The first time I came to Sala Rosa was on New Year’s Eve about five years ago. I didn’t even know it was a restaurant then. I thought it was just a live music venue, which is still a lot of peoples’ reactions when I tell them it’s the city’s best kept Spanish secret.
My friend ordered mushrooms in sherry, greens in garlic, octopus, sardines, shrimp with garlic and white wine, pork and clams and homemade sausage. Servings were generous, prices were low, and everything was delicious.
So when I heard that one of my favourite Montreal chefs, Jeremiah Bullied, was taking over the kitchen, I was both sad and happy. Sala Rosa had become an institution – though a relatively little-known one, making it a hidden gem of an institution – and I would be sad to see it go. Jeremiah is the former chef of Sparrow restaurant, and while I knew he could cook up killer gastropub fare and ferment one heck of a pickle, I didn’t know what he could do with paella.
And now I do. And I’m glad I do. Because he believes (as I do) that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
His menu of shared items at La Sala Rosa keeps the low prices, the Spanish emphasis on vegetables, and the big flavours. But then he threw in a menu of four paellas, an incredible smoked pepper sauce on his patatas bravas (think gluten free, dairy free Spanish poutine), and some original creations. Sauces and stocks are fresh and homemade in the tiny kitchen behind the bar by just a couple of people pushing out the extensive menu.
Here’s a rundown of some of the menu highlights:
$10 Tortilla española with caramelized onions and pico de gallo (optional chorizo, Manchego or marinated peppers and artichokes for $2 each)
A $9 huge portion of patatas bravas (thick cut fries with pimenton pepper sauce and aioli)
Fried goat cheese with caramelized onions and honey
$12 Platter of pickles and marinated vegetables with cheeses ($18)
$10 Serrano ham
$11 Rapini and kale with garlic, lemon confit and Manchego, baked to just melting
$12 crispy baby whole sardines with aioli
$11 garlic shrimp with white wine
$15 grilled octopus with marinated potatoes, cucumbers, peppers and pimenton
$19 whole trout wrapped in Serrano ham, fried in olive oil with pisto and herbs
And those four made-to-order paellas:
-Black-stained Arroz negro with mussels, shrimp, clams, octopus and cuttlefish ink
-Valençiana with chicken, chorizo, and seafood
-vegetarian white beans, mushrooms, leeks, carrots, tomatoes, peas and peppers
-Mussels, shrimp, clams with peppers, peas and carrots
Boy, I love paella. When it’s done right, the rice chars to the pan and you get that crunchy, crispy edge the whole way around and underneath. The rest of the rice is al dente and the juices of the seafood soak into everything, making it savoury and the tiniest bit naturally sweet. We could have just ordered one paella between us and been full, but instead, we ordered a bunch of other stuff and then still managed to eat a bunch of the paella at the end. The shrimp are even sustainable (most commercially available shrimp are the not recommended ones on the bottom of this list), as most likely are the mussels, clams and octopus.
Here’s that grilled octopus. The marinated peppers and cucumbers were what set it apart. And that pimenton sauce was coupled with a healthy slug of olive oil:
There was no need to gussy up these perfectly fried potatoes in their pimenton sauce and generous dollop of creamy aioli:
I don’t usually eat cheese, but sometimes I can get away with Manchego, which is made from sheep’s milk and is naturally lower in lactose than cow’s milk cheeses. It balanced the bitterness of the kale and rapini perfectly with its mild salty flavour and savoury char from the baking:
The wine menu is also interesting, with a couple dessert-style wines and some sherries I didn’t recognize. And while it’s nothing like Tapas24 in the Old Port (which I love), this is a much more homestyle, casual and affordable alternative in the Mile End. The Tuesday I went, the restaurant was quiet until later in the evening, and all I could think was that it’d be the perfect place for an intimate date, nestled on the 2nd floor of the building above St-Laurent.
A little paella and a little red wine…a little bit of heaven.
La Sala Rosa
4848 St-Laurent
Hours: Tues-Sun 5-11pm (Flamenco show Thurs 8:45pm – as always)
514-844-4227
lasalarosa.com
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