ROSÉLYS BOOKS A GRAND ROOM AT THE QUEEN E
Stunning decor, ambitious menu at hotel’s new restaurant
Not so long ago, hotel restaurants were Montreal’s top culinary destinations, with grand dining rooms like the Neufchâtel above the Château Champlain and Le Point de Vue atop the Sheraton Centre. Then there was the Beaver Club, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel’s legendary dining room, where serious biz men lunched on big steaks and even bigger martinis. Once a good bet for a solid meal at a hefty price enjoyed in a room almost completely devoid of ambience, the Beaver Club eventually suffered primarily because Montreal is such an interesting restaurant city that you’d really have to be indifferent to the whole dining experience to choose a hotel dining room over the latest branché bistro.
However, efforts have been made of late to resuscitate hotel restaurants. I’d say the most successful in Montreal right now are Renoir at the Sofitel, Laurie Raphaël at Le Germain and Maison Boulud at the Ritz. The upcoming Four Seasons downtown will be a space to watch, to see the fireworks that will be brought in to attract discerning diners. For now, though, the hoopla is focused on the $140-million makeover at Fairmont the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Entering the Queen E on a recent Wednesday night, I headed to the old Beaver Club spot on the east side of the building, only to find a large lounge filled with black and white chairs. After a bit of investigating, I found their new restaurant, Rosélys, located on the west side of the hotel in the former space of Le Montréalais.
Upon entry, I let out a gasp. This is one whale of a restaurant. It’s all very grand in a Great Gatsby kind of way, with towering ceilings, a U-shaped central bar, a jazzy black-andwhite tiled floor and the sound of cocktail shakers tinkling in the background. We were shown to a banquette in the back of the room near two open kitchens — one where chef Maxime Delmont and his brigade were busily cooking and wiping plate rims, and the other, empty for now, is the prep kitchen for the Artisans Market, a food hall slated to open in October.
Rosélys’ menu offers several styles of cuisine and portion sizes, such as a whole roasted duck sold for an eyebrow-raising $132. Otherwise, prices are pretty much on par with other high-end restaurants, save for the cocktails, which hover around the $16 mark. With many bottles marked up over triple SAQ retail and glasses sold at exorbitant prices, the wine list is a missed opportunity — which, alas, is the norm in hotel dining rooms. What bothers me more, though, is the selection. Made up primarily of commercial bottles (think Kim Crawford sauvignon blanc), this list would leave any oenophile questioning why Montreal is known for a cutting-edge wine scene.
SERVICE A LETDOWN
Service was another letdown. The wait for the cocktails was so long that they were offered on the house, and it was a full hour before our dishes arrived. Our initial waiter, a gentleman and veteran of the hotel, got the meal off to a great start. Unfortunately, we didn’t see much of him after that, as several waiters made their way to the table over the course of the evening. Granted, Rosélys has been open just over two months, but service needs sharpening, especially as the room was half full the night we visited.
Happily, the food was the strongest part of the experience. You can sense the effort made by Delmont to rise above the standard hotel offerings. There’s the requisite hamburger on the menu, a pasta and steak, but also plenty of seasonal ingredients, vegetables galore and some inspired flavour combinations. His oxtail and foie gras terrine offers dewy braised beef tempered with the slightly sweet foie. It’s rich and delicious, though the Asian dressing on the salad alongside was all wrong. This dish was calling out for an old-school mustard vinaigrette.
A green bean salad with herbs, a deep-fried soft-boiled egg and candied pecans was fresh and crunchy — just what you crave in late summer. Equally seasonal was a corn chowder poured atop a garnish of smoked croutons, popcorn and cumin mousse. I liked it, though the corn flavour lacked that sweet, off-the-cob freshness, making me wonder if they used canned.
For mains, the ricotta ravioli with Swiss chard, pine nuts and spinach in a cream and white wine sauce was all smooth textures and milky green flavours. In sharp contrast came the 6-oz. bavette with wild mushrooms that was cooked rare as requested, but lacked that deep beefy taste one expects with a bavette. We ordered fries alongside for an extra $8; they were excellent, but you’d think they’d be included in the $34 price of the steak. The Arctic char is another good choice. Surrounded with potatoes, corn and confit tomatoes, the fish had a Provençal feel, but the extra slices of sun-dried tomatoes overwhelmed.
Desserts were pretty, but the late-summer feel of the rest of the menu went out the window in favour of citrus in one dessert and chocolate in another. The orange cake with grapefruit/ rosewater sorbet would be ideal in citrus season (winter), as would the chocolate fondant cake with milk chocolate cream and a lime/chocolate sorbet. Only the rustic tart — apricots baked on a sheet of puff pastry served with caramel sauce — made use of summer fruit. But the flimsy pastry base provided little support to the fruit and crumble topping.
I left this grand restaurant a bit discouraged — impressed by the fabulous decor, but disappointed to see much of the experience fall short of that promised magnificence. As noted, it’s still early days for this ambitious newcomer. But with Rosélys, the hotel dining room may be making a comeback, but still has a ways to go.