I've been hearing a lot of talk about this place and finally checked it out with two fellow Yelpers. Was I blown away? Read my review to find out.
Location: Notre-Dame West, in what I think we're not referring to as the Southwest part of town, a few minutes walk from Place St-Henri metro. It's a little ghetto, I must admit. Lots of empty shops, and guys propelling their cars along by the mere force of music (read: very, very loud music). Classy, I know.
Service: The wait staff was fashionably cool, but this didn't take away from their friendliness. Everyone was great; our waitress took the time to explain the contents of the menu and regularly checked in to see how we were doing. The restaurant itself reminds me of a fancy diner, minus the booths. My only beef is that they've got those small, high metal tables accompanied by those tall, skinny, metal chairs. The table's OK but the seating wasn't super comfortable.
Food: Ludger's food 'style' is to serve a 'dégustation' menu, meaning smaller-sized versions of main dishes (but these are your mains).
To start, we shared an appy of oysters. I'm certainly not a connaisseur in this department, but from my perspective, they were very fresh. Personally, I didn't find that they tasted much but maybe that's how oysters are supposed to taste. For this one, you should try them out for yourself then report back to me.
My main was a dish of tortellini stuffed with corn ricotta, and baby shrimp from "les Îles." I don't know what kind of sauce they served with this. The tortellini were fresh and delicious - there were four on my plate but they were larger than what you would normally get at other restaurants). The meal was obviously freshly made, which is a definite bonus, however the shrimp were cold (I'm not sure if they were meant to be cold so I won't doc points for that today) and sadly, overall, it was bland. There was no explosion of flavor in my mouth, no OOOH! moment after the first bite. It didn't seem like any kind of seasoning was used.
Yelper #2 ordered the Dorade (fish) that was cooked with half the skin (I believe it was booked in a pan, so the skin was nice and crispy), pan-seared scallops and veggies. This was another miss for me. While it looked delicious, the fish was bland and really didn't taste like anything to me.
Yelper #3 had the Gnudis (gnocchi) with lardons (fat); there was something else in that dish but I don't recall what it is. In any case, it was delicious and flavorful. Everyone really enjoyed that dish.
In terms of size, for me personally, the plates were large enough. If you were a 200-pound 6-foot wrestler though, you'd probably need a few of these to make up one meal. By the time we got to our next destination, I was admittedly, feeling a little peckish.
Drinks: They make a kick-ass Pimm's Cup. Had I not been driving, I would've enjoyed a few more of those!
Price: I found prices to be very reasonable, with, I believe, most dishes costing less than $20.
I think this place has the potential to become a neighborhood gem, with a little tweaking.