Tel. :278-6502
Lucca
12 Dante, Montreal | Tel. 514.278-6502
Update 1.14.06
oth Resto Spy and I have commented on Lucca. Last night deserved another visit. There have been some internal changes over the years: chef becomes partner, partners bring in new chefs - sort of an intra-resto thing. Anyway, it stays in the family. Lucca remains still small, slightly upscale, noisy, and a wonderful hideaway in Little Italy.
Prices have risen slightly and the menu has become more focused on locally available food tuned to top-notch Italian. Witness a simple spinach soup that was perfect comfort food, smoked salmon (good but not house smoked) coupled with a salmon tartar and dollops of mascarpone; fresh argula with good romano and thick, rich balsamic vinegar. The inch thick veal chop, a signature dish, was paired with the best polenta we have had in a long while and an excellent wine sauce reduction. The sauces, in fact, nudge Lucca up a notch from similar restaurants in the area, which we also like, such as Via Dante. Lucca's chef is pushing for strong intense flavours. The fried squid appetizer - a meal for one actually - had a roast garlic and red pepper aioli and a warm tomato salsa. The linguini with sea food, had a sauce that was worth having extra bread to soak it up - a strong cooked tomato and pepper reduction infusing the dish. The scallops and clams were perfectly cooked and tender.
There are six appetizers (ranging from $8-$14) on the menu and eight mains ($19-$36) with a good combination of fish and meat dishes. Wines offer good value particularly in the under $50 range. We had a chardonnay (not on the menu but recommended by the waiter) Pio L'altro 2003 for $40 which sells for $23.50 at the SAQ.
Only four desserts: fresh fruit, tiramisu, hot chocolate pudding, and crème brulée. We tried the last three. They were all excellent and we walked out sated and happy. Coffee is good but not nearly as excellent as that at Café Italia, diagonally across the street.
Parking is tough in the area but there is a valet. Everything is on one floor, making it very wheel chair accessible. Reservations recommended.
One caveat. Prices are reasonable but possibly because the serving staff is down to the minimum. One more on the floor would have made a difference. Several times, though out the meal we had to wait for service: 20 minutes to give our order after we entered, as well for the wine and pouring during the service, and for our check at the end. Although our waiter repeatedly said he was sorry, he did nothing to mollify the situation. A second order of the house's excellent bruschetta could have been offered while we waited and waited, or a digestif or even coffee, gratis, at the end.
Bottom line, we'll go again. Summer, when the doors open to the street, would be best for those who find such intimate rooms too crowded and noisy. – Updated by Barry Lazar
Original Review
let my two women choose between three restaurants, and they unanimously picked Lucca in Little Italy. There was not even a hint of a hesitation, so I figured that either the food was going to be superb or that one or both would have ulterior motives. I immediately smelled a rat when I saw the waiter—friendly, cool, easy on the eye, straight from the beach in Rimini. Instantly, I went into my "waiter is the bad guy, I am the only good guy" routine, but to no avail. This guy had something else.
So back to the spy report. I like it when the restaurant is full, when there is no paper menu, when there are only laughs and smiles, when the service is warm and efficient, and when the owner talks to all the diners. A + for all those things. There were six appetizers and eight main courses to choose from, blackboard style. The appetizers in the $10-12 range, include an absolutely perfect Rucola e parmigiano, and an extraterrestrial confit di coniglio, a kind of tartare of cooked rabbit that has no equal in this city.
If the waiter had asked me to move in with him right then, I would have said yes.
Brought to my knees by such a magnificent start, we selected a Tommasi Pinot Grigio Valdadige 2001 to recover. It too was purrrrrfect. Normally, Italian whites are a bit acidic for my taste, but this one was undoubtedly shipped, vineyard smell and all, directly from a sun-baked hill near Verona to Lucca's kitchen. Some people around us were enjoying the insalata di polipo, which aren't surgically removed polyps at all, as you might think, but pieces of octopus that just look like parts of your intestines. I am just joking of course—the polipo diners looked like perfectly normal people, and I am sure that their intestines were absolutely fine.
My main dish (main entries range from $18 for pasta to $36 for the main meat and fish dishes) was magret de canard, or petto di anatra con porto e frutta. It was light, tasteful and delicate with the port and the fruit providing the ideal balance for my unlucky duck. My women feasted on pasta: one had linguine crostaci e salmone in bianco (linguine with mussels and salmon in white wine), while the other delighted in garganelli pepperoni, zucchini & funghi, an egg pasta with a delicate vegetarian sauce. By this time, our polipo neighbors had switched to mosaico di pesce fresco con verdura, three kinds of fish and shrimps heaped to make a leaning tower of Pisa, which by the way, is not far from Lucca.
We ordered a chocolate soufflé and a crême brulée, both excellent. The Pinot Grigio died somewhere near my duck, so we ordered an emergency supply of grappa, which in this part of Montreal is piped in next to the water main. It's also a secret code—order grappa, and you are a friend of the house for life.
Reviewed by RestoSpy
Barry Lazar Review
Finally a grand Italian meal. Imagine the restaurant in the film BIG NIGHT, if that restaurant had made it. A small square room, a couple of partners and only one or two others helping out. Lots of regular customers. No menu. A small selection on a blackboard. A very unusual antipasto presentation which included excellent grilled vegetables and roasted pork, superb fried squid (Italian style bread crumbs finely ground into a very thin batter), good veal and a wonderful mussel pasta. Excellent wines, coffee and dessert. The owner/waiter had forgotten the small plate of vegetables that should have arrived with the veal so he sent over four sambucca gratis. Classy touch.
What we have is a restaurant in the midst of an exploration on two levels. Lucca is creating Italian cuisine that has only barely emerged from strong peasant roots into a more bourgeois setting AND it is feeling its way through the neighbourhood in the style of an old fashioned trattoria that wants to establish strong roots. The emphasis is less on the sublime than on working with the essentials. Sauces are de-emphasized and changed to accommodate the diner (more or less heat in the amatriciana), extra lemon with the squid, sharing of a couple of plates among a family. There is no sense that one is forced to eat the traditional meal, or that there is only one way of cooking a dish, but rather that one has entered a good kitchen and one's tastes are treated with respect.
I have eaten here a couple of times and will return (reserve for dinner). For lunch I had some squid and a salad and mineral water and walked out with plenty of change in my pocket. Dinner, on the other hand, with two bottles of excellent wine, tipped the scales at $50 a person. Other notes: room for a couple of tables al fresco, in the middle of boul St. Laurent's old Italian section (great for a stroll), plenty of room to accomodate wheel-chairs, truly upscale and amazing bathrooms.
This place got a great review from the Gazette last November but was granted a token one star (because it was reviewed on Friday as a "little" restaurant rather than a Saturday biggie)! This is quite bizarre. People look at the star rating and then decide whether to read the review. Having spoken with a couple of editors at the Gazette I understand their star system and I disagree with it completely. Also interesting was that a) the place got a great review from La Presse's critic, who works from another firmament (she has been doing this for decades and her plaudits are worthy) and b) the place was packed on a very wet and windy Wednesday night. This indicates that the Gazette reviews risk being irrelevant. That may be even more disturbing.
— Reviewed by Barry Lazar
