Restaurant: L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon Montreal

If you want to see last year’s L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon recap HERE.

Located in the Casino de Montreal, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is tucked in a little downstairs corner accessible by elevators at one end of the casino. Different from last year is how it was bustling and full of action this time with tons of customers there. After last year’s experience, I was a little more knowledgeable about how to approach this year’s dinner so was a little less ambitious. If you had seen last year’s dinner, it took well over 3 hours, this wasn’t really that much more different.

In terms of decor, there wasn’t much change. I’m back at the same time after all so I do wonder if the decor changes especially in the display case with the seasons. Maybe one day, I’ll go not in autumn.

Green Tea

Due to the rainy weather outside and a rather under the weather feeling like a cold was creeping in, I ended up vouching to get a green tea. This is a Japanese green tea recommended by the waitress for us. It tasted great. I don’t usually drink Japanese green tea but this one definitely was a treat.

Bread

The breads here are also quite good. This time, we had the baguette one the left and the bacon and mustard braid on the right. Not shown here but my friend got two other ones which had dairy products in it. One was a flaky cheese one I believe and I can’t remember the other one right now.

Amuse Bouche

A refreshing starter amuse-bouche to kick things off. Tonight’s starter, the dairy free option, I assume since my friend got something different but he also had the 7 or 9 course seasonal discovery tasting menu. This amuse-bouche is a eggplant topped on one side with a red pepper and the other one is topped with a zucchini (or maybe eggplant) chip? I can’t remember anymore. But I can tell you that it tasted really good. I’m not much of an eggplant fan. I really just eat it for its health benefits on a daily basis but this was really lovely.

Tasting Portion Dishes

Like I said in the beginning, last year’s tasting menu traumatized me to my core. Not that the food wasn’t good but the duration and the sheer amount was just way over what I could handle. So this year, I went a different route. I asked the suggestion of the waitress to tell me what would be a good approach and she gave me a very accurate one of taking 3 tasting portion which should be enough and went along with her knowledge and suggested the ones that she knew could be modified to be dairy-free or already was dairy-free. With that I chose three (with her help):

Le Homard

Le Homard – Lobster over mashed avocado tart  and pomegranate arils

My first choice when I first saw my choices was this one. Avocado tart and pomegranate and lobster all sounds so fresh and delicious. From the presentation to the delicious balance of flavors to just the crispy different texture of the pomegranate seeds and little bits and the crunchy fresh vegetables and the lobster was such a delight. Not to mention of course the creamy avocado tart base.

La Morue Noire

La Morue Noire – Stewed Black Cod with “Malabar” peppercorn, baby spinach

The star of the show, my friends. I picked this one because the waitress highly recommended it. Normally, this one would have a frothy creamy coconut foam. Mine is just coconut sans the cream for the obvious lactose intolerance issue. With that said, this dish is absolutely heavenly. I kid you not, the cod is done so perfectly.

L’Agneau

L’Agneau – Quebec lamb ribs with eggplant and lemon pulp confit caviar

Talking about the final dish in my selection is the lamb. I’m starting to realize that I have a tendency to get lamb whenever I go out, mostly because I wouldn’t eat it at home. This was done the perfect doneness. The eggplant caviar as they call it is really delicious along with the eggplant chips which are both very good. Paired up with the lemon pulp, it worked so well together. The only thing I wasn’t a big fan of based on personal preference is the date puree thing. I’m personally not a fan of dates so it didn’t quite appeal to me. Overall, the whole dish worked together really well.

Dessert

La Bulle – Blown sugar ball with coconut cream, fresh coriander sorbet

The original La Bulle is made with yuzu lemon in the menu. However, this version is dairy-free version so its made with coconut cream. I have to say that the coriander sorbet is somewhat of an acquired taste that took a moment to get used to but it cuts through the sweetness from the coconut so it works out well.

Overall, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon Montreal is a great dining experience. It offers fantastic cuisine, comfortable ambiance, flexible with their dishes to accommodate allergens as well as great service. Its honestly one of the restaurants that I love going to. It is quite pricey but worth every penny.

MTL a Table: Restaurant Verses in Nelligan Hotel (Old Montreal)

Next up on our food adventures was just two days later on a Monday evening after work to a restaurant relatively close to my work place! The next few are all in Old Montreal actually, now that I think about it.

Restaurant Verses offers French cuisine and the menu looks relatively decent. I’m a little nervous about a few parts of it but it does also say that it’ll offer other options (which they did).  The menu had extra options in both the 1st and 2nd service.

Excuse the blurry photos.  The lighting here gave me a lot of issues with the focus on my phone.  I’m taking my DSLR for the next two.

MTL a Table: Restaurant Verses

Cocktails

La Marronnier & Dolce Vita

I had the Dolce Vita and its a mix of Amaretto, Captain Morgan spiced rum, pineapple juice, egg white, cinnamon, “bitter fumé”.  It tasted absolutely awesome.  It wasn’t too sweet or too sour and it had a nice balanced flavor. My friends had the other one. I believe they said the espresso bits were mostly for taste and it had a peculiar taste.  Not sure if thats a good or bad thing.

Chef’s bonus: something to do with bison, radish, gravlax (I think), and mayonnaise

1st service

New fashion fish soup

Beef gravlax, chocolate truffle, brioche

Mushroom ravioli

I had the New Fashion Fish Soup.  So okay, this time we hit a little bit of a snag.  This soup has a few seafood bits, I think gravlax and fish mousse.  Fish mousse was put to the side because it has cream in it so I didn’t want to risk it. The soup itself had a peculiar taste between being salty and bitter in a way.  However, with the gravlax bits, it tasted a lot more balanced.  My friend tried the fish mousse with the soup and said it balanced it also.  I’m guessing if I didn’t have to remove the fish mousse and had the soup as a whole, it would taste a whole lot better.

I also took a little tasting of the beef gravlax and it had a really refreshing texture that I liked quite a bit. My friend found the chocolate truffle a little too sweet but she also enjoyed the beef gravlax.

2nd service

Icelandic cod, cipollini, passion fruit, carmelized apples, baby potatoes, Sherry veal jus

Mac n Cheese with orzo, peas, mascarpone

Honey and thyme butter glazed sweetbread, root vegetables, potatoes, juniper berries

I had the Icelandic cod and it was done so good.  The fish was cooked perfectly and especially tender.  The sauce was a nice mix.  It did feel a little schizophrenic with the flavors.  There were some bits where the pepper was really strong and then some where it was rather salty.  The fish and the sauce on top was great.  The veggies were fine.

I had a little tasting of the sweetbread as well.  My friends compared it to this sweet and sour pork while it did taste a bit like eating some sort of liver that I had tasted before. Its not a bad blend.  The glaze tastes really good.  Its just the texture of the meat makes me hesitate but that is a personal preference.

Finally, the Mac n’ Cheese was something I couldn’t try but my friend couldn’t finish it. It wasn’t that it was not good but rather that it was a little heavy.  Her guess was it was a mix of cheese.  Instead of macaroni, it was orzo (which I find usually fills me up quicker). Plus, there was mascarpone which is rather heavy in itself. I know that from before my lactose-intolerance days.

3rd service

Deconstructed carrot cake

Pear and chocolate sponge

Strawberryand lime sorbet with assorted berries

For our last service, we’re at the desserts.  I had my lovely extra choice because of lactose intolerance issues yet again.  The mixed sorbet and berries was awesome. The raspberry was really sour but every thing else was great. My friends always choose the opposite to make sure to taste more of the menu. They all have wonderful appearances.  Not a lot of feedback about how it all tasted though.

Overall…

The restaurant is very lovely situated on St Paul street which is where a lot of activities go on and right behind the Basilique Notre Dame. The set up and the seating was very comfortable.  The service was extremely thorough.  They made the effort to try to accommodate to my allergies as much as possible and remembered to mark down everyone’s allergies to make sure even a slight chance of it being in our food would be eliminated. The meal itself (at least mine) was really nice.  The cod was definitely the best part of the entire meal. The service is a little slow and relaxing.  We spend almost 3 hours for dinner.  We did take a bit of time to order but it still took longer than I had expected.