Resto Palme is a bit like I’d want heaven to be: a palm-filled, airy space a few steps off a dirty street/Earth…with a good supply of agricole rum.
Even better, the new Caribbean fusion restaurant on Ste-Catherine East between Beaudry and Papineau has soft linens to dab at the chlorophyll-infused cilantro vinaigrette around your mouth that coats those perfectly seared scallops. And the pikliz – pickled slivers of cabbage, carrot and scotch bonnet peppers – on top of crunchy lettuce is the perfect solution for when your nose wants the satisfaction of a good cleanse. Not that you’d need a cleanse in heaven, but maybe pre-heaven, like on the way up.
I want an afterlife where warm, thick polenta porridge is a bed for tomato and shrimp gumbo, where fried chicken is honey-glazed with sweet potato fries and slow-braised collards, where grilled octopus comes with maple-Jamaican-pepper labneh and where rice is djon djon (the Haitian black mushroom is the new Mexican huitlacoche was the new truffle).
Somewhere in the whipped sweet plantains and blue cheese aligot that comes with your plate of Guinness-braised short ribs at Resto Palme, you’ll start pondering the idea of fusion vs. brilliant food combinations by well-trained chefs.
If Redzepi can pop-up in Tulum, then why get our fleur de lys in a bunch over hanger steak with Caribbean kimchi or jerked coconut curry in puff pastry? Especially when there’s so much good rum to go around, from variations on classics like Side Cars to spiced rum Negroni.
Or that worth-it $20 glass of Ron Zacapa Solera 23. There were also a bunch of rums I hadn’t seen or tried before. I’ll be back.
The ones I did know where the Plantation bottles, the line of Barbancourt (very good for the price) and the Trois-Rivière bottles, whose Cuvée de l’Océan is fresh, juicy and good for blending. It’s a white rum distilled in Martinique from sugar cane juice (not molasses, making it rhum agricole) and owned by a French company.
The story is the rum was originally distilled at the Trois-Rivieres distillery in Sainte-Luce, Martinique, starting in 1785. Then in 1994, the B.B.S. Society bought the distillery and ten years later moved production to the Mauny distillery in Rivière-Pilote, Martinique, which it also owned. It put the original Trois-Rivières still on the site of the new distillery to keep quality and results the same. B.B.S is now part of the French group Chevrillon, a giant family-owned investment company.
You can find out more about the rum here.
But for now, back to Resto Palme, where a regular has just ordered a plate of honey-fried chicken with sweet potato fries and collard greens.
Two giant pieces of dredged and battered and fried drumsticks stacked Jenga-style on a giant plate. I assume the size of the plate is to make sure no harm befalls the chicken pieces should they topple.
But it might be overkill, because, after all, it is heaven, and certainly no chickens will hurt themselves in a catastrophic plate fall there.
Resto Palme
1487 rue Ste-Catherine E.
514-529-8480
Hours: Tues-Thurs 11:30am-10pm, Fri 11:30am-11pm, Sat 5-11pm, the last Sunday of the month 11:30am-3pm.
restopalme.com
Leave a Reply