Yallah Let’s Eat! Montreal’s Best Lebanese Food

Restaurant Daou

It comes as no surprise that Celine Dion’s wedding was catered by Daou – one could easily picture Renée filling his mouth with their heavenly stuffed grape leaves, and Celine humming a tune while swirling her pita bread in their velvety hummus. The restaurant even immortalized the event with a large wedding photo of the happy couple to greet you as you walk in the door.

For many Montrealers, middle-eastern food claims its place as a popular lunchtime option, mostly because it’s somewhat healthier than the Big Mac and fries on the other side of the food court. However, if Amir’s lunch special number three with an extra side of hummus is your daily noontime ritual and this makes you think you are a Lebanese cuisine connoisseur, you are sadly mistaken. The most authentic and deliciously home-style Lebanese food is found in a quiet, unassuming St-Laurent eatery.

The food at Daou is so incredibly genuine and savory, it makes you embarrassed to walk into an Amir and order a falafel sandwich and feel good about it. Any hummus you taste after you have tasted Daou’s will seem too lumpy, or too dry, or just plain off. The stuffed grape leaves you try anywhere else (anywhere except perhaps your Lebanese friend’s teta’s house) will be too tightly wound, too sour, or just plain sad. So be forewarned, by stepping foot inside this middle-eastern Mecca of all things lebaniciously  delicious, you will be disappointed by anything else in comparison and you may effectively ruin your weekly falafel lunch run.

Mmmmmmmm........

Perfectly Chunky Tomato Sauce with 

Goat Cheese Crumble

This recipe came about because of an early childhood aversion to overly runny marinara sauce (an aversion that has continued well onto adulthood. I still cringe at anything that resembles overly-puréed tomato sauce). Anytime there was an over-abundance of liquid tomato on the edges of my pasta bowl, I would run to the stove and pour it back into the pot, along with an escaped noodle or two. As a result, my ever-ingenious mother perfected this sauce over the years, and it has served me very well in my college days away from home, due to its simplicity and accessible ingredients. 

CONFUSION – Montreal’s Sexiest Restaurant

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Fernando Alonso, Picasso, Gaudi, Rafael Nadal – Ah yes, Spain has blessed the world with a lot of wonderful things, and food not one to be excluded. Anyone who has visited the magical cities of Barcelona or Madrid will tell you that their favorite thing about Spain was the incredible cuisine. Montreal has been no exception to the Spanish conquest of the culinary scene in North America. Tapas bars are popping up around the city faster than you can say olé! Tapas, which are essentially small amuse-bouche dishes and originally intended to accompany the 5 à 7 cocktail hour, have now turned into an entire dinner concept on its own. It basically allows you to order small portions of different dishes, and sample a variety of things on a menu, without being committed to one main dish.

Restaurant Confusion in the Latin Quarter is by far, the coolest restaurant you will step into in these parts of the city. Where else can you eat your tiny samplings of food while rocking back and forth on a swing? 

VAUVERT – Gothic Enchantment in the Old Port

Nestled into the majestic Hotel St-Paul and racking up some serious it-status as one of the hottest supper clubs in the city, Vauvert is quickly becoming the party place extraordinaire of the Old Port. Think of it as the more sophisticated and tamer version of Globe –whose narrow and often over packed confines make being elbowed in the ribs by passing waitresses and simultaneous stilettos stabbing a common occurrence.

www.restaurantvauvert.com

Since the food at many of the city’s supper clubs is not exactly meant to be the culinary revelation of the decade per se, Pascal Leblond (chef at renowned Cube a few years ago) and now chef behind Restaurant Vauvert, had us thinking we might be entering into different territory. However, one glance at the black leather-bound menu, and a chorus of sighs of disappointment echoed across the table. One would hope that the restaurant’s avant-garde edginess that reverberates through its black lacquered walls, overlooked by a canopy of twinkling lights would be mirrored in the menu, but sadly it didn’t.

And now, a few memos to you supper club chefs (and Vauvert’s in particular): if you want to set your restaurant apart from the crowd and make your food as fabulous as the party scene – how about you drop the standard tomato buffalo mozzarella appetizer? It’s predictable, it’s boring, and we can put it together at home for under ten bucks. Furthermore, tuna tartar seems to be a popular starter on a lot of menus these days. Every restaurant has its own take on it and the texture and seasoning varies from chef to chef. But as a standard rule, the fleshy mound of gooey goodness needs to be eaten with some sort of crispy bread or cracker. So expecting your customers to eat a pile of raw fish atop a stainless steel fork, shows a lack of finesse. And finally, dear chefs, please make sure you remove your baguettes from the freezer well in advance and to allow proper thawing before serving it to your patrons.

While many items on the menu leave much to be desired, most of the dishes are decent but lack the wow-factor that one would expect from a place of this pedigree. The rest of the starters were equally lacking in innovation. The duck dumplings for instance were extremely dry and under seasoned, and a couple more could have justified such a hefty price tag. 

The mains showed a bit more creativity. The angus burger seemed to be the popular choice and was quite tasty. The accompanying shoestring fries were a bit too salty but this was overshadowed by the fact that they were served in fun kitschy Chinese take-out containers. The veal was perfectly cooked and seasoned, but the plating was poorly executed. Served atop a pile of mushy greens in a lazy and half-hazard manner, the bitterness of the vegetables was lost in the brown sauce and everything turned into a lumpy soup of too many flavors and textures; not exactly the finest of veal dishes we’ve come across. The filet mignon seems to have been the star entrée; its buttery texture and fresh flavor were well received.

At this point, we were stuffed with a somewhat underwhelming meal, and were envisioning the numbers tallying up on our bill, so we opted to start the party and turned to bottles of vodka for dessert. If popping bottles of Goose is not your thing – then head over to the bar and order your cocktail of choice, because the drinks are the real stars at this Vieux-Port hot spot. Now, with drink in hand, and some great tunes to dance to, feel free to soak in the devilish charm of this locale’s gothically-enchanting atmosphere. Painted pitch black, but not in a cold, unwelcoming way, the walls at Vauvert are delicately illuminated by twinkling ceiling lights and make you feel as though you’re standing beneath a starry sky. Too bad the food was not as bright a star as the décor.

Bottom-line: Come for the party, not the food. Otherwise, if you enjoy paying an expensive bill for an average meal, then this place is perfect! The crowd: a good mix of everything, but a bit older than the twenty-somethings we usually see at these types of places.  Dress-code: we saw outfits that covered the gamut from casual lumberjack-chic to Cher-inspired sequin spandex… so it seems pretty much everything goes. Spotted: famed Argentine-director Santiago Amigorena chatting up the runway-ready models/waitresses.

Restaurant Vauvert

355 McGill St

Montreal, QC

(514) 876-2823

www.restaurantvauvert.com