Le Nantua, Notre Dame (Vieux Montreal)
I went dinning at Le Nantua last night (this Monday).
First, they serve clawed lobsters from New Brunswick. Not bad, but not as great as the awesome clawed Lobsters from Main! Needless to say that they are real jokes compared to the caribbean spiny lobsters ...but that's another story (we are
in Montreal after all, so I was ready to lower my expectations with regards to lobsters). I generally have hard time appreciating lobsters that are not freshly brought to you right from the sea..but again, this is Montreal so let's just enjoy what they can make out from block-of-ice lobsters ;p
With that said, here are my after-thoughts:
-I took oysters (yeah, it's the season ;p) from New Brunswick. Yummy! Fresh, tasty and well presented.
$24 for 9 big and fresh lovely oysters
-I took one big New Brunswick's clawed lobster: the chef of le Nantua has cooked it brillantly.
$49 for a nice big fresh clawed lobster from New Brunswick
I sometimes went to some famous and pricey sea food restaurants here in North America where you would really feel that the lobster
was a block-of-ice lobster right before they cooked it for you. That's not the case here at Le Nantua: I am not a big fan of clawed lobsters as I previously prefaced, but GOD it was deliciously well cooked. You could
feel the freshness of that lobster right off the bat. Everything in that lobster was oozing of perfection:
perfect cooking, perfect taste (nothing altering the taste like you sometimes see at some restaurants who badly
kill the real taste of sea food by adding extra stuffings on top of them), perfect tenderness (well, of course it's not the
tenderness of caribean spiny lobsters but that clawed lobster was definitely fresh and tasty).
Service was perfect: I had Roberto at my table and what a classy gentleman who takes perfect care of his customers from A
to Z with courtesy and great professionalism. The Restaurant itself has a nice european classy and cozy touch with it's high ceilings,
contemporary decor and furnitures. Only thing I would change in the decoration would be the very huge lengthy paintings
(very nice ones, but they seem to be a tad agressive to the eyes and tend to bring a museum feel to the restaurant). I would replace those paintings by ones that are half as big. So 2 paintings, rectangularly-framed, well spaced between each other..would largely do the trick. What an amazing restaurant that I can wait to regularly visit!