LE PETIT MOUSSO HAS PLENTY ON ITS PLATE
Shares sister restaurant’s talent for captivating presentations
In restaurants, there’s often so much to admire on the plate that you don’t notice what’s going on around you, and sometimes there is so much going on around you that you don’t really focus on what’s filling the plate. I often classify restaurants just that way: as either an on-the-plate or offthe-plate experience.
Le Petit Mousso would definitely fall into the on-the-plate category. So engrossed was I with my food, a Tasmanian devil could have come whirling through the place while a coyote chased a roadrunner over the bar and I wouldn’t even have lifted my head.
Le Petit Mousso is the sister restaurant of the now-famous Le Mousso, which was named restaurant of the year at the 2018 Lauriers de la gastronomie québécoise and earned a three-and-a-half-star review in this publication by yours truly when it opened three years ago. The self-taught chef-owner, Antonin Mousseau-Rivard, creates plates that are among the most captivating in the city. And his creations taste as good as they look, offering a panoply of flavours, colours, textures and temperatures that engage all the senses. I just love it.
When news came that Le Mousso was moving to a space next door and the original locale would be turned into a more casual resto, I thought to myself, oh boy, not another wine bar. (I have nothing against good wine bars, but it seems like every second restaurant opening of late is a wine bar.) But no, I was told after being seated at Le Petit Mousso that this is not a wine bar, but a place where you can enjoy a plate (or three) of food and a glass (or two) of wine without having to reserve in advance or commit to the full menu, which is the case next door. Nice.
The chef responsible for Le Petit Mousso’s kitchen is not Mousseau-Rivard, but Benjamin Mauroy-Langlais, who happens to be this year’s Canadian finalist
in the international S. Pellegrino Young Chef competition. Mauroy-Langlais also worked at the sadly defunct Hotel Herman and the still-going-strong Boulangerie Automne.
Another talent under this roof is bartender Émile Archambault. He really should go by the term “mixologist” because his cocktails are as gastronomic as Mauroy-Langlais’ cuisine. I’m convinced you can judge a restaurant by the quality of its cocktails, and I swooned hard when I was handed a concoction made of Quebec gin, the Quebecmade apéritif Amermelade, chili syrup, a sprinkling of monarda petals and a crumble made with dried raspberries.
The menu features 14 small plates and three desserts. Prices run higher than at most restaurants in the small-plate category, but all ingredients are local (sea buckthorn berry juice is used in place of lemon) and the cuisine is more intricate. When you see a plate like the “Cucumber/Goat’s Cheese/Verbena” — with the cucumber slices fanned out next to violets that look like they were picked seconds before plating — you understand why the prices are what they are. My dinner for two with seven dishes and five glasses of wine came in just under $300. Pricey for a secondary restaurant, granted, but the “casual” nature of Le Petit Mousso comes down to the offthe-plate surroundings. Everything on the plate is absolutely gastronomic. And boy, is it good.
We began with the first plate on the menu: “Potatoes/Cheese/ Truffles,” a crown of souffléd potato casings filled with béchamel enhanced with Le Frère Chasseur cheese, the whole showered in shredded summer truffles. Wow. The technique involved was impressive enough, but the sensual flavours and diverse textures were simply amazing. And kudos for sourcing summer truffles, which are often dull, with such a fine perfume. Terrific.
The next three dishes were equally wow-worthy. A supremely silky mousse de foie de volaille was served with lightly fermented elderberries and a bouquet of purple clover (oxalis). It came with a basket of perfect country bread, also made in-house. Talk about your classic dishes given a reboot, the ethereal mousse was light, yet so intensely flavoured.
A dish of smoked trout was twirled into a round like a danish. Alongside were whisperthin “matzo” tuiles and a sort of cream-cheese/sour-cream mix topped with lacto-fermented beets. We spread the cream and beets over the tuiles, then topped the shards with the lovely trout. Heaven.
Next up was the aforementioned plate of cucumber and violets. The cukes were charred on the outside, sliced, marinated, then arranged in rows over a dollop of fresh Ruban Bleu goat’s cheese.
The violets were set in rows along the other side, resulting in a stunning dish — and one with depth, too, as the texture of the cucumbers played so well off the creamy cheese, and the flavours were oh so fresh.
In a lineup of winners, one dish came up short: the walleye crudo. Surrounded by herb-infused oils, the thin slices of fish were topped with a brunoise of cucumber, chervil and tiny marigolds. As beautiful as it all looked, the flavours were too faint.
The next dish, “Beef/Greens/ Ranch,” came back strong. The beef in question was a wellmarbled short rib served with an espuma of Bleu d’Élizabeth cheese and a slick of ranch sauce, as well as mizuna leaves and flowers. The salting of the beef was bang-on, its texture was ideally melt-in-the-mouth, and the caramelized crust was divine. The blue cheese and ranch added further hits of umami flavouring, and the greens provided a bitter foil for the richness of the beef. Considering the small portion, I feared the $28 price would be excessive. But two of us devoured that plate and agreed that due to the intensity of flavour, the portion size was just right. What a masterful dish.
There are three options for dessert, one being a baked apple for two that Archambault insisted we try. What arrived was a single gala apple, roasted in a brown sugar crust with herbs, which was broken open at the table and served with a cream that tasted of cider. Liked it, didn’t love it, but the idea is good fun. A different apple might offer a more melting consistency than the firm gala. Or how about a pear?
Our other dessert ended an already superb meal on the highest of notes. Imagine this: white chocolate mousse dotted with caramelized chunks of white chocolate and topped with a rhubarb granité decorated with little pink begonias. Bite after bite, I kept asking myself if I had ever tasted a more sophisticated dessert. And delicious, too. Simply amazing.
Since we were seated at the bar, Archambault was our go-to server and entertainer as we watched him mix cocktails with the dexterity of a Cirque du Soleil performer. He also poured us a few natural, biodynamic, organic wines by the glass and filled us in on the makeup of our dishes, though several kitchen staff members also did the serving and describing throughout the evening.
As for the room, that’s where we get to the off-the-plate experience. Frankly, I recall white walls, a second dining room above the first, brown chairs and not much else. You don’t come to Le Petit Mousso to be wowed by the décor. You come to Le Petit Mousso to be wowed by the food. And was I ever.