Due to a last minute cancellation from Ile Flottante because they decided to shut down to give holiday break for their staff, I had to scramble to look for a reservation to book for our trip to Montreal. I had created a verbose document describing fallback plans on which day should there be problems. Montreal Plaza was one of the few for this day. It was ranked 21 on Canada’s 100 Best. We saw that Phil Rosenthal from “Somebody Feed Phil” had eaten here and highly recommended it. Granted, this was probably during a time of different situations. He had gone through a 27-course meal, whereas we just had roughly 5 courses. This restaurant is pretty close to the orange line, so it’s pretty easy to access. Within a few days, we were able to make a reservation for 8:30 PM on December 30.
Ambiance & Service
The interior is bustling for sure. There is some wacky decorations in the ceilings including upside down houses and just random things. The service was spectacular in the sense our waiter was very accommodating to our language barrier and was able to explain all the courses pretty well. He also made good recommendations for how many to get as well as which wines to get.
Just a note about Montreal taxes that they also charge a TVQ (Quebec Province tax - 9.975%) and a TPS (Product & Services tax - 5%). The total at this time of writing was 14.975%.
Food
The Burgenland 2021 (right - $19 CAD, ~$14.23 USD) was a natural Austrian orange wine that came from Fogosch, Joiseph. It was good, crispy, and not too sweet. It went well with all my courses.
The Squash + Oat (left - $11 CAD, ~$8.24 USD) was a non-alcoholic cocktail with butternut squash, sea buckthorn, and oat milk. My partner liked this, and I thought it was perfectly sweet for my palette.
The Chinatown Razorclams ($27 CAD, ~$20.22 USD). This was initially served with the clams in their shell, but they shoveled everything out in front of you. The food itself was served cold, which was a little bit of a surprise to me. Despite the temperature surprise, the clams were good, and this basically tasted like what you would get in Cantonese Chinese restaurants.
The Sea Bass Tartare + Squash ($27 CAD, ~$20.22 USD) came with ginger, pickled garlic flowers, peach and pepper sauce, soy vinaigrette, and popcorn powder. The squash was crispy, and the tartare was at the bottom.
The Sea Bass Plancha ($28 CAD, ~$20.97) came with guanciale, capers, lemon, tomatoes, crispy bread, and vegetable glaze. This was really good. The fish was crispy throughout along with the skin.
The Bourgots Miso ($24 CAD, ~$17.97 USD) came with miso butter, salpicon, espelette, lime, chives, and milk bread. This was just sea snails, and it was garlicky. I was there was more “sauce” in the little vats. The bread was good, but it didn’t soak up the sauce well since it was toasted quite a bit.
I also asked for a natural Italian white wine, Ribeira Sacra 2022 ($20 CAD, ~$14.98 USD) which came from Bianco, Silice Viticultores. This matched well with the fish and scallops. It was crispy, acidic, but light. It had some notes of citrus fruits and had a small funk to it.
The Vol-Au-Vent + Scallops ($44 CAD) came with parmesan veloute, green beans, puff pastry, kohlrabi, and confit potatoes. This was like a chowder. It had some mushrooms. The soup was starchy but good. Bread was puffy and grainy.
The Peach + Caramelia Frozen Cake ($18 CAD, ~$13.48 USD) came with chantilly, caramelia crumble, peach sorbet, and peach caramel. This was perfectly sweet and balanced. It was cold and lovely, and was a nice dessert for us. They ran out of the baked alaska, but this was a great substitute. The flavors of the peach were mild but still delicious.
The Cheryl's Cookie Sandwich ($6 CAD, ~$4.49 USD) came with molasses cookie and cream cheese filling. This was just basically a molasses cookie with some filling in it. The cookie itself was soft.
Final Verdict
Montreal Plaza is a pretty good tapas restaurant with a varietal selection of wines and shareables at a decent price especially compared to NYC. The ingredients are all pretty fresh, and the flavors are overall pretty good. I can see how this may compare to a Michelin 1 Star or a Bib Gourmand pretty easily.
Yelp Jabs
We went with the sharing menu recommended by our server but we were disappointed as we didn’t get to try the dishes that we really wanted on their menu
There is definitely a level of trust you would have to bestow to to server recommendations. Unfortunately, if you really wanted to try other things on the menu, it’s not criminal to ask the server what is in the sharing menu.
some I wouldn’t imagine a fine dining restaurant would have, but contributed to a very unpretentious environment
This is one of those restaurants where the ambiance really is more of a casual night out type restaurant than fine dining. Sure there were people dressed up a lot, but you can go there with pretty casual dress and feel fine.
Revisions
- Dec 30, 2023 - Initial revision.