Eating out is hard when you’re gluten free. Even with a recent resurgence of heritage grains and healthy rice bowls, it’s really nice to not always be stuck eating at home.
Sure, it’d be nice to go to Patisserie Patrice and buy something gorgeous and flaky and creamy (life’s also hard for dairy free-ers, yes)…but it’s just not going to happen with all that wheat in the air.
Sometimes people tell me that I just shouldn’t eat out, but what about your friend’s birthday dinner at that restaurant she likes? What about your mom’s anniversary dinner out with the whole family? Those aren’t your choice.
And what about brunch? Because goodness knows everyone deserves brunch.
That’s why if I’m going to eat out, I like to go somewhere really, really nice. The upside of never buying my lunch or being able to just stop by somewhere for a quick dinner after work is that I can afford a nice meal. For example, all that extra cash saved means I can splurge on the tasting menu at Fantome. Because chefs at higher-end places are generally more able (and happy) to adapt to dietary to restrictions, I’ve found. It’s also becoming more and more common that they have to do so. Even on multi-course menus where everyone at the table is supposed to get the same plate, I don’t usually have any trouble getting a work-around that’s dairy-free and gluten-free (though I do appreciate how much extra hair-pulling this can involve for the kitchen).
Which is why I’m writing this today – to thank them. And to let other gluten-free people know where they can find a great restaurant meal in Montreal.
Because my biggest pet peeve is when a kitchen does a version of a dish that’s the same as what everyone else at the table got, just without the cheese or the sauce or the bun. It’s not the same dish anymore, and often the best restaurants will refuse to serve you a plate like that, since it diminishes the quality of the dish.
So here’s a run-down of what I recently ate three of Montreal’s most interesting high-end restaurants, Le Fantôme, Candide and HVOR. The menus will be different when you go, but this will give you an idea of the calibre of the kitchens.
LE FANTOME
Le Fantome is tasting menu only. Dinner took 4 hours for something like 7 or 8 courses and the pace was certainly leisurely. Portions are small but the meal is an experience.
It started with a squash amuse bouche on a rice cracker (others got something else, but this was lovely). Don’t forget to eat the rice cracker, which I thought was a bed of salt. It’s not.
Then there was a Jerusalem artichoke and cabbage soup with Jerusalem artichoke peel broth. The earthy flavour of the peels was both a nod to no-waste cooking but also a testament to the value of harnessing the flavours of root vegetables. It tasted like homemade chicken broth, it was so rich. But it was also vegetarian-friendly, as far as I know.
The Caesar salad came with bitter greens including radicchio and lettuces and one gorgeous anchovy fried in potato flour. The dairy-free version came with a white balsamic vinaigrette instead of a creamy dressing, but no complaints here. That was a great substitution.
The next few dishes all flowed together in my mind. There was a small piece of tender lamb. There was a spherified sweet-and-sour one-bite explosion that worked well with the accompanying rich meat (the spherification actually helped the dish and didn’t seem gimmicky. And there was a pork rib with pork jus and apple juice reduction that was super rich and glazed and sweet.
Then there was a ravioli course with crab that I was sad to miss. I got a very rich risotto in chicken jus instead, which was rich and delicious, but was just rice and chicken reduction. It was a very different price point and much less complex, which is what you pay for in a tasting menu this pricey. But I completely understand and respect the substitution because the kitchen didn’t even know I was coming until the day-of, and couldn’t change their ordering, whether or not they should have to do that and go so far out of their way for a single person. (FYI, always call the restaruant in advance, even if you didn’t make the reservation, to let them know of your intolerances or allergies. Your meal will be better and the restaurant will be happier.)
Then dessert: fermented zabaglione. I have no idea what was fermented in this other than the Prosecco. The dish is usually made with sparkling wine, egg yolk and sugar. The result is a light and fluffy and sweet and perfect thing that you happily spoon up mouthful by mouthful. And everyone at the table could eat it because it’s naturally gluten free and dairy free (though not vegan). Everyone could also eat the mango jellies mignardises.
I can’t not mention the wine. We went for by-the-bottle instead of the wine pairing, which would have been 3 tasting glasses of wine.
We took a bottle of the Gavroche Sauvignon from Ludovic Chanson and the red Montesecondo 2014 Sangiovese from Silvio Messana, which were intended for the pairing (so we would get to taste the sommelier’s pairing intentions) and then took a special bottle I’d wanted to try. Everyone loved the Philippe Bornard Point Barre 2013 from the beautiful list below:
Overall, Le Fantome’s kitchen did an amazing job catering to my intolerances and the lactose intolerant friend next to me. I should say, though, that the PB&J foie gras sandwich was wolfed down by everyone else. Since that one was a menu add-on, I didn’t order anything to replace it. I didn’t need it after the four-hours of eating anyway.
HVOR
I came here for the first time when the restaurant had just opened. Prices were lower back then, but the wine pairings were just as interesting and successful. We got the larger tasting menu, which is still very small but was just enough food to satisfy. The wine pairing is generous, to make up for the calories.
Speaking of no-waste, it was a bit funny for a restaurant with its own garden to serve a dish of Brussels sprouts where you hunt for a tiny cube of foie gras in the sprouts still attached to the stem of the plant and then wipe up some of the balsamic on the plate to offset the richness of the fat.
And then you don’t eat the raw vegetable. I hope they compost…
Then there was a salad with crackers so thin they looked like spider’s webs. There were sunflower sprouts and beautiful lettuce. And there was a bunch of Parmesan sprinkled on top. My version came without the crouton and the cheese, and without any replacements. It was a little boring without the dairy and gluten, but the lettuce was nice.
The next course was smoked sturgeon with fennel, horseradish and dill. This was great. The dill was fresh and complemented the smoked fish perfectly. I didn’t get any bite from the horseradish, but the fennel was stellar.
My favourite dish was the octopus with grelot potatoes, fried button tops and what I think was fennel flowers, herbs and mayo. It was creamy, dairy-free comfort with a little crunch from those tiny button tops that are actually plants, I believe (think local fried capers). What I loved most was that there were no changes to the dish necessary to cater to my intolerances.
For the next dish, my dining companions got homemade ravioli. I got a rice bowl. I’m not vegetarian, but I think I got the vegetarian option of the night. For a restaurant that doesn’t have a menu and only makes a couple of dish options per evening, this makes sense to me. Why potentially waste money and food preparing a vegan option and a gluten free option and a vegan and gluten free option and a non-vegetarian gluten-free option? You’re going to end up throwing out more food.
So while the rice bowl was lovely, it was something I could have had at Aux Vivres or made at home. Well, maybe not Aux Vivres. And not everyone pickles their own vegetables. I just happen to do just that, and make ad hoc rice bowls myself fairly often. But HVOR gets points for their eggplants. Aux Vivres but doesn’t make eggplants so deliciously gooey. And those seasonal small, round , white turnips are great. Steamed, though, they joined the kombu, bok choy, sprouts, broccoli and pickled cucumber with gluten-free teriyaki sauce in making me a tiny bit disappointed because of the amount of money we were spending. At $120 with wine pairings, this main course was a very expensive rice bowl. It’s also very hard to match a wine with a vinegar-heavy (pickles) dish. But with a restaurant that varies so much from night to night, having as many successful dishes and pairings as HVOR did is impressive. I’d go back just to see what they come up with next…
CANDIDE
…which is pretty much how I feel about Candide, too.
Our four-course meal from a menu that also changes nightly started with an amazing celery root purée with thick ginger slices, and comforting and tender matsutake mushrooms.
I usually hate celery root – so much so that I actually have written it into my professional food bio as an ingredient that I don’t, well, love. But here, it was perfect. It didn’t overwhelm the rich purée. The whole thing was something you’d want to lap up with a spoon and keep eating for a long time. There was a whole lot of umami going on.
The same was true for the leeks dish that came next with mussels and puréed greens. Those greens…I’ve been eating my own puréed greens from my garden all summer. In fact, I’ve eaten so much puréed amaranth greens that I feel like my digestive tract is lined like Greek dolmades. But these ones…were rich and flavourful.
And those leeks – not mushy or too silken, but tender and sweet. Unadorned. Unadulterated. And the mussels were soft, fresh, large and not overcooked at all.
Then there was a perfectly tender fish dish with a whole lot of sour lingonberry flavour going on. And the kitchen started showing its preference for brightness and acidity. This held over to dessert, which for me included a more-tart-than-sweet strawberry sorbet.
Dinner here was light. Everything was perfectly, carefully plated. The liquid highlight of the night was getting the last bottle of a natural, low- to no-sulfite red wine from the Roussillon called La Luna. It tasted like its label – sunshine and waves and green valleys with all the freshness and ripeness of the happiest day of your life. I felt sorry for everyone else who didn’t get to buy this bottle after me. Well, a little. FYI: Next shipment, 2017, I hear. Fortunately, the rest of the impressive list will more than tide you over.
I should also say that the service (wine service and overall service) was exceptional. The location is stunning – a brick lined restaurant that you have to walk down a half flight of stairs to get into, which gives a feeling of a hidden wine cellar – a secret discovered.
A secret, like the fact that all of these kitchens are more than able to accommodate food intolerances – a testament to their training, creativity and skill. So when you run out of recipes for buckwheat at home, let these guys make you savoury mussels and leaks, lamb and fermented zabaglione.
Then sit back and smile and soak up the sunshine.
Le Fantome
Open for dinner Tues-Sun
1832 rue William, Montreal
HVOR
1414 rue Notre-Dame West, Montreal
Open for dinner Wed-Sun
CANDIDE
551 rue Saint-Martin
Open for dinner Wed-Sun
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