Staying in an Airbnb nearby, two of us discovered Le Flamant (The Flamingo) in a walk down Rue Ontario Est in the borough of Hochelaga looking for lunch. Our lunch consisted of lamb ravioli, a chicken sandwich, fish cakes, a pistachio baklava, and two other-worldly cocktails. We shared the food...sipping each others' cocktails. (Food is meant to be shared here.) All amazing. More than amazing. So deliciously amazing in fact that we decided to return for dinner.
Le Flamant's signature is a chef's choice menu consisting of four services with a total of Eight dishes. It's a menu à partager in which all dishes are meant to be shared by two. The theme for the evening was Middle Eastern. Menu themes change about every month. The menu is posted.
Dinner did not disappoint. The flavors! The sauces! The variety! The freshness!
Our first service were two fresh oysters dressed with a kind of salsa, a foi gras baklava, and a carpaccio of chevalier or John Dory, a salt water fish. Our second service was a beet salad and a Mediterranean flavored portion of Atlantic Char. This was then followed up with a crisp green bean/chick pea salad and a lamb gnocchi. Desert was a nougat ice cream topped with crushed pistachios. OMG. I have to think long and hard for a dining experience as deliciously pleasurable as this. Anywhere! Montreal is a city of fine dining restaurants and Le Flamant has to be one of the best. Unfortunately, my description of our meal just does not do it Justice. It's so much more deliciously sounding in French. See the menu. Suffice it to say, our experience here is worthy of a Michelin rating.
On the practical side, at $75 Canadian per person, dinner at La Flamant is quite reasonable. In these inflationary times, it's easy to pay that for just a steak when dining out. And any steak meal is boring in comparison, even at Joe Beef. ;)
Now for the cocktails. There are seven. And we tried six of them paired with our courses rather than go with a wine pairing. A seventh, one that we had had at lunch, was not available . All were over the top marvelous. The house mixologist did amazing takes on a Mai Tai, Gin Tonic, Margarita, Manhattan, and a Negroni. These cocktails are so much more elevated than what you can imagine through these labels, however. Personally, while wine pairings do elevate any food course, I would still go with the cocktails. They were that amazing.
We are still in Montreal for another few weeks before returning to Palm Springs. And a menu change is coming up at Le Flamant. We are definitely returning for another dining experience "Sans comparaison." read more