Montreal’s Bar St. Denis: a superb visit
It rarely happens that you have a perfect restaurant and dining experience. Or even near-perfect.
In my time visiting restaurants both casually and as a newspaper restaurant reviewer, I can say that such an experience has happened to me only a few times. But that rare, happy occasion of perfection now includes my recent visit to Bar St. Denis in the Petite Italie neighbourhood of Montreal.
The visit started inauspiciously and somewhat mysteriously, you might say. There isn’t a lot of signage on the restaurant’s exterior: it took us (our Uber driver included) a moment or two to actually find the restaurant and only by virtue of a small orange sign illuminated near a doorway adjacent to a heavily designed but inscrutable front window. Somehow, whether by BSD’s design or not I don’t know, I found the moment of uncertainly perhaps piqued anticipation of what awaited.
Inside, in contrast, BSD is vibrant and in its element to be so. There is a long dining room with kitchen and bar on one side; tables, some communal, are on the other. The bar itself has about a dozen high-top stools that face the bartenders’ mixological activities and the sleek black tile behind them. There’s a flash of brass detailing that perhaps speaks to an earlier era. Above, the ceiling is illuminated warmly. Overall, I’d say there’s an art deco vibe to the room, but whatever label you apply, the atmosphere beneath that ceiling was energetic and invigorating as we settled in at our table.
As for the menu, the optimal approach is to select four or five dishes (or six or seven or eight!) and share. Given the quality of the cooking at BSD, the more the better, I say.
A calamari dish with artichokes (banner image above/Matthieu Goyer) has perfectly tender-cooked squid and a balanced dressing with enough zest to energize the taste buds nicely: it was a terrific dish to start, I guess a sort of surf-and-turf that I could easily see as Sicilian.
Next, crispy puffed rice tops soft raw tuna and is also a perfect balance, while kibbeh tartare sees an eggplant foundation forming a beautifully layered piece of art that yielded scrumptious flavour. Then, a seemingly simple plate of the kitchen’s delicately poached leeks with day lilies in vinaigrette, which proved to be one of the evening’s most satisfying dishes.
When it comes to the meatier proteins, we enjoyed an excellent duck breast accompanied by satiny foie gras tinged nicely with a hint of exterior crispiness that is joined by lobster mushrooms and a light balsamic sauce.
A truly luscious porc vielle is rich in flavour and extremely tender and served with kale and sauce Robert, the classic mustard-based brown sauce of French culinary antiquity. It looked to be a heavy dish but wasn’t at all.
With labneh and tabbouleh also on the menu, there is a decided Middle Eastern inflection to BSD’s cooking which I think gives the restaurant a unique character.
For dessert, we visited Limousin for the thick pancake-like clafoutis. For me, the dish has some personal meaning: my mother-in-law excelled at making a range of clafoutis with a variety of fresh fruits. Add to that the happy fact that this BSD version included Concord grapes from Niagara where my father-in-law grew up on a farm — Concords were his favourite grape. This humble French dish and Bar St. Denis’ rendering of it did the personal connection full justice.
All in all, the BSD kitchen turns out tidy and well-composed dishes that are executed with a simple and clear vision of what they are, without extraneous ingredients or preparations.
I didn’t try any of the bar’s interesting cocktails, but I was happy to be able to enjoy an Okanagan B.C. wine, a Pinot Noir from Sage Hills. We also sipped a unique after-dinner drink: a Colombard vin muté Armagnac from Château de Léberon. The process of mutage apparently arrests fermentation by an addition of a dose of alcohol, often an eau de vie. Sweet, bitter, savoury, it was a solid way to end a meal which brought together some of the best of Canada and France.
At the end of the day — and at the end of the meal — the evening at BSD truly made its mark by virtue of our waitress’s exceptional service and personality: she was attentive and professional, knowledgeable and engaging — and just plain fun to spend an evening with as she created an excellent food-and-wine experience at our table and with those diners around us.
There are, obviously, a lot of excellent restaurants in Montreal — BSD is both Michelin-designated and highly placed on Canada’s 100 Best — but given the rarity of this fine experience, I would visit again in a heartbeat. Especially now that I know exactly where it is.
