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| - This review is for dinner and I speculate that brunch is a different (and hopefully better) experience altogether.
We visited Cluny Bistro on a Thursday night. It is quite a sizeable restaurant in the Distillery District and the decor and design of the restaurant is romantic and lovely, somewhat reminiscent of a bistro in Paris. The atmosphere is what potentially will draw me back to try brunch on the patio in the summer. However, the food unfortunately did not live up to the beauty of the restaurant itself.
I would also like to note that despite the lovely display of various breads in the center of the restaurant, the bread served to our table was not as crunchy and soft as we expected. On the bread spectrum, it was more on the hard crust and dense interior side of breads, unlike what we would expect from a Paris bistro.
We started with the salt cod donuts for an appetizer. It was served in the cutest little iron skillet with a side of smoked potato dipping sauce. The donuts had a thin crispy shell and a creamy inside similar to mashed potato. Despite being cod donuts, I could not really taste the cod, however they were pretty tasty overall with the creamy smoked potato dipping sauce.
For main dishes, we had the hunter's stew with rabbit, pheasant sausage, and beef cheek and the veal meatball "tomahawk", which was tomato braised and served with a side of gnocchi. The hunter's stew was served in a small bowl, with a side of mustard sauce and a flaky pastry bread. Although the meats were tender, the flavour was lacking depth and it was a forgettable dish except for the fact that it was quite small. The veal tomahawk was also tender, slightly better in flavour, and larger in portion. I enjoyed the side of gnocchi (garnished with parmesan and basil, to the best of my knowledge) better than the veal tomahawk itself.
For dessert, we had the most disappointing praline profiteroles. Three profiteroles were beautifully plated, accompanied by chocolate chantilly, caramel crunch, hazelnut, and strawberry coulis. Unfortunately, the pastry itself was very hard and dense to the point that I had difficulty splitting the profiterole for a more manageable bite. The profiteroles were not very sweet but the delicate flavours were overpowered by the exceedingly sour strawberry coulis. The only part I enjoyed of dessert was the hazelnut and caramel crunch but I would not recommend this dessert.
Honestly, I wish I could love this place based on concept and atmosphere alone, but the quality and taste of the dishes at Cluny did not reflect the price point.
Overall rating: 2.5 stars
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