I fully expected to be giving this place five stars....I'm shocked that I'm not.
We wanted to eat here for months but never had the foresight to make rezzies far enough in advance. The place was always full by the time we checked availability on opentable (and no wonder....they only have a handful of tables and bar seats inside the cute space). We finally smartened up and booked a table several weeks in advance for our anniversary.
The menu is wonderful in that every item is available in small or large portions (even the daily fish) so you can create your own tasting menu. Each item also has not one, but two suggested wine pairings...one French and one Ontario (available in 3oz or 6oz.) So we ordered five dishes and instead of a bottle of wine, we opted to try one of each pairing with each dish.
We started with the luxe-cerise cocktail (highly recommended) and a glass of the French aperitif, lillet. Lovely.
Steak Tartare "au naturel" ($24) was deliciously seasoned and perfectly matched with the buttery soft fried potato ball things...but the portion was too big (four large scoops of tartare) and after finishing it we both were starting to get full already!
Lobster bisque with shrimp frites...highlight of the meal. Delightful.
Avocado beignet with crispy squid...not too shabby.
Fish of the day (turbot with beurre blanc)...okay, but didn't wow us.
By this point we were so full (and desperately wanting to save room for dessert and cheese) that we sadly cancelled the duck magret with duck confit ravioli...they happily obliged the cancellation.
For dessert, the lemon tart with berry sorbet and goat cheese was yummy.
Cheese plate was fantastic.
Service was outstanding.
All in all, when I compare Ici to another fancy spot we dined at recently (Mistura at Ave/Dav) it unfortunately falls short. Mistura blew us away while Ici was merely great. As one small example, the lemon posset at Mistura reigned supreme over Ici's lemon tart. Having said that, we'll definitely be back to Ici for cocktails and dessert...we still wanna try their famous souffle. Everyone around us was ordering it and it looked divine.