here are restaurant reviews and then there are slightly inebriated food binges. Lunch at Garçon falls into the latter slot. It is not always clear to me if the goal of these meet-the-press functions (one chef, a dozen or more food writers) is to re-enact a classic lions vs. Christians tumble or simply to pass around business cards so that freelance food writers can schmooze with the regular columnists (Hour, Voir, Actualité Médécin – whatever that is) while trying to catch the eye of those who can actually pay for articles (En Route, Destinations – the Via train magazine). This wasn’t exactly the A list (what, Reichl wasn’t there? Nope. Not even Armstrong or Chesterman from the Gazette or Beauchemin from La Presse). But we were there, those who come from the furthest reaches of the trough: C level acolytes such as myself and the woman who worked on a morning show on Channel 10. OK, maybe I was D level.
After the ritual passing of cards and obligatory scraping to those who had power (i.e. anyone who could offer the rest of us freelance work), we sat down to eat.
Garçon has been around for a couple of years but it has a new chef and that was the reason for the noon fête. Mark Gaffney, with a brogue as thick as peat, hails from Cork, Eire and has been here for about a year, the last six months as chef in this comfortable, 70-seat bistro hidden away off the sidewalk near Sherbrooke and Peel. There is a new huge trumpet shaped sculpture outside which may attract attention. There are also plans for a regular terrace bbq so if the fire engines are parked outside this summer, you may be in the right place.
Gaffney is young (“I work 120 hours a week”) and has trained well. His parents own hotels in Ireland. He has worked with chefs in France, England and Montreal and was recently hired to take complete command of his first kitchen at Garçon. His forte is claimed to be in texture rather than flavour, although his sense of what you can do with roasted rabbit stuffed with mushroom, or a blood pudding tart striped with foie gras, onions, and caramelised ice cider is superb.
Nonetheless, this is a work in progress. He loves putting out a tasting of various parts of the animal cooked in different ways. So it is quail breast served with a confit of quail leg and a quail egg poached and served with foie gras. Or the rabbit just mentioned served with a ravioli of confit shoulder and foie gras (do we sense a trend here?) and a thumb-sized rack with an herb crust smeared over it.
A good scarf, no doubt; but the standout for many of us was a simple first-course soup; and this may be his real forte – we are way beyond, gee I could make this at home. Take 10 kilos of tomatoes and stew them slowly and then filter the juice so that it is just between sunset and ripe wheat on your colour wheel. Add a little red and green basil and a spray of grappa. Sip slowly and smile. Yeah, texture (where?); wow flavour (hooray!)
Dessert, if you will permit me to quote from the menu, was a wonderful concoction of spiced roasted fruit with saffron sauce and coconut ice cream plus a dollop of yoghurt. Here is a little problem. It is delicious but on the ungapochet side of things (that’s a lovely Yiddish word meaning overly complicated). My hunch is that Gaffney really leans toward strong flavours and textures, not combinations where any one aspect is great but the combination is overboard. But he is new to Montreal and only now trying to create a strong staff as well as figure what works best with what here. To whit: the cheese tray did include a superb Quebec St. Isidore goat cheese; the dessert was served with a Dommaine Pinnacle reserve ice cider.
Garçon’s biggest problem is its location. This is not inviting downtown territory and the lunch crowd on the other side of the room was scant on a Tuesday. The prices may also be a touch high. Entrées on the lunch menu were from $14-22 and the mains from $28-38. Dinner would be higher.
While I and my other hard-working (“Oh is it 3 o’clock, I do have to get back to the office”) members of the fourth estate ate well (“… some more of that Valpolicella Ripassa 2003”, “Well only if you insist”), it is impossible to judge what the food is like regularly here. (“Damn, do they really eat this well on Via rail?”) Reviews have been mixed. Sometimes that’s a problem with the staff – and we had superb service with a dozen or so writers grazing; sometimes it’s a kitchen problem however we were eating small plates from pre-arranged meal of a half dozen courses, each magnificently matched with the proper wines.
Ahh, another strong point. The sommelier is Don-Jean Léandri. He works Thursday through Saturday. You do want to be there when he is. Say no more.
Bottom line: would I go there, on my own tab? Yes. Good food with some strong desire to use local products innovatively and a very interesting wine list. For the ambulatory-impaired, rest assured that everything is on one floor. – Reviewed by Barry Lazar
