Restaurant review | Café Entre-Deux: “Truly taste”

Restaurant criticism takes a new turn at Press. As always, our critics tell you about their experience, highlighting the good and, sometimes, the bad ones. But we now explain the choice of one restaurant or another. We also present the team in the dining room and in the kitchen. This week: Café Entre-Deux.

Eve Dumas
Press

Why talk about it?

I’m not saying it, but a teenager almost 14 years old. “Taste” is quite a compliment coming from a large, somewhat jaded asparagus. The qualifier applies of course to what we eat, but also to what we drink, to the decor, to the atmosphere, to the customers.

Open in the spring, this daytime café, lunchtime sandwich bar, cocktail bar, refreshment bar, and full-fledged restaurant in the evening is an addition to Sherbrooke Street West that the residents of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce seem to very much appreciate. Montrealers from other boroughs, we would tell you that the trip is well worth the effort, to spend a deliciously relaxed evening.

Who are they ?

The owners, Marc Flynn (Café Cordova and Cloakroom), Alex Quinton Brunet (Mal Necessary and Atwater Cocktail Club) and Félix Poirier (who is making his restaurant debut), as well as the chef, Vincent Monast (Mano Cornuto), took advantage of the first half of the pandemic to imagine a restoration project that would resemble them. From this reflection and the complementarity of the team, the Café Entre-deux was born last spring. Also joins the Jonas Kempeneers team (Cloakroom), which takes care of the cocktail menu.

Our experience

It’s a chilly Sunday at the end of September and the room is full. We are seated at the counter with our backs to the narrow dining room, whose tables line the wall that leads to the kitchen at the far end. Admittedly, there are only about thirty places at the Café Entre-deux, but they are all occupied and will remain so all evening, by a mixture of families, girlfriends outing, small groups of friends, lonely bar eaters etc. The youth arrives for later service. It works for the three employees in the dining room (a hostess / waitress, a waiter / bartender, a “follower”) and for the two cooks.

The fall menu has just been revealed and promises to be invigorating. But before getting into the solids … a cocktail! The Sweater Weather is appropriate. A variation of the essential negroni, this pick-me-up for lovers of gin and bitterness is infused with warm spices and orange. The teenager stays in summer with an alcohol-free cocktail made from raspberry, lime and fresh mint, which he whistles in record time.

The starters are a marvelous blend of freshness and autumnal flavors. Boston Lettuce and Fennel Salad becomes filling with nuts, apples and sage. Beef tartare contains cranberry gel and mushroom powder. We opted for roasted Brussels sprouts Caesar style, with smoked duck bacon, anchovy emulsion, walnuts, dill. All tastes are very strong, but very complementary.

The fresh pasta of the day (made by the neighbors Pasta Casareccia) will also serve as a starter, for us. These are radiatori coated with a squash cream. The seeds of the cucurbit were roasted in miso, then added as a crunchy element on top, with generous grated pecorino and nutmeg.

It’s very good, but not as “taste” as the following! The braised rabbit with golden potatoes and fruit compote tastes the tastiest of Christmas, with its meaty pieces of saddle and thigh mixed together, bathed in a sauce where shines tarragon. He even managed to dethrone duck breast, the young man’s favorite meat. In its very coffee demi-glace umami, with smooth mash and root vegetables, the breast of the force-fed bird is nonetheless a treat.

For dessert, there is only one suggestion: an unemployed pudding. But what an unemployed pudding! A large square of white cake is bathed in its “sugar fudge” sauce. Fresh strawberries bring a touch of much appreciated acidity. In my notebook, I note: whipped cream … “Mom, why are you writing” whipped cream “? Here we say whipped cream! ”

In our glass

The partners of Café Entre-Deux have worked in cocktail bars in Montreal, so the menu developed by Jonas Kempeneers is one of the most tempting we have seen in Montreal. The important categories are all there: lemon, sparkling, bitter, winey, strong in spirits, etc. Here, a sacred interpretation of Old fashioned: cognac infused with duck fat, sweet sherry, bitter walnut and lemon oil. We don’t skimp on creativity. The wines, chosen by Alex, are not lacking in originality either. The choices by the glass are rather limited, although it happens that a “special” bottle is opened spontaneously, as it was the case that Sunday, with a surprising pink bubble of Georgia which gave the pep. The menu is balanced, with wines that are always artisanal, some more classic, others quite mind-blowing. And if you feel like having coffee at the end of a meal (or during a morning or lunch stopover), rest assured that it will be delicious. The Traffic micro-roaster produces the blend used for espresso.

How much ?

A nice salad will cost you $ 12 and a duck breast, $ 29. The rest is in between. When you consider all the effort put into it (homemade syrups, infusions, macerations, execution), cocktails at $ 13-14 on average are quite affordable. As for the wine list, no bottle over $ 99 and a majority of bowling at $ 40, $ 50, $ 60 or $ 70.

Good to know

There are a few vegetarian dishes on the menu, including a vegan risotto with wild rice.

Café Entre-Deux is fairly easily accessible for people with reduced mobility.

Information

Open Wednesday to Sunday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The lunch menu is served between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Reservations are recommended in the evening.

5930 Sherbrooke Street West

Visit the Café Entre-Deux website