PLAYING WITH CLASSICS
Casual Italian at Parm
A few years back, I dined at the bar of the open kitchen at a swish Italian restaurant in Toronto called Campagnolo.
Chatting to the friendly cooks while watching them create all kinds of enticing pasta dishes, I mentioned in passing that I sometimes made spaghetti alla carbonara with milk. Suddenly the chefs’ faces froze in a look somewhere between disgust, disbelief and dismay.
Had I said I preferred Domino’s pizza to the artisanal variety, I might have actually had a debate going. But saying you add milk or cream to carbonara is like saying you use pre-cut garlic, lemon juice from concentrate, or that you enjoy your meat well done. Sacrilege!
But I stuck by my guns and told them to give it a try, which they did, whipping up quite the gorgeous twirl of carbonara, which we sampled one after another. The idea is that the milk prevents the egg yolks from becoming claggy, thus coating the pasta strands ( bucatini if you want to be super authentic) with this sort of salty, creamy and custardy loveliness.
I felt a small sense of victory when one of the chefs described it as “pretty good.” But for purists, the idea of introducing a dairy element into that Italian classic will always be a no-can-do. And as someone who has seen Salade Niçoise made with salmon, tarte Tatin topped with pineapples, and risotto prepared with Uncle Ben’s converted rice, I understand the need for preserving authenticity.
But we also need to give a little leeway for creativity. And sometimes a cuisine can simply be used as inspiration, a base from which to set off in all directions. No doubt, that’s the case with this week’s restaurant, Parm. There was a time not so long ago that Italian restaurant food in Montreal meant Caesar salad, veal scallopini and red-sauce-pasta. In other words, North American Italian cuisine.
Then came an influx of new Italian restaurants that focused on authenticity, and suddenly we were seeing less spaghetti and meat balls and some serious ragu bolognese. Today you’ll find excellent authentic Italian cuisine at restaurants that include Impasto, Nora Gray, Hostaria, Graziella, Da Emma, Il Pagliaccio and more, which perhaps makes it all the easier for a less authentically driven establishment to make a go of it.
Or maybe harder, as cries of “cultural appropriation” bellow out constantly on the food scene these days over the heresy of making dishes like carbonara with milk. Yet I’ll take a delicious carbonara made with milk over a poorly executed one made without any day. So when entering a restaurant called “Parm,” my intention was not really to eat authentically; I just hoped I would eat well. And for the most part I did.
Owned by the Lucille’s group, which is behind the popular Lucille’s Oyster Dive on Monkland Ave. and Brasserie Lucille’s on Ste-Catherine St. (they have a food truck and oyster wholesale business as well), Parm opened midsummer on the Sherbrooke stretch of Westmount in the location that last housed Lea, a pretty good restaurant that served a mean kale salad. The multi-level space, conceived of by resto designer extraordinaire Zébulon Perron, has changed little. I’m told fixes were few save for a kitchen overhaul, and there’s a chic terrasse out front.
Like all the Lucille’s operations, prices at Parm are steep, yet many of the costliest dishes are based in fish, seafood or steak, so that’s understandable. But just be warned that a meal here is sure to be a wallet buster, and that includes wines, which are sold at quite a markup.
The San Valentino Scabi 2013 Sangiovese we ordered for $60 retails for $19.10 at the SAQ. Ouch. Portions are generous, though, so this is the right place to perhaps order less and opt for sharing.
Of the starters sampled I quite liked the calamari served with panzanella. The thick pieces of squid were expertly charred, tender, and the accompanying salad featured multicoloured tomatoes, peppers, croutons, butter-lettuce hearts, red onion, bits of olive and Parmesan shards. Good.
I also lapped up a dish of “carne crudo.” Remember when we were all discovering beef carpaccio 20 years ago? Well, that classic is rare in Italian restaurants today, but I relished Parm’s version, made up of whisper-thin slices of filet mignon topped with arugula and flavoured with horseradish and hot sauce. I’m not sure what your stickler Italian cook would say about the added condiments, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And how great to see that Parm held on to Lea’s corn and kale salad (smart, as I’m told it was their bestseller), though this one is served showered with grated Parmesan and has a sweeter dressing than the one I recall at Lea. The three of us at the table wolfed back that salad as if it were our last. If ever you know someone who doesn’t like kale, I suggest you serve him or her this salad and watch how quickly he or she changes camps.
Regarding the main courses, I’m sure few will be able to resist the chicken Parmesan. The dish stars a plate-sized chicken paillard, panfried to a golden crisp and topped with two rounds of fresh mozzarella, with a twirl of spaghettini and deep-red tomato sauce in the supporting roles. Yum! I couldn’t manage to get through the whole thing, mind you, but what I did eat, I adored.
The branzino (sea bass) filet, is another good choice because the fish is expertly cooked and delicious. The mixed salad served beneath the fish was also fine, if a bit heavy on the vinaigrette. Alas, our last dish, cellentani with sausage, rapini and tomato, was a bust, mainly because the rapini wasn’t rapini, but either broccoli or broccolini. Ouf. On top of that, the sausage was scarce and the sauce had pooled at the bottom of the bowl instead of melding with the swirly cellentani as is the ideal with pasta preparations. When it comes to authenticity of this kind of technique in Italian cuisine, there I side with the purists.
Happily, dessert ended the meal on a high note. Served with a pizzelle cookie, the vanilla-bean gelato was scarfed back in seconds. The panna cotta topped with figs and raspberries was good but over gelatinized. Panna cotta’s texture should be creamy, not bouncy, and this version was like a Nerf ball. But then came a classic tiramisu, and all was forgiven. Creamy and moist, this cake’s only fault was about five
times too much cocoa sifted overtop. Otherwise, magnifico!
Service, provided by two almost identical young waitresses, was a bit hesitant but certainly friendly and swift. I dined at Parm early, but by 7 p.m. the restaurant filled, becoming pretty noisy, though in more of a buzzy than annoying way.
I can imagine this has already become a dinner destination for Westmount diners out perhaps for a casual Italian-style dinner with friends or family. For the price, I would prefer the food be not more authentically Italian, but just that much better. As the restaurant is open but three months, though, here’s hoping they can soon pull that off.