Adapting to Villeray’s changing profile
OWNERS OF HUIS CLOS USED SOCIAL MEDIA to find out what residents wanted in a local bar
Huis Clos Good bet
$$ 7659 St. Denis St. (near Villeray St.) Phone: 514-419-8579 Website: www.huisclos.ca
Licensed: Yes Credit cards: MC, Visa Wheelchair accessible: Mostly raised seating Vegetarian friendly: Very limited Open: Daily 5 p.m.–3 p.m.
Price range: Appetizers $8–$16, mains $15–$26, desserts $4–$8
Huis Clos means behind closed doors, as in the legal Latin term “in camera.” It’s also the title of an existentialist play by JeanPaul Sartre that finishes, in the English translation, No Exit, with the famous line “Hell is other people” (which apparently has more to do with how our self-perceptions are constituted than the purgatory of being crammed into a bar with a bunch of drunken revellers). Although the menu at Huis Clos begins with a quote from the French philosopher, its drinks and dishes are intended to encourage a relatively angst-free night out with your confrères.
Opened this fall, what used to be an indistinguishable sports bar is now a warm and glowing den of clever lighting, shadowy lattice screens and upwardly mobile bar food. What’s interesting is that when it came to transforming the site, the owners took an interactive approach: They surveyed local residents through social media to find out what they wanted in a bar. The result reflects the changing face of Villeray, which has been attracting a younger population with its villagey vibe, slightly more affordable housing and small-scale businesses. The team has a knack for integrating establishments into different areas of town, tweaking the concept to fit a localized image; some of the co-owners are responsible for long-standing Baracca on Mont-Royal Ave. E., Helm in Mile End, Quai No. 4 on Masson St., Yermad in the Village and Monsieur Smith in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, among several others.
Here, servers in Joy Division T-shirts and muted lumberjack plaid work the room, flatteringly illuminated by outdoor fixtures under an undulating stucco ceiling. The focal point is a large backlit drinks board behind the bar. In big black block letters, it lists cocktails (sidecar, mojito) and wines by the glass (be it by region or grape, the likes of Douro, Bierzo, pinot noir and gruner). The wine selection is a fun hop and skip over international territory, from Gavi to the Loire, and a couple of Canadian ambassadors like Clos Jordanne and Osoyoos Larose. Crowd-sourcing may have something to do with choice of draft beers: Guinness and Griffon, but also Rolling Rock, Carlsberg, Hoe- gaarden and Stella Artois — and Labatt 50, I nearly forgot. (It seems they’re leaving the craft beer scene to EtOH Brasserie, which recently launched a few blocks away with plans to brew on-site.)
Also on the board, a happyhour special caught my eye: five oysters for $8 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. An unsurpassable snack, and we made short work of those Malpeques on the half shell. Seafood is a specialty of the kitchen, headed by chef Judith Laflamme, presenting East Coast oysters with various treatments. Her oysters Rockefeller were luscious in warm white wine and herbed butter, although I found the raw spinach chifonnade topping interfered with the textures and richness. The autumnal-themed Raspberry Points, more risky-sounding with a daub of pumpkin purée, worked surprisingly well as comfort food.
There were lots of appealing ideas behind the appetizers and mains, with ingredients suited to cold-weather pub dining, from Coquille St. Jacques to smoked duck breast to a sausage, apple and cheddar melt. A starter that featured a single raviolo — a big one, mind you — had a lot going on. The floppy disc of pasta, stuffed with a dense mushroom and ricotta filling, was accompanied by sweet marinated shimeji mush- rooms for zing, some frisée lettuce for freshness and a blot of pesto for a herby punch. That all worked nicely, but a smoked butternut squash purée, which tasted like it had been whipped with some very intense bacon fat, had a strong undertow that pulled down the potential brightness of the other elements.
A duo of salmon brought a generous, chunky tartare on top of perfectly cooked potatoes, with cream, crimson to- biko and a smear of gribiche, somewhere between aioli and tartar sauce. If there was smoked salmon mousse, as billed, I didn’t catch it. Lively and easy bar eating, although maybe again edging toward more elaborate than it needed to be.
The joue de veau was soft and deep and beefy, with a smear of blue cheese butter, red wine reduction, green beans and more of those toothy potatoes. It was easy to appreciate a plate that celebrated the rich and roast side of slow-cooked beef, less so the $26 price tag. I’ve been watching prices tiptoe up — food costs are a reality on both sides of the kitchen — but it seemed steep in this environment, bringing a trip out to the neighbourhood pub into the realm of big night out.
I didn’t try either of the two desserts, but the offer of a deconstructed milk chocolate Snickers Bar almost tempted me to cast aside my dislike for peanut desserts.
Smartly mainstream and done with style, Huis Clos is best approached as a local bar with above-average cooking. A platter (particular the $42 Gourmand for two) and a round of drinks would do for anyone wanting to get a peek — behind closed doors or not — of what’s happening in Villeray right now.
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