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| - Location: St. Paul East in the old port. The closest subway is Champ-de-Mars and it's less than a ten-minute walk. Street parking is available though sparse, and there's a lot not too far from the restaurant, but I think the going rate is $15.
The place: Gorgeous! Very classy and cozy, with high ceilings and windows facing out onto St. Paul (we totally lucked out with our table).The restaurant isn't huge by any means, but it's spacious and you don't feel claustrophobic when it's a full house.
The food: We went for MTL à Table so the menu was fixed. Now, let's discuss how the good folk at Chez L'Épicier thought it would be nice to start us off with a complimentary maple syrup cocktail (refreshing!) and some lovely amuses-bouches (olive + goat cheese macarons = HELLO chef!). I went to three restaurants during MTL à Table and none of them did this so I thought it was a nice touch.
To start, I had the squash velouté (homemade sour cream, onions, squash seed, parsley juice and brown butter vinaigrette) - it was divine. The velouté was silky, thick and creamy, and meshed perfectly with the other ingredients. Loved this! My friend had the smoked trout filet (with miso and maple reduction, shallot fingerling potatoes and a maple vinegar mousse). She really enjoyed her dish as well.
For the main, I went with the sea bass filet, crusted with herb polenta, lobster juice bouillabaisse, served with glazed vegetables + water butter. The fish was fresh, and the crust was light - it wasn't heavy or oily at all. The broth was really flavourful, and the vegetables were cooked to perfection. Fantastic dish! My friend had the macreuse and said it was delicious as well.
For dessert, I had the tempura brownie with Greek yogurt cream/ white chocolate jelly. I'm pretty selective when it comes to brownies because so few people get it right - I mean, if it's not decadently chocolatey, then it's not a brownie, as far as I'm concerned. On this point, L'Épicier did not disappoint. The brownie was the perfect level of chocolatey without being overbearingly sweet or rich, and the tempura was simply a thin coat of batter, making this dessert relatively light (surprising, right?). The cream/ jelly were the perfect accompaniment and I thoroughly enjoyed this dessert, even though my belly was full from the starter + main!
Service: Very good. The staff were present and ensured that the menu + additional options were explained to us, they kept our water glasses full, and they made zero fuss when my friend let them know that she has Celiac's disease. It sounded like the chef had taken this into consideration when preparing the menu because no substitutes were necessary. Each dish was introduced to us with an explanation of what it was, and the ingredients that were used. Top notch.
Price point: The fixed menu was $39 + tax, and you really can't beat that price considering the exceptional quality of these dishes + the service received.
Laurent Godbout has a great thing going here - I highly recommend this place!
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