Bad Service Continues at Enfants Terribles

Another week, another terrible review for Les Enfants Terribles Place Ville Marie. Marie-Claude Lortie’s review gives a bizarre sense of déjà vu, detailing a very similar experience to Lesley Chesterman last week. Despite Enfants’ supposed no reservations policy, Lortie is exiled to the 44th floor terrasse for over an hour even when the restaurant is half empty. Despite her professed indifference towards the fancied-up Québécois food concept, Lortie isn’t quite so harsh on the food, approving of options suhc as the caesar salad and pouding chômeur, but the shepherd’s pie with both ketchup and truffle oil leaves her very, very confused. [La Presse]

Le Devoir’s Jean-Philippe Tastet also visits a new arrival, French spot Chasse-Galerie, and in a rave, declares that it deserves to be far more prominent than its semi-basement spot would suggest. “Pour un petit établissement en demi-sous-sol, la cuisine servie ici mérite une place à un étage supérieur à bien d’autres maisons plus pétaradantes,” he exclaims. It’s all very positive, but the highlights appear to be perfectly cooked beef ribs with confit yellow beets and a mustard glaze, and three desserts of chocolate, pear, and strawberry which he declares simple but with highly-developed and subtle flavours. Four and a half stars. [Le Devoir]

Say what you will about Journal de Montréal critic Thierry Daraize, his reviews are very accessible to a broad audience in terms of prose and format. As he ingests a meaty tasting menu at new-ish Ahuntsic BYOB restaurant Le Millen this week, he’s as straightforward as ever. He tells us the price, he describes the room (coloured chairs add warmth!), and tells us that according to his inbox, the good folks of Ahuntsic like BYOB restaurants. With his review-by-numberst subheadings to divide up his reviews, Daraize is a normcore critic. Like a fanny pack storing a tourists’ essentials, this Daraize review is pure functionality: he does not feel bound by expectations that he craft flowery prose such as Tastet, or well-bolstered opinions like Chesterman. His views are unambiguous: the bison carpaccio and roast duck breast with calamari and clams earn a classic Daraize “bravo!” each, and he adventurously branches out beyond his “Bravo/Dommage” binary for assessing food as he declares the Matane shrimp with wasabi foam “Un bon plat!”. Three and a half stars. [Le Journal de Montréal]

At the Gazette, Lesley Chesterman heads back to Old Montreal’s Graziella, almost a decade after its opening and four years since her last review and the outcome is practically the same. Chesterman puts weight on the fact Graziella operates as a restaurant unlike other restaurant-adjacent concepts such as “trattorias, bistros, gastropubs, izakayas,” etc. She’s full of praise for their affordable organic wines and outright raves about the osso bucco. Chesterman practically has to scrounge for something to critique, and it’s that the desserts are a tiny bit busy. Three and a half stars. [Montreal Gazette]

• Sky High Restaurant Earns Rock Bottom Review for Rotten Service [EMTL]
• Les Enfants Terribles: ketchup et huile de truffe [La Presse]
• Chasse-Galerie, a New French Restaurant, Prepares to Soar on Saint-Denis [EMTL]
• Une petite maison exceptionnelle [Le Devoir]
• Menu dégustation pour toutes les occasions [Le Journal de Montréal]
• Montreal's BYOB Maestro Opens Le Millen in Ahuntsic [EMTL]
• Graziella is worth gushing over [Montreal Gazette]
• Fine-Dining: Graziella [Montreal Gazette]