Brasserie Please
restaurantMontreal
(May.17.07)
Our vacation plans fell through. We were supposed to be in Paris. We had been daydreaming about shopping at Colette, improving our French and watching lots of heady cinema. But the winning raffle ticket went to someone else, along with the walks on the banks of the Seine and the would-be French lover. 
Refusing to give up on our Parisian fantasy world, we went to the new La Brasserie Brunoise downtown. This is not the petite Brunoise you know and love from The Plateau. The original Brunoise on St. André Street is about traditional fine dining, while the new outpost near the Bell Centre is sprawling and serves classic bistro food. Chef Marc-André Royal still helms the kitchen at the first Brunoise, while his protégé, chef Gabby Campiano, was given free license to create the bistro staples at the brasserie.
We nurtured our French fancies by ordering some of Gabby’s sensational dishes: the tender steak frites ($23), the duck confit ($19) and the exquisite chicken liver parfait with jelly ($11). The cheese plate ($9) is well rounded and the beet salad ($8) is almost musical in its medley of flavours. In Paris, a brasserie lives or dies by its “pommes frites” and Gabby’s shoe-string fries are exceptional ($5).
Settling in with a glass of house port ($7), we forgot all about losing that silly raffle. Why suffer jetlag when we can enjoy fries in the comforts of home?
La Brasserie Brunoise
www.brunoise.ca
1012 de la Montagne
514-933-3885
Brunoise
www.brunoise.ca
3807 St. André Street,
Montreal, QC
H2L 2V7
514-523-3885