
I love the idea of dessert after dessert: Mignardises of homemade rose marshmallows with dark chocolate, and soft fruit candies coated with puckering lemon and rich sweet fruit inside that put Laura Secord to shame. What did I say about stacked things, again? A+ for the lemon custard-filled mini-Napoleans.
What: Restaurant La Porte at Le Festival en Lumiere
When: Wednesday-Friday, Feb. 22-24, 2012
Where: 3627 boul. St-Laurent
How Much: $46 including tax and tip (not cheap, but worth the splurge if you’re up for it)
514-282-4996
Leave a Reply