It was a pretty busy restaurant week for me in late November.

I was asked to come up with reasonably-priced crowd-pleasing dining alternatives but since I am now somewhat out of touch with the local dining scene after several years as a road warrior, that was a bit more of a challenge than it should have been. I did eventually cobble something together that did surprise me by being well balanced and fairly representative of the current local eating trends.

So, after starting with the group outing among the hip, slim eco-conscious wine-swilling locavores, things finished off with dinner at an establishment which started off life just over five years ago as a restaurant concept originally conceived by apparent lactation fetishists. Yes, that’s right: La Montée, the eatery formerly known as “La Montée de Lait” (rough translation: the ‘coming in’ of the [breast] milk).

Pretty odd thing, this restaurant. When I first visited its original incarnation, it was when a Vancouverite friend came to visit in the cold (just a balmy -22ºC evening). In its current form, I visited with someone who had made the trek from northern New Jersey (the nicer half of the state) and someone who drives even greater distances than I do to get to the southern apple fields. And while it wasn’t quite -22ºC, it was still fairly uncomfortable in its own right (we won’t speak about the traffic atrocities on the bridges).

The restaurant was originally located within the Plateau (roll eyes now) and was essentially a hole in the wall on the north-east corner of Villeneuve and Drolet. They focused on the food and the wine, but “primitive” is a charitable description for the ambiance. After a shaky start (and following one post that showed up on eGullet), things started rolling for them to the point where they were constantly booked solid. Great thing, especially as they were really trying to make a success of their hole in the wall homage to la leche. Not so great thing as a combination of constant “nous sommes pleins”, Napoleon and travel meant I wouldn’t visit again.

Last autumn, the owners shortened its name to La Montée, pulled up stakes and headed downtown to take up residence in the space next to McKibbon’s Irish Pub. New name, new location, still a pretty good time. Well, perhaps somewhat of an understatement as it was a good enough time that we actually wound up closing the place (and on a school night to boot).

Dinner

When they first opened, the restaurant’s menu was a small plate format offering 4 plates for $40. Four savory dishes or four desserts or any combination thereof - didn’t matter what was chosen. The menu changed regularly, but it was always this format and every dish contained a milk element to play off the restaurant’s original name (I did say it was a dream eatery concept of lactation fetishists). I still remember my meal:

• “fish and chips” – salt marinated salmon served as tempura with marinated celery and fresh tartar sauce
• seared scallops with lentils and chorizo and a spoon of fresh yogurt (I skipped the yogurt)
• veal sweetbreads wrapped in Bayonne ham on julienned yellow and orange bell peppers
• roasted pineapple with a vodka-spiked ice cream

Almost five years later, the menu still follows the small plate format, but the milk gimmick has long since disappeared. Offerings now go from three (amuse-bouche + 2 options) to six plates (amuse-bouche, 4 options, dessert) with and without wine pairings, with the menu changing elements weekly.

What I did discover is that the milk element hasn’t been completely banished, but now plays a less prominent role than it did in the past. Offerings now showcase more local provenance too, and this go-around had the following:

Amuse-bouche: the staff mentions that the amuse is (almost) always shellfish of some sort and the night’s offering was a Pickle Point oyster. Though it wasn’t raw (the way I like my oysters), the lightly-fried oyster rode a bed of mayonnaise cut with crême fraiche and made a nice savory first bite.

Monkfish: the nugget of monkfish in bacon was served with smashed potato and shellfish cream. Not earth-shattering (I’ve made variations of this) but the monkfish was well cooked and wasn’t overpowered by the bacon-y goodness it was wrapped in.

Duo of bison: bison tartar and bison filet with sautéed mushrooms and gnocchi. It was a toss-up between this and the veal cheek (which I at least photographed) but I was happy with the pick as there was lots of umami and plenty of meaty goodness.

Cheese: a giant slice of l’Empereur, a popular pasteurized cow’s milk cheese from the Montérégie served with a wine gelée and a pear salad. Groink! We drove from the southern apple fields to eventually have a cheese which came from the southern apple fields (oy vey!).

Dessert: a duo consisting of an ice cream with citrus and a crême brulée (looked nice but I skipped it since I wasn’t really in the mood).

Not photographed was the déclinaison des navets that also made it to table.

Wine

The wine list has expanded since the days of La Montée de Lait. The list is now dominated by French offerings with a minority of bottles from other countries, and they’ve moved very far away from the SAQ mainstream with many bottles being private imports. The Jean-Paul Balland Sancerre I had the first go? Gone. The Loire is still heavily represented (as are the other four main regions) but there is also more effort in their selections within many of the lesser-known appélations.

I started off with a glass of the 2004 Le Bel Ouvrage, a Savennières from Damien Laureau. This was a really interesting Loire Chenin blanc: aromas of wet stones, beeswax and peaches but still a pronounced acidity on the palate that was offset by chalky minerality and a bit of sugar. I liked it and might try and locate some bottles for the cellar if one of the local négotiants has some.

As I was perusing the list for a bottle, one particular one just leapt off the page: the 2005 Vitatge Vielh de Lapeyre, Clos Lapeyre’s top-end Jurançon sec.

Why *this* wine, especially as it’s a white and we were eating bison and veal cheeks? Well, I could say that a preference for a white was indicated. However, it’s more to the memory of the 14 year old granddaughter of Lapeyre vintner Jean-Bernard Larrieu laying down an extra-large helping of vinous whup-a$$ offering a meticulous vinicological lesson on how to coax the best expression of terroir possible from the the estate’s Gros and Petit Manseng vines, and her equally-young friend helping lay down that beating who was so adamant that the wines needed at least a decade to settle down and integrate after bottling. You would think the two girls were either reading a script or channeling Rod Serling, but they’re not: their palates and their knowledge about the wines and winemaking would give Karl a serious run for his money.

The granddaughter’s friend was also correct about cellaring time: the Vitatge Vielh was all toast and smoke on the nose and apricot and plums on the palate with an herbaceous finish which haven’t fully meshed. The wine showed great promise but all the elements were not quite there yet so those two bottles I have sitting in the collection can sleep a while longer.

Photos

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Impressions

Well, the fetishists grew up, moved downtown and went corporate. The original narrow room with rudimentary seating, cafeteria-quality utensils and plastic freezer room strips at the door to make up for the lack of heating now boasts staff, top-end stemware, modern accoutrements and a very well-heeled clientele. Pretty swanky.

Actually I don’t mind the changes. Parking has actually improved even though they’re now on Bishop, though that’s more to do with the how bad parking is on the Plateau. And speaking of Plateau, I definitely don’t mind the lack of Plateau-ites: I still remember the one couple getting up every 20 minutes to go outside to smoke special cigarettes, and dining with patrons whose wardrobe was apparently rescued from the rag bag is always a bonus (sic). The odd thing is that this is the second restaurant on my compiled list with a wine blip: our waiter really didn’t know the list that well and couldn’t tell me anything about the wines except that he thought it was a good idea to visit wineries (okay…).

La Montée has definitely dropped the “casual” from casual-chic, but the kitchen remains inventive and it’s got a muscular cellar to backstop the food so it warrants being on the “return to” list. Still, I kinda miss the milk thing.

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