Downtown Hotel Le Germain Is Adding an Ultra-Classic, Très French Restaurant

The co-owner of former Mile End restaurant Lili Co will head up a new restaurant in the Germain hotel in downtown Montreal, focusing on classic French cuisine.

Per La Presse, David Pellizzari will serve as executive chef for Le Boulevardier, which will be Le Germain’s in-house restaurant. It takes the place of chef Daniel Vézina’s Laurie Raphaël, which closed a year ago.

Le Boulevardier will take up residence in a refreshed space — the Mansfield Street hotel closed for renovations late last year, reopening in May. The restaurant should be up and running sometime later this fall.

Pellizzari told La Presse that Le Boulevardier will be something fresh for him — at Lili Co, which opened in Mile End from 2015 to 2018, he made a name crafting modern offal dishes, as well as seasonal dishes centred around vegetables. At Le Boulevardier, ultra-classic French dishes are to be the name of the game, with La Presse naming long-dead French chef Auguste Escoffier as an inspiration.

That means dishes like the meaty and complex lapin à la royale could be on the menu — ditto for Provençal-style frog’s legs, and Burgundy snails.

Le Boulevardier will be joined by a new hotel bar, Le Flâneur, with Pellizzari also devising a menu of small plates for that side — both the restaurant and bar will feature design from prominent Montrealer Zebulon Perron (see also: Marcus, Un Po’ di Piú).

• David Pellizzari à l’hôtel Le Germain [La Presse]
• Daniel Vézina Departs Montreal’s Dining Scene This Weekend, Closing Laurie Raphaël [EMTL]