Team pouring heart into venture
EXPERIENCE IS EVIDENT AT EVOO where the French restaurant’s hits are right on and the misses need just a little more work
EVOO
3426 Notre Dame St. W. (near
Atwater Ave.)
Phone: 514-846-3886 Open: Wed.-Sat. 6 to 10:30 p.m.; brunch weekends 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Licensed: Yes Credit cards: All major
Wheelchair access: Yes Parking: Easy on the street
Vegetarian-friendly: Yes Reservations: Recommended Price range: Starters $9-$14; main courses $24-$30; desserts $8-$15.
Years ago, while watching one of those many programs dedicated to the topic of what lottery winners do with their millions, I was compelled by the story of a man who won the jackpot in France. He was a gangly framed gentle soul from Normandy, who — God bless him — poured his winnings into — you guessed it — a restaurant, a huge, brash brasserie located in, of all places, a shopping mall. It was also empty. Mr. Lucky’s big dream was to be a restaurateur, despite the fact that he didn’t have any management, cooking or service courses under his soon-to-be-pawned Hermès belt. Instead, he thought it only took money to be the next Paul Bocuse. He explained how he probably shouldn’t have invited all those new-found friends over for free meals, and tearily admitted he had blown the lot on the Brasserie Elephant Blanc (my name, not his) in less than one year. Talk about your gut-wrenchers.
It takes guts to open a restaurant. It also takes experience and education. I have reviewed restaurants where it’s evident five minutes after the first course hits the table that the owners haven’t a clue how to run a restaurant. Everyone’s real nice, but eventually everything goes all wrong. When I drive past said establishment soon after and see the “A Louer” sign in the window, I wonder how much money fuelled the broken dream.
Entering EVOO on a recent Wednesday, however, I knew I was in experienced hands. The staff consists of three seasoned restaurant workers: chefs Sophie Ouellet and Peter Saunders, as well as maitre d’ Claudie Harvey, who met while working at the now-defunct DNA. They opened their restaurant last July, specializing in brunch first and dinner a month later. Their mission, as spelled out on the website, is to provide “a fresh, new, stylish yet casual dining experience to Montrealers by serving contemporary French cuisine using both traditional and modern techniques.” Sounds like a plan! It’s one driving many a young Montreal chef-owner at this moment, perhaps, yet a solid mission nonetheless.
The space is all pretty plain and grey, with an open kitchen, tall windows facing a massage parlour across the street, and dozens of office-like high-backed black chairs up front. The background music is hard to ignore. Ranging from mildly annoying to downright grating, this playlist needs a definite rethink. Still, when Harvey comes to the table, I cheer up a bit. Not only is she lovely and knows her menu well, she laughed at all my jokes. Brilliant!
As for the food, there’s no missing that Saunders and Ouellet spent time in the DNA kitchen alongside odd-bit-lovin’ chef Derek Dammann (now chef-owner of Maison Publique). There are sweetbreads, veal tongue, frog’s legs and bone marrow. There’s even a horse carpaccio appetizer, yet with visions of Secretariat and Mr. Ed cantering in my head, I passed.
The wine list is short but filled with solid food-friendly selections. Bottles reach the $100 range, but there are plenty of selections under $50. Considering the neighbourhood, prices are steep, as in an $11 salad, $30 onglet, and $15 tarte Tatin. But this is cheffy food, which means top-notch ingredients and spiffy plate presentations. How nice, as well, to have the chefs serve some of the dishes in person. This is a team pouring its heart into this endeavour. Heck, they even make their own bread.
Which is why it pains me to say the dishes, so pretty, were often disappointing. The conception — the use and pairing of ingredients — along with a few glitches in technique, often left me wanting.
Things started well enough with a simple salad topped with a deepfried poached egg. Tossed with a buttermilk dressing, the greens were well enhanced with that crisp egg, made even more decadent with a layer of prosciutto. Nice.
But the next dish, a single fried “pomme” of sweetbreads, wasn’t crisp enough, and so mushy that it collapsed every time I stuck it with my fork — a shame as the accompanying radishes and Swiss chard stems were perfectly cooked.
The third app was a complete miss. Consisting of bone marrow enveloped and fried in spring roll wrappers, the dish also counted a lemon dipping sauce and a stack of apples and, I’m guessing, jicama slices. Sadly, all the flavours were muted, and as much as I love bone marrow, when served solo, it’s like eating a tasteless wedge of fat. Ugh.
Main courses also turned up one winner and two losers. The winner was that $30 onglet. Served with a mushroom stew highlighted by sautéed chanterelles, the dish was further enhanced with a squash purée and a little square of fried pork trotter. All good.
But, alas, the second main, sea bass served with lentils, was marred by an undercooked fish filet on a lifeless bed of lentils dotted with mushy pieces of braised veal tongue. And I still don’t get why that cloud of apple foam was included in the mix. Odd. Yet the rabbit dish was the one that most left me wanting. Made with ground rabbit meat rolled in cabbage leaves, the dish included radishes as well as carrot and turnip batonnets. Finally, a lemon grass broth was poured around the rolls by the chef at the table. Though the dish looked gorgeous, the meat’s crumbly consistency was unappealing and the broth was too faint. How I longed for a deeply flavoured broth enriched with something like parsley, chervil and/or tarragon!
Desserts fared better, even if the pumpkin cheesecake was too heavy in texture and too light in pumpkin flavour, and the $15 tarte Tatin was tooth-achingly sweet. The winner by far was the banoffee pie made with caramelized bananas, caramel cream and crunchy-yummy sponge toffee. Wow!
Even if it was disheartening to see so many dishes fail, I have hope for this team to sharpen up its cooking. What’s good here is very good, and the misses can certainly be brought back to the drawing board to re-emerge victorious.
At bill time, chef Saunders arrived at the table to inquire how things had gone. I nodded my head in approval, not necessarily in acknowledgement of the cooking, but in a sign of respect for the fact that they care.