I know exactly when it happened.
It was when I took my first bite of grilled pork chop with sweet pickled cherries. As I chewed, the fat melted in my mouth – like a lighter, more tender duck breast – coating the meat and spreading salt to every point on my tongue that craved it. Then I dug my spoon into the tender white beans and added soft and chewy favas and sweet-and-barely-sour fruit to the mix.
I don’t even eat pork.
Well, maybe four times a year. And only at restaurants that I know use a great product. Nora Gray’s is one of those places. Their pork comes from Lawrence Butcher Shop, the Mile End establishment owned by Sefi Lawrence and Marc Cohen that serves only ethically raised and killed meats. The chickens, ducks, pigs, cows and lambs are usually tastier when they’re less scared and squished in small places, I think. I’d probably be tastier if I wasn’t claustrophobic, too.
Besides, with the melting fat, the pork actually tasted like duck breast, but lighter.
The first taste of the pork, though, actually came with the soft-shell crab. Three pieces of crispy bacon accompanied the corn broth and naturally sweet, seasonal crab (the kitchen definitely has a tally going on how many customers they have to tell that you can eat the whole thing – shell and all). You break off a bit of bacon for every bite of crab, and let the salty meat flavour the seafood.
But the crab is gone now. In its place, chef Emma Cardarelli has roasted cauliflower with cherry tomatoes and marinated capelins – the abundant anchovy-like fish that washes up on the shores of Newfoundland and, presumably, the Gaspé Peninsula. And instead of a homemade rabbit sausage in stuffed fried zucchini blossoms (gluten-free, thanks to the rice flour she uses), it’s fennel sausage stuffed in vegetables with tomato sauce. The homemade rabbit mortadella is gone, but those flowering zucchini finally arrived and are served sliced with spicy garlic and house-made burrata. And I didn’t get to try the cornish hen before it disappeared.
But thank goodness, the pork chop is still there, now served with a peach mostarda and kohlrabi salad. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter. All the generous serving of meat needed was something a little sweet, a little sour and a little savoury to win friends and influence people.
This is not family-style Southern Italian cuisine. It’s not overpriced cocktails and wines. And it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime place. It’s gorgeous platings without the fine dining fuss. Your server will never stick his or her nose up at the person dressed in jeans or the person who decides not to eat the crab shell, though it’s delicious. The same goes for the garlic scapes with the seared halibut and corn relish).
It’s cocktails with that balance bitter and sweet with gin, vodka and amari. Wines that range from private import affordable crowd-pleasers to funky biodynamic and natural Pinot Noir. And it’s inviting yet intimate enough to want to double as a first date restaurant and your go-to neighbourhood place to sit at the bar on a Wednesday night with a plate of al dente black garlic farfalle, scallops and herbs.
Nora Gray
Where: 1391 St-Jacques West, Montreal
When: Tues-Sat 5:30-11:30pm
How much: $80/person with tax, tip and a glass of wine
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