Critic Thierry Daraize Just Wrote Another Bizarre Best of 2014 List

A week into 2015 and Le Journal de Montréal has published another 'best of' list from the critic who ended 2014 with a vicious blow to a mom and pop Indian restaurant.

As a sequel to this list here, Daraize's Les 30 meilleurs restos de 2014 is just as strange.

It starts with this summary of the year that was.

Qu’on parle de coups de foudre ou de déceptions gastronomiques, au tournant de 2015, l’heure est aux bilans. Et somme toute, l’année 2014 a été fort savoureuse. Tandis que les portes de plusieurs restaurants se sont définitivement fermées dans la dernière année, le retour à l’essentiel en cuisine s’est fait particulièrement sentir sur la scène culinaire montréalaise.

Then on to the 30 best (but not before some random love for Chez L'Épicier chef Laurent Godbout's Bocuse d’Or run). Daraize's three coups de coeur restaurants for 2014, sans explanations, includes the Barry Callebaut chocolate facility, Le Champlain-Fairmont in Quebec City's Château Frontenac and La table du chef-Alain Labrie in Sherbrooke.

This all comes two weeks after Daraize named Shinji his coup de coeur of 2014 and cited Europea as the best meal of the year.

Daraize also conflates Manitoba, Lea and H4C as the best bistros branchés in the city. Le Richmond, Le Sinclair and Labarake get the nod for the best terrasses and, finally, Pandore, Flyjin and Rosewood are the best resto-clubs, apparently.

Oddly, there is no mention of Thursday's, a restaurant that elicited uncommon hyperbole from Daraize back in September.