AN OCEAN AWAY FROM ENGLAND
Le Mount Stephen’s Bar George seemed promising, but ultimately disappoints
The name of the cocktail is the Golden Square Mile Sour, and it’s made with gin, elderflower liqueur, cider, citron and egg white. It is very pretty to look at — a veritable Nicole Kidman of cocktails — and it was served to me in what is no doubt the city’s most beautiful dining room, in the newly refurbished Le Mount Stephen hotel.
Since 2011, Montrealers had been hearing about the ongoing renovations of the former Mount Stephen Club, named after George Stephen, a former president of the Bank of Montreal and CP Railway, who founded the club in his residence back in 1926. Famous for its elaborate façade and interior wood panelling, this building is classified as a historic monument by the government of Quebec and a national historical site by the government of Canada.
Some $20 million in renos later, the results were unveiled in May. The former club was reborn as a spectacularly posh boutique hotel, complete with 90 rooms, ranging in price from $300 to $7,000 per night. Ouf!
The restaurant within this magnificent hotel is named Bar George, and it was in this snazzy new “espace” that I took a sip of the Golden Square Mile, which sadly fell as flat as that Tom Cruise Mummy movie. With all those flavours in play, how could this comely cocktail be such a disappointment? Turns out that drink was the perfect metaphor for the meal to come. And yet it all seemed so promising.
Bar George is run by the Toronto firm Oliver & Bonacini, whose corporate executive chef is Anthony Walsh. Walsh made his name at one of Toronto’s top restaurants, Canoe, and also happens to be a former Montrealer. The chef de cuisine is one Kevin Ramasawmy, who worked for Walsh in T.O. as well as here at Maison Boulud.
Though it sounds like these gentlemen have a grasp on the local scene, I can only wonder why they came up with such a gimmicky menu. It seems everyone needs a catchy concept these days, and the one here is again inspired by the George Stephen playbook. The website describes the restaurant as “a modern-day rendezvous, cooking classic U.K. fare, slapped with Québécois cheek.” Why put a label on it? Why not just make good food? Especially in June, when hearty British dishes are about as appropriate as a tweed overcoat.
Scanning the menu, I saw bar snacks like Scotch eggs and devils on horseback. There are crumpets and mint sauce. Yorkshire pudding is served not with roast beef, but with a steak alongside “champ,” an Irish dish of mashed potatoes with onions and cheese. What an odd jumble this is.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m always game to tuck into a good British feast, be it at a country pub or Rules in London. There comes a point, though, when putting a twist on dishes results in a contorted mishmash.
We began with a half-dozen New Brunswick oysters. Perfectly shucked, fresh and delicious, they provided the ideal start to our meal. But then things rapidly started to go sideways.
Garnished with croutons and tarragon cream, a cream of mushroom soup had the requisite beige colour and velvety texture. Too bad it didn’t taste a bit of mushroom. A salad made up of little gem lettuce, grapefruit, radish and endive looked pretty, but the buttermilk dressing did absolutely nothing to perk things up. It’s always irksome to fork over $13 for a plate of greens that don’t taste of much.
Despite the pleasant dewy texture of a terrine of pork hock, its saltiness is what hit me most. The accompanying bannock chips were tough and tasted oddly fishy. When I requested bread, our waitress arrived with three piping hot dinner rolls. Why restaurants serve warm bread is a mystery to me, but these were even too hot to handle.
The salt problem experienced with the terrine marred the entire round of main courses. A “birch-glazed” St-Canut piglet shoulder was served as a large square of shredded meat surrounded by bits of lettuce, radish, peas and pea tendrils, with a quenelle of prune purée placed behind it. First, there was the salt issue, but second, I haven’t a clue what they meant by birch-glazed. What does birch taste like, anyway? Then you’ve got that prune purée in there. Why?
Next was a halibut “quenelle” with Matane shrimp, Nantua sauce, licorice, spinach and Gruyère. What arrived was not a quenelle, but more of a cake with a soufflé-like texture. Inside was a layer of spinach, set over top was an abundance of shrimp, and underneath it all was a potent lobster sauce. Again, the dish was overly salted, but what bothered me more was the cake’s dry texture. Half of it went back untouched — a shame, considering the $39 price.
Our third main was a veal cheek and kidney pie. Served in a shallow bowl and topped with a layer of brioche crust the size of a Frisbee, the pie included “wild” mushrooms and kohlrabi, everything bathed in a stout-enhanced sauce. This pie will set you back $35, and you definitely get your money’s worth, because it could easily serve two or even three. I’d bet big money that no one, save for serious gluttons, could get through this monster pie in one sitting. Why not serve a decentsized portion for half the price? As for the taste, after fishing out a few chunks of cheek and kidney, and a mushroom (a plain ol’ button mushroom at that) and some vegetable bits from the salty, rich sauce, I gave up. I like a good English pie, but this wasn’t a pie. It was a bowl of stew with a blanket of bread.
Desserts (or “puddings,” as stated on the menu) played the U.K. card again. The Stephen’s mess, their take on the classic Eton mess, consisted of a mass of bland whipped cream with too few berries and too little
meringue. A suet-based roly-poly cake topped with sea buckthorn berries and clotted cream was the worst dessert I’ve tasted in eons. I pushed the plate away after just one salty, pasty bite. And as for the Glen Breton whisky pudding with dates, treacle and sour cream, all I could taste was the treacle. Talk about three desserts to give English sweets a bad name. Fans of The Great British Bake Off, take note: Paul and Mary would not be amused!
Service didn’t save this pretty dreadful and pricey meal. Though friendly, our waitress lacked confidence. Then there was the sneaker-sporting maître d’ who arrived on occasion to ask us questions already asked by our waitress. He also presented one of the dishes of the day, a steak for two, and when I inquired whether it was aged, he babbled on about aging beef, saying just anything. After serving our wine, he came back to list which grape varietals were in its makeup, stating one, cinsault gris, that doesn’t even exist. Heavy on private imports, the wine list itself is OK but overpriced, with many bottles at over triple retail. Ouch.
I guess in the end, the fabulous decor could draw you to Bar George. What a shame, then, that by the halfway point of our dinner, the room was noisy (despite being half full) and so poorly lit that two customers pulled out their phone flashlights to read the menu. In a space this elegant, the mismatched cutlery, plates and lack of white tablecloths make the room look unfinished.
Come to think of it, “unfinished” is exactly the impression I was left with after a night at Bar George. And not just concerning the decor, but everything.