Montreal Journal: Au Pied de Cochon

 

Although we would have but two evenings in Montreal, one restaurant from our last visit impressed us enough that we were determined to go again: Au Pied de Cochon, literally “The Pig’s Foot.”

Chef Martin Picard has a cult following that almost any chef would envy. I cannot find a single negative review of the place. Maybe it’s because Picard is bribing diners with the most fattening foods imaginable, and serving them in eye-popping combinations no one else would dream of.

I wrote a fairly detailed eGullet post the last time we visited, so  I won’t repeat the background. The only thing that’s new since then is that Martin Picard now has his own cookbook. Like everything else at Au Pied de Cochon, Picard did it his own way, and published the book himself.

And the restaurant is, if anything, even harder to get into. We booked our table a few weeks in advance, but all they could offer me on a Saturday evening was 6:00 p.m., and we had to vacate the table by 8:00. This didn’t deter us: for all of the restaurant’s charms, it is really not a place to linger. The space is cramped, loud, and not especially comfortable.

We had the same server as last time, and once again he advised that an appetizer to share would probably be ample, given the vast portion sizes. I didn’t take note of our wine selection, but the list seemed more expensive than last time. We settled on a respectable red for $65.

We started with the Plogue à Champlain ($23; above), a hunk of foie gras with a buckwheat pancake, bacon, onions, potatoes, and maple syrup. The server explained that a friend of Picard had served this to him at breakfast, and he was so thunderstruck that he added it to the restaurant’s menu. And it was good enough to make you think that God made foie gras and maple syrup to be eaten together every morning.

 
Pot-au-feu ($60) is one of the few dishes actually advertised as being a portion for two. It’s traditionally a fairly humble dish, but you can count on Picard to spruce it up with foie gras, prairie oysters, and Guinea Hen, along with typical ingredients like boiled beef, bone marrow, and vegetables. We thought that the beef and vegetables turned out especially well, while the Guinea Hen didn’t really repay the effort to pry off the bone what little meat was left.

When we visit Montreal, there’s always a feeling of “so many restaurants…so little time.” But with much of the menu at Au Pied de Chochon still unexplored, it will probably still be a must-visit the next time we come to Montreal.

Au Pied de Cochon (536, rue Duluth Est, Montreal)

Food: **
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: **

Montreal Journal: La Chronique

 
Interior shot (left); Chefs Marc de Canck and Olivier de Montigny (right)

My girlfriend and I spent a fun long weekend in Montreal last year. We enjoyed it so much that she suggested a return visit to celebrate my birthday. The question was: where to eat? Last time, we had a terrific meal at Toqué, and we wanted another meal in that class. An eGullet contributor suggested La Chronique.

The restaurant, located well apart from the central business district, occupies a fairly humble-looking space that belies the ambitious food. Belgian chef Marc de Canck has been at the helm since it opened in March 1995, joined more recently by his assistant Olivier de Montigny. It has garnered a mention in various international publications, including a favorable write-up from New York Times critic Eric Asimov in 1999.

The à la carte menu offers appetizers from CA$15–25 and entrées $34–45; there are only about half-a-dozen of each. We chose the seven-course degustation for $100 per person, with wine pairings another $50 or $100 (we had the latter). The explanations of the wines were unusually detailed, extending at times to full-blown tasting notes à la Wine Spectator.

I present the menu selections and paired wines below in French, followed in each case by our notes: 

 

La mise en bouche en surprise du moment [above left]

La Lotte farcie de homard, crème de ptd et pois verts à la truffe [above right]
France, Saint-Aubin 1^er Cru Les Frionnes, Hubert Lamy 2004

The amuse-bouche was a small daub of gravlax with crème fraîche. The first appetizer was a fairly complex presentation of monkfish stuffed with lobster, with a potato foam, green peas, and purple basil. The lobster had a nice sweeness, balanced by peach and almond notes in the paired wine.

 

Bar de ligne rôti, ravioli d’artichauts et sa vinaigrette tiède aux tomates séchées [above left]
France, Sancerre, Les Culs De Beaujeu, François Cotat 2005

La noix de ris de veau aux cèpes, foie gras et courge musquée [above right]
Amerique, Santa Rita Hills, Foley Pinot noir, Foley Estate 2005

Next came artichoke ravioli with red peppers and dried tomatoes, accompanied by the very smooth François Cotat Sancerre, which offered hints of grapefruit, green tea, aged in oak. I’m no great fan of artichokes, but I could appreciate the artistry of the dish.

After that, sweetbreads and foie gras in a chocolate and butternut squash purée. If you put so many ideas into one dish, the result could very well be mush. Instead, our note at the time was: “This is incredible.” The accompanying pinot noir offered hints of cherry and vanilla.

 

Le duo de boeuf Angus, endive caramélisée et girolles [above left]
Italie, Bolgheri, Ornellaia, Tenuta san Giudo 2002

Le plateau de fromages fermiers d’ici et d’ailleurs [above right]
Italie, Monferrato Rosso, Pin, La Spinetta 2003

The last savory course was a filet of black angus beef, with a braised beef tail, braised endive, onion, and veal jus. This seemed less memorable than some of the other dishes. The accompanying Italian wine came with a tasting note that almost defied detection by mere mortals: black olives, leather, plum, blackcurrant, strawberry, and cherries.

The server brought around a cheese platter, from which we chose six, all of which were wonderful, including a couple of unpasteurized cheeses that could not legally be served in the U.S.. The tasting note for the wine: tobacco, coffee, chocolate, red fruits, and blackcurrant. 

La clafoutis aux pêches, caramel salé et glace vanille
France, Barsac-Sauternes 1^er Cru, Château Climens 1995

Dessert was a light pastry with peaches, salted caramel, and vanilla ice cream, along with a sauterne. Tasting note: pineapple, mango, fig, and honey.

Service throughout was first-rate, and the timing of the courses—always tricky with a tasting menu—was just about right. The food at La Chronique has a bit less of the “wow” factor than at Toqué, but it must surely be one of the top handful of dining experiences in Montreal.

La Chronique (99 rue Laurier Ouest, Montreal)

Food: ***
Service: **½
Ambiance: **
Overall: **½

The Payoff: Tailor

This week, Frank Bruni concluded the review cycle for Sam Mason’s Tailor, awarding a very weak one star. Although a one-star rating supposedly means “good,” this was one of those reviews that actually sounded like it meant “not-so-good”:

Mr. Mason’s personal vision trumps your pleasure. His conviction matters more than your response. This, I suppose, is the very definition of artistic integrity. But it’s not the prescription for a great restaurant.

Tailor is certainly an ambitious restaurant, and an interesting one. It has the courage to showcase the kind of experimental cooking — eccentric, provocative flavor combinations; unusual textures like foams, powders and that most appetizing of au courant coinages, “soils” — that’s been a tough sell in New York…

Mr. Mason, who made his name as the pastry chef at WD-50, belongs to a group of brainy iconoclasts (Will Goldfarb, Pichet Ong) who are challenging the usual segregation of savory and sweet. At Tailor, for example, the ice cream with a rum-braised banana is the flavor of mustard, and not even honey mustard at that.

But his infatuation with his own imagination doesn’t leave room enough for a self-appraisal of the results, for dissent from collaborators who might flag the foolhardy creations among the clever. Tailor winds up with an intermittently exhilarating but ultimately frustrating mishmash of the two.

Bruni’s review came late enough to take notice of recent menu changes at Tailor, but those changes are too new to evaluate. Ultimately, Tailor could turn out to be a much better restaurant, but for now it is saddled with a bunch of reviews that are largely mixed to negative.

Eater and NYJ both win $3 on our hypothetical one-dollar bets.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$58.50		$67.67
Gain/Loss	+3.00		+3.00
Total	$61.50		$70.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	25–8		25–8

Rolling the Dice: Tailor

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Tailor, the first solo venture of the offbeat former WD–50 pastry chef, Sam Mason. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 6-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 750-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: It has been a rough ride for Tailor. Mason’s first mistake was chronicling his project in a Grub Street featurette called The Launch, thereby guaranteeing that the inevitable delays would make him look foolish, and ensuring the the restaurant would be so over-hyped that it could never live up to expectations.

Then the reviews started coming in, and frankly, no critic yet has been wowed. Indeed, the two stars I gave it might even have been too generous. The problem was a menu limited to about half-a-dozen smallish savory courses and an equal number of desserts. When you give the customer so few options, practically all of them need to be knockouts. And that’s a tough mark to hit when you’re playing with flavors in funky ways that people aren’t used to.

According to Tailor’s eGullet supporters, the menu has grown, which may be too little, too late. Bruni’s impressions will likely have been based on the original menu, which in the view of most critics, didn’t offer enough for a serious restaurant. The best items on Tailor’s menu are surely worth two stars (if not more), but too many of Mason’s best ideas are still in his head.

Eater is taking the one-star odds today, which seems smart. Bruni seldom rates a place higher than the rest of his colleagues, and he has been no great fan of avant-garde cuisine.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award one star to Tailor.

The Payoff: Harry Cipriani

Harry Cipriani sucks. Who knew? Today, Frank Bruni uncorks just the second POOR rating of his tenure:¹

Over the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July.

But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery…

and:

But what I remember most vividly about that particular night is the potatoes. And I hasten to add that I’m taking it on faith that they were potatoes.

That’s what they visually suggested, those desiccated yellow-beige coins that had somehow acquired the texture of Brillo and could almost have been used to scrub whatever pan they had emerged from.

We might well have expected this takedown, if only an online price list had been available. $66.95 for sirloin? $36.95 for lasagna? And what’s with those prices that end in “.95” when dinner costs as much as a car payment? The word that comes to mind is tacky.

Eater and NYJ both thought that Frank Bruni would award one star, and we both lose a dollar.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$59.50		$68.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		–1.00
Total	$58.50		$67.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	24–8		24–8

¹ In the New York Times system, there are three ratings below one star: Satisfactory, Fair, and Poor. Bruni’s other Poor was Ninja, and he has never issued a “Fair” rating. He gives out around a half-dozen satisfactories per year.

Rolling the Dice: Harry Cipriani

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Harry Cipriani, the home of Italian cuisine for Upper East Side lovelies with trust funds, and also home to the worst restaurant website in the Western World. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: It seems the Bruni is running out of new restaurants to look at, as this is his second re-review in three weeks. He thought to himself, “What do my readers want? [Pause for reflection.] Aha! I have it! An Italian restaurant.” So for what feels like the 40th time this year, Bruni is reviewing his favorite cuisine.

The Times last reviewed Harry Cipriani in May 1991, when Bryan Miller awarded two stars. When Bruni re-reviews, there’s usually a rating change. No one has suggested that Harry Cipriani has gotten better in the last sixteen years, and lately its owners have been more worried about a conviction for tax evasion than with running a restaurant.

I can’t find an online menu, but even in 1991 most entrées were priced above $30. At those prices, Bruni demands excellence, and he probably won’t find it here. I agree with Eater that the Four Seasons, which Bruni demoted to two stars, and which is the better restaurant, sets the ceiling that Harry Cipriani cannot pierce. On top of that, Bruni has awarded two stars recently to L’Impero and Insieme, and he won’t rate Harry Cipriani equal to those standouts.

Will it fall all the way to zero? It would be a very real possibility, but for one thing: it’s Italian food, which means Bruni surely will find something to love.

The Bet: We agree with Eater that Frank Bruni will award one star to Harry Cipriani.

L'Impero

 

Note: L’Impero closed on June 29, 2008, re-opening in mid-July as Convivio.

L’Impero is the Italian restaurant that put chef Scott Conant on the map, when in 2002 Eric Asimov awarded three stars—a remarkable accomplishment for a non-Italian chef. Three years later, Conant and his partners created Alto, which was supposed to be the next step up. Asimov liked it, but Frank Bruni, the man in charge of the stars these days, did not. He gave Alto a disappointing two stars in 2005, finding it “haute and bothered.”

Conant and the two restaurants parted company in 2007, with Michael White (formerly of Fiamma) taking over. This gave Bruni the chance to correct his mistake, and Alto was finally given the three stars it deserved in the first place. But the laws of Newtonian Mechanics as applied to restaurants dictate that every star given must be taken away, so L’Impero was simultaneously demoted to two stars.

To be sure, L’Impero needs to work harder for our affections. It’s located in a small elevated enclave called Tudor City on the far east side, a block west of the United Nations. It’s not convenient to mass transit, and if you’re walking (as I was) you could very well miss it. When Tudor City was built in the 1920s, there were slaughterhouses on the land the U.N. now occupies, which is why the three-square-block area is so isolated. Today, it seems like a city within a city.

The décor gives the impression that it’s about twenty years too old. Bruni found it “lugubrious,” while my sense was that I’d missed a party that was hip and cool a long, long time ago. The pleated curtains along the wall could use a spring cleaning; the light blue chairs are comfortable, but decidedly un-stylish.

The staff at L’Impero provide generally fine service, but they could use some polish. When a runner dropped off the amuse-bouche, his description was almost incomprehensible (except that it was a sweetbread something-or-other). We were twice asked for our wine order, even though we didn’t yet have menus in our hands, and didn’t know what we’d be eating. After I chose a wine, the server instantly replied, “Oh, we’re out of that.” However, the wine steward suggested a substitute at around the same price, and then decanted it.

The dinner menu is available à la carte, or $64 for four courses. Judging by the portion sizes we saw, you’d better have a big appetite if you order the prix fixe.  If ordered separately, all menu categories are quite reasonable for the quality and quantity given: antipasti are $14–17, pastas $23–27, entrées $29-42 (most in the low $30s). In contrast, the four-course prix fixe at Alto is $79, and the top prices there are all proportionately higher.

 
Amuse-bouche (left); Polenta with house-made pork sausage (right)

We started with a grilled sweatbread, which was more substantial than one normally gets in an amuse-bouche. Creamy soft polenta ($15) topped with a house-made pork sausage ragu and pecorino cheese was rather unmemorable. But substitute orecchiette for polenta, and you’ve got the pasta dish my girlfriend ordered ($24), which was the hit of the evening.

Loin and sausage of lamb (left); Dry aged beef (right)

Both of the entrées we chose were unadventurous, but impeccably prepared. I had the loin and sausage of lamb ($34). My girlfriend had the dry-aged beef ($42), which was that rare example of beef outside a steakhouse that is actually worth ordering.

Despite the slightly inconvenient location, L’Impero appeared to be doing well. The restaurant was full on a Friday night, with a good mix of young people and Upper East Side elders. Just about everything we had was prepared to a high level, but the pasta stole the show.

L’Impero (45 Tudor City Place at 42nd Street, Tudor City)

Food: **½
Service: **½
Ambiance: **
Overall: **½

Soto

Kalina via Eater

I’m late to the party with a review of Soto, the new Sushi temple in Greenwich Village. Nearly all of the critics in town have already weighed in with the most enthusiastic reviews of the season so far. Ed Levine found it possibly “the best Japanese restaurant in New York” (though he admitted he’s not tried several of the major candidates), and Frank Bruni awarded a fairly enthusiastic two stars. Adam Platt was the only mildly dissenting voice, finding it “good but not fabulous.”

Soto’s menu of composed sushi plates (top) and cooked items (bottom)Sotohiro Kosugi served his inventive omakase for eleven years in an Atlanta strip mall, drawing a nationwide reputation before deciding to try his hand on New York’s grander stage. He engaged Hiromi Tsuruta (Momofuku, Jewel Bako) to design the space in a Sixth Avenue storefront so unassuming that you could quite easily walk right by without realizing it is a restaurant.

The menu, reprinted daily, has two pages of composed dishes, half of them from the sushi bar, the other half from the kitchen. They’re anywhere from $10–28, with most around $18–20. You won’t get out of Soto cheaply, as it takes at least four or five of these to make up a full meal.

The composed items vary quite a bit in size, and we were somewhat on our own to figure out how much to order. The back page of the menu has standard sushi pieces and rolls at standard prices, and I agree with Frank Bruni that these are competent, but unremarkable.

Levine reported an omakase, which ran $300 for two (tax and tip included), but when I visited last week, the menu stated that the restaurant “will be serving our Tasting course and Pre fixe [sic] menu in the future.” So we ordered à la carte, a mixture of the composed plates and standard sushi items.

Top marks go to uni ika sugomori zukuri, a sea urchin wrapped in thinly sliced squid and shiso, served with a quail egg and soy reduction. My colleagues and I agreed this was the dish of the evening, if not the dish of the century, though it is $24 and was gone after a few bites. We also loved salmon citrus, which offered cured fresh Scottish salmon on a scallion pancake in citrus sauce, but again, it was $18 for only a few bites. Among the hot dishes, tempura ($18) was light and delicate, and with six pieces one of the better values on the menu.

The standard sushi items were, as I have mentioned, unmemorable. However, the back page did offer a terrific Tuna Tartare roll ($16), made with asian pear, cucumber, avocado, sesame, and pine nuts, with a visually striking wrap of white kep.

Service was first-rate, with fresh plates delivered with every course, and all of the composed dishes were presented beautifully. However, those dishes are labor-intensive, and there were often long pauses between courses. The wine list, as you’d expect, has an ample selection of sakes, but oddly enough, just as many Western wines. We selected a sake, of course, and the server ensured our glasses stayed full—which served our purpose, as well as hers.

I found the space somewhat sterile, but it certainly didn’t matter once the food started grabbing our attention. I’d love to come back and explore more of the menu, but I must say that at these prices it will have to wait until I am in the mood to splurge.

Soto (357 Sixth Avenue between Washington Place and W. 4th Street, Greenwich Village)

Food: **½
Service: **½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: **½

The Payoff: Pamplona

Today, Frank Bruni awards two stars to Pamplona:

The publicity pitch and chatter that attended the transformation of the not-so-old restaurant Ureña into the not-exactly-new restaurant Pamplona boiled down to something like this: the chef Alex Ureña gets real…

Pamplona is Ureña with an attitude adjustment, and I emphasize the word adjustment. Mr. Ureña hasn’t wholly reinvented the restaurant or himself. He’s still interpreting Spanish cuisine, and — lucky for us — still indulging his fanciful impulses.

Bruni has never been a fan of fine dining, so I’m not surprised that chef Alex Ureña managed to hold onto two stars, despite dialing down the ambitions of the restaurant. Bruni’s two stars are consistent with my own impression, when I visited a couple of weeks ago.

The Eater oddsmakers are seldom off by much, but today’s review was an exception, with Eater actually offering better odds on zero stars than two. On our hypothetical $1 bets, New York Journal wins $5 at 5–1 odds, while Eater loses a dollar. And for the first time in quite a while, NYJ’s won–lost record has caught up with Eater’s.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$60.50		$63.67
Gain/Loss	–1.00		+5.00
Total	$59.50		$68.67
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	24–7		24–7

Rolling the Dice: Pamplona

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank Bruni reviews Pamplona, the downmarket follow-up to the wonderful, but alas unsuccessful, Ureña. The Eater oddsmakers have set the action as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 4-1
One Star: 2-1 √√
Two Stars: 5-1
Three Stars: 50-1
Four Stars: 25,000-1

The Skinny: Bruni loved the food at Pamplona’s predecessor, Ureña, awarding two stars. Like almost everyone else, he hated the ambiance. I don’t have a photographic memory for décor, but when I visited it certainly seemed like the space had been spruced up a bit. Against that, the food is no longer as ambitious as it was, though it is still a cut above your run-of-the-mill tapas bar.

This situation will leave Señor Bruni in a quandary. If he awards two stars again, it implies that the dumbing down of the food doesn’t matter. But if he awards one star, he condemns Pamplona to the ratings never-never-land, for despite the nominal definition, one star never truly means good. This is one of those days when Bruni probably wishes he could award half-stars.

The Eater oddsmakers have concluded that a review at the low end of one star is a virtual certainty, offering just 2–1 odds on that outcome, and rating the chance of zero stars higher than two. I think Bruni will be truly torn between one and two stars here. He adored Ureña’s cooking the last time, and he is always rooting for earnest family-owned restaurants to succeed.

The Bet: We’re on the fence here, and wouldn’t mind if we were pulled away from blogging by an emergency phone call, which would spare us from having to place a bet. But place one we will, on two stars.