4669 rue Saint-Denis, Montréal | Tel. (514) 285-4444 | Website
ome restaurants arrive with a bang, others with a børp. This one softly whistled its way to my heart. The three bouchons, Audrey Dufresne, Xavier Burini and Michel Charette, brought home and country back to the streets of the Plateau.
Located six feet below street level, the bistro has all one really needs to survive a long Montreal winter underground: warmth, smiling faces, wine bottles everywhere, a Japo-Scandinavian wood look, and soft Sadeesque music.
Stocked with an affordable collection of bottles, the bar's French wines are hand-picked from very interesting vineyards. The whites range from 25 to about 50 dollars, and the reds from 30 to 55, with few exceptions. If you want big names on your bottles, this is not the place for you. But if you want to discover original VDTs (vin de table) or wines produced by small vintners in France, you will be in enological heaven. We sampled a white Alsace from Christian Binner and a red Languedoc from Pierre Cros, both quite interesting.
The king eryngii mushroom next to its duck
Joseph and Christian Binner run a 6-hectare vineyard in the hills just outside Colmar. From production to sales, all is completely run by the family. The wine we picked was an Edelzwicker, a name that covers a mix of Alsatian grapes -- in this case, Riesling, Pinot Gris and Muscat. Binner's Edelzwicker is a shiny yellow-colored wine which advertises itself as preppy, fruity and eager long before your nose hits the glass. Slightly acidic, it fits almost any appetizer.
I am a sucker for names, and Pierre Cros's Les Mal Aimés ($41) was too much to resist. In fact, labeled as a VDT, I was not expecting much beyond the name. Grown almost under the medieval walls of Carcassonne in Badens, this wine too is a composition of several grapes on Cros's property: 40% Aramon, 30% Alicante, 20% Piquepoul Noir and 10% Carignan. The result is a fiery red, a survivor of hot arid Languedoc summers, able to defend the tricolore against any kind of meat.
So, on to the equally affordable food, lovingly chalked on several blackboards throughout the bare bar. New items are scratched or added on the fly. For example, towards the end of the evening, the kitchen had run out of confit de canard (duck), and it was promptly replaced on the wall menus by deer. Deer is not moose, my Swedish guests noted.
Swedes are known for picking mushrooms in damp forests. It's what they do in their spare time when they run out of Norwegian jokes. The hospitals there are stocked with mushroom antidotes. Every year, they still manage to lose a few vikings to delicacies like amanita phalloide (phallic death cap mushroom) though, but it is still unclear whether the amanita or the phalloid is killing them.
Three genetically hardened Swedish survivors joined us chez Bouchons. One of them immediately went for the Tartine de champignons ($10), a rich appetizer of glistening fungi. Yümmi. Verri güüt.
The blond Swedish beauty across the table joined me for a confit de canard. This is Restospy's secret test dish, because it is easy to make it too dry or salty. Not here. Our duck arrived with its juicy coat all spread out over the dish as if to protect its babies from les invasions barbares. I felt guilty lifting its coat, and even more so when I discovered a baby sumo wrestler called Pak Choi flirting with a plump king oyster mushroom, who uses the aliases King Eryngii and King Trumpet.
That single mushroom made my night. Originally from southern Europe, it is now finding its way onto the Canadian tables past fungus-sniffing dogs at Dorval airport. The Japanese reportedly adore it because the texture and taste is like that of scallops. The combination with the tender duck and some minigrapes made my companion go verriii güüt. We are talking gold medal duck in Canardville.
The soups and several other dishes are served in oversized bowls designed by well-known Ikea artist H. Üngrihikk. They (the bowls, not the Swedish blonde) can hold three Swedish lumberjacks and two medium-sized Lapps, but they are overkill for the delicately creamy scallop and foie gras soup ($15) or the süüperr red snapper (vivaneau, $20) aswim in a ragü of cürri and coco.
Only happy noises and a few mushroom breaths emigrated from the Bothnic Sea side of my table. One of their other favorites was the ceviche of red snapper ($12), cut up in the shape of a fish, and brightly colored by red grapefruit slices and pomegranate seeds. A feast for the eye as well as the stomach.
The Swedish guy was told that Bouchons refuses to serve müüs, so he settled for beef tartare ($12) as an appetizer and joue de veau (cheek of veal, $20) for his main dish. Marbled and tender, that is how he described his cheeks. He licked his plate but did not kiss the chef. Swedes never kiss chefs.
Among the desserts, my eye fell on the gâteau chômeur, a cake for the unemployed, priced at $4.50, just below the minimum wage. I had expected a mix of bread and pudding, but this was much more intricate and juicy. There was a hint of liqueur, a whiff of something fruity, and a crème brûlée style cover.
Conclusion? Nothing this fancy has ever been served north of Kattegat. Except, of course, by the Swedish chef himself. Børk, børk, børk.
Dinner for six, tax included, came to $293. We will be back. -- Reviewed by RestoSpy
