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| - Was so excited to try this new restaurant by Lucille's. It opened on July 3rd so we gave it 2 weeks to get the bugs out of the operation. The four of us decided that we should have waited longer...
We booked online with Bookenda and received a call the day of our reservation, a Friday night, to confirm. We arrived at 7pm and were immediately seated upstairs. The interior of the restaurant hasn't been updated much since the days of Lea, however it was refreshed nicely and looked very inviting. First problem, the music was so loud that we could barely hear the hostess speak to us once we left the front door. There were only a few tables occupied when we sat down, however it quickly filled up.
Looking at the menu I was a bit disappointed with the overall selection. This is an "Italian" restaurant and there are 3 or 4 pastas on the menu, seafood and steaks. The waiter finally came over, 10 minutes after sitting, and was telling us about the specials, which there weren't any, and we had to ask him to speak louder since the music was so loud. We asked about the salads and he told us there where small, holding up his hands to represent the size of the plate, about 6". Hmmm, $16 for a Cesar Salad that wasn't large enough to share? $21 for an heirloom tomato salad.
Looking further into the menu I got excited to see Chicken and Veal Parmesan...wow $34 and $48. NY Strip $54. Getting over sticker shock, they call themselves a family style moderate priced restaurant, we decided on our dinners. My son ordered the Orecchiette Pasta, shaped like little ears with Lamb, my other son ordered the Chicken Parm, my wife opted for a cesar salad and an appetizer meatball, $16 by the way, and I had their Seafood Bucatini. My wife and I also had a glass of wine, only 3 whites and 4 reds to choose from. The entire wine list had 30 plus of each so we were disappointed by the "by the glass" selection.
The food came out surprisingly fast considering the restaurant was full at this point. The food was presented nicely and looked fantastic. The cesar salad was in a 6" bowl and was piled about 6" high...plenty large enough to share...just very hard to eat since it was stacked like a game of Jenga. We asked for crushed red pepper for our pasta..."we don't have any, only these spicy pimento pepper things". We asked for parmesan cheese...he never brought any. The Orecchiette looked fantastic....oops....no Lamb. After about 10 minutes trying to flag down the waiter, he had 4 more tables he was serving and/or taking orders, we asked about the Lamb and he said there was shredded lamb on it...but acknowledged that it appears not the be there. We also asked about our missing meatball...he said he would let his manager know. 20 minutes later the manager came by to let us know that they forgot to put the lamb on the dish...2 minutes later the Orecchiette reappeared with Lamb...5 minutes after that the meatball finally arrived. Now that we all had our meals we all tried each others to get a feeling for the food. The Seafood Bucatini had a lemon zest flavor to it, nice but a bit overpowering. The seafood was 2 shrimp and 6 "mini clams", about 1" in size, cute..but not very meaty. The pasta was cooked nicely, could have used some crushed red pepper for some heat. The Chicken Parm was actually a FULL breast over angel hair pasta. The chicken was cooked nicely, the pasta was mushy, overcooked, and the tomato sauce was exactly that, tomato sauce...didn't seem to have any spices etc. Cutting the four basil leaves up added nice flavor to the otherwise boring sauce. The Orecchiette Pasta was actually the favorite of the group, the shredded meat added a nice flavor. Not sure what the cheese on it was but it too had a strong hint of lemon to it. Once again, crushed red pepper would have been a welcome add on. The meatball, about 4" in size was mushy, I actually thought it wasn't cooked, but it was. The marinara that was on it would have been nice on the chicken parm. Overall the food was OK to good.
There was one dessert that was offered, we opted to get ice cream elsewhere. We had 3 main dishes, a salad, appetizer (meatball) and two glasses of wine. This all came to $200 plus tip. I would not call this a moderately priced restaurant. If we had all had salads and mains we would have been $265+, pricey!
Overall I would have to say I was very disappointed with our new "Italian", if you can call it that, Restaurant. We need to give it a few months to get "into the groove". My biggest disappointment is the cost, I think the only mains under $32 were 2 or three of the pastas, most salads $18+ and meats starting at $35+. We need true moderately priced restaurants in Westmount, not overpriced mediocre wanna be trendy places.
I love Lucille's Oyster Dive and Brasserie, this place just doesn't seem to fit with the others. I hope they can right this ship or it will be very short lived.
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