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| - Another relatively new comer to the revamped upper St-Laurent street, Hotel Herman definitely adds to the hipster vibe of the neighbourhood. The decor is retro chic with it's dim but cozy lighting and a massive round table bar that makes up for most of the seating options.
The wine is mostly privately imported with a fair share of by the glass options, all of which are expertly described by the server. It's always reassuring when your waiter knows to the point what they are selling.
The menu is short, changing seasonally and consisting of about 15 larger than tapas items equally split among vegetable, meat and fish dishes.
We started off with their homemade bread, baked fresh daily until the crust has just the perfect amount of bite while the center remained still warm and soft.
We followed with a salad of finely shaved celeriac root served with a sea urchin and soya hollandaise. As we are big lovers of sea urchin, we would have liked the flavour to have been more bold. It definitely taste more like a regular hollandaise than a sea urchin delight.
Continuing on, being the carnivores we are, we had 3 meat dishes - a deer tartar coated in a porcini emulsion, fried sweetbreads with leeks and mustard and finally roasted duck breast with rye and salsify (oyster plant).
Although each dish was beautifully presented and well executed, they all lacked the 'wow' factor you would expect from such a high ranked restaurant. The tartar was a bit too much on the sweet side for us, which hid the taste of the deer. The sweetbreads were expertly fried but didn't stand out in flavour and finally the duck breast skin could have been crispier in our opinion.
Although Hotel Herman was not a hit out of the park for us, the ambiance, the overall quality of the food and the excellent service definitely makes this a pleasurable spot to spend a romantic evening. As the menu changes quite often, I can confidently say that we enjoyed this place enough to at least give it another try!
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