HISTORICAL FLAVOUR
Fine dining in Aylmer
Several years ago, whenever I popped by ZenKitchen on Somerset Street West, my go-to dish was chef Kyle Mortimer-Proulx’s gnocchi. A few days before that much-loved vegan restaurant closed in May 2014, I ate — with delight — Mortimer-Proulx’s pillowy potato dumplings with ramps, fiddleheads, almond pesto and sage.
Because of that memory, I was especially happy a few weeks ago when I sampled the gnocchi that had just been added to the menu at La Maison Conroy, the dinner-only fine-dining restaurant in Aylmer where Mortimer-Proulx now cooks. It too had the makings of a must-order dish, with feather-light gnocchi keeping fine company with shreds of rabbit, plump peas and savoury broth.
There are other items that also appeal deeply at La Maison Conroy, which opened last December in the handsome, historic stone building where the Le Bostaurus steakhouse had been for a few years. Mortimer-Proulx, 32, who went from ZenKitchen to cook much meatier meals in the high-volume setting of the Lowertown Brewery on York Street, seems to have full licence to turn out ambitious, trend-conscious, foodie-wooing dishes.
This is a place where Spanish cured meats and preserved seafoods — the hottest imports on a certain kind of menu these days — are sold. At La Maison Conroy, the steaks and beef for tartare have been dry-aged in-house, while both the Iberico pork and eggs are cooked sous vide. Smoked oyster and black garlic flavour the aioli.
During my two dinners, the fare that I’ve tried has been often, if not uniformly, delicious and always interesting. Occasionally I’ve felt that a dish could have been edited a bit further in terms of its ingredients or look, but any complaints that we’ve had about Mortimer-Proulx’s generous dishes have been quibbles that paled given how much the chef wants to pack his creations with goodies.
Plus, it’s easy to be predisposed to like La Maison Conroy’s from-scratch offerings given the fresh and impeccably baked mini-loaves of bread with bonemarrow-enriched butter that land on tables as an indulgent appetite-whetter.
Earlier this year, when ramps were available, we loved a starter that made its contrasting elements — rich, cleanly fried salt cod croquettes dotted with smoked oyster aioli, grilled ramps, potato sticks and confit potato, raw mushroom and greens — into a cohesive treat.
Delectable beef tartare had little extra funk thanks to its dryaging, and its accompaniments (black garlic aioli, puffed quinoa, cured egg yolk, pickled mustard seeds) were well-crafted and on point with the recalibration of today’s umami-loving palate.
Skipping imported delicacies and Canadian oysters, we’ve also started with La Maison Conroy’s charcuterie board. While its slab of foie gras torchon was unbeatable and its array of accompaniments delivered a lot of contrapuntal flavours and textures, its pork rillettes were too salty and the sourness of the pickled veg could have been pushed further.
In addition to the gnocchi, I’ve tried or stolen bites from four more main courses, all bearing cute names on the menu.
Confused Bivalve was so described because its scallops had been poached in beef fat — a move that Mortimer-Proulx this week told me he had previously tried at Lowertown Brewery with the renderings of briskets. While interesting, that technique didn’t strike me as an improvement on searing, and the dish confounded me a little with the prominence of its bitter notes from radicchio and celeriac purée.
More successful, I thought, was Erin Had A Little Lamb, with lamb patties cooked “crepinette” style (wrapped in caul fat), plated rustically amid grilled sourdough, grilled ramps and mushrooms and sauced with lamb jus and a splooshy, perfectly runny egg.
Mortimer-Proulx’s 61 Strip striploin steak was very enjoyable, and the full range of sides — a blue-cheese-laced biscuit, yummy brussels sprouts with bacon, rich Madeira demi-glace, better offset celeriac purée — made the dish admirably diverse. The meat, Mortimer-Proulx told me, had been dry-aged for two to three weeks, which is less than a dry-aging devotee would probably want but enough to noticeably concentrate the meat’s flavour.
There were no flavour complaints with A Cut Above, which starred two spears of densely porky Iberico pork shoulder that had been cooked sous vide and given a finishing sear. A sherry demi-glace, tangy blackcurrant condiment and shallot jam added more waves of flavour, and slices of earthy blood sausage were hidden under heaps of asparagus and pickled veg.
Desserts showed imagination but fell short of wowing. We preferred the sour cream cake with macerated strawberries and rhubarb shavings to the peanut butter semifreddo, with a pretzel crust, milk chocolate, granola and dulce de leche.
We’ve sat both indoors, in the spacious upstairs dining room that seats 55, some in new clamshell banquettes, and outside, on the patio flanking the restaurant’s front door, on a Thursday night when the sound system played ’70s hits just a bit too loud. In both cases, which were weekday evenings, we were practically the only customers. (During our outdoor dinner, we noted that others on the patio were having food from Maison Conroy’s downstairs sister eatery, the more casual and affordable Le Maçon pub.)
Mortimer-Proulx candidly told me that the reception for his restaurant since it opened has been slower than expected, although it can be packed on some summer weekend nights.
Leaving the night or the season out of it, Mortimer-Proulx’s food definitely deserves more attention. Yes, it can be pricey, and especially more than what neighbouring Aylmer restaurants charge. But, it also offers more to savour and think about, from a young and promising chef at last given the chance to serve food as he wants. If Aylmer residents aren’t flocking yet to La Maison Conroy, maybe Ottawa foodies should keep it in mind as a destination.