Avoid Toqué! in Montreal

Executive Summary
While the service and wines at Toqué! in Montreal were excellent and the ambiance inoffensive, the food was for the most part pretentious, awkward, and poorly executed. Definitely not worth the price or the fuss. Your money will be better spent and your appetite better sated elsewhere. More specifically, we suffered from amateurish dish conception, improperly cooked beef, and a pair of unrepented choke-bones. We essentially laid out a few hundred dollars for several glassfuls of good wine, several platefuls of frustration, and the sure knowledge that chef de cuisine Normand Laprise and his staff--notwithstanding their talent, training, and untrammeled access to high-quality ingredients--do not give a damn about your experience, your good opinion, or your second visit.

Overview
(My dining companion and I ordered the tasting menu with wine. I have detailed notes for each course below. The courses are numbered according to the order in which they made their appearance. I have rated each course individually on a scale of one to five; the rating key is at the bottom of this post.)

Although I had heard about Toqué! years ago, I postponed my first encounter with Montreal's most highly reputed eatery for an appropriately special occasion. Opportunity presented itself in the form of a cross-continent visit from my brother, who is a professional cook in the San Francisco Bay areal. To my chagrin, our overpriced and over-hyped meal at Toqué! served as his introduction to Montreal's fine dining scene.

I visited the restaurant's website as a prelude to our dinner, and I found there a promise that chef de cuisine Normand Laprise will deliver "surprise after surprise to your table" during the seven-course tasting menu. While M. Laprise certainly did surprise us, I am sad to report that few of the surprises were pleasant ones. Take, for example, the choke-bones we found in the charcuterie plate (#4). Surprising, certainly; pleasant, not so much. Now, bones are not supposed to leave the kitchen, but it can happen. You generally let the kitchen know about it in the spirit of helping them prevent it from happening again. And the chef (or sous-chef) generally apologizes in a spirit of contrition. We found two bones: I found one in my stewed rabbit, and my brother found one in his pancetta. Our server apologized perfunctorily, but we never heard anything from the kitchen or from management. Nothing. Not even a word. Thus the most unexpected surprise delivered to our table that evening turned out to be a crucial truth about Toqué!: M. Laprise and his staff may have talent, training, and high-quality ingredients, but they could care less about your experience, your good opinion, or your second visit.

Meal Notes
Overall, M. Laprise's food is long on presentation, but short on grace, empathy, and (unforgivably) flavor. Chefs like to say that you eat with your eyes first, but M. Laprise has apparently forgotten that this is merely a figure of speech. Most of the dishes on the tasting menu were self-indulgent spectacles of fastidious preparation that simply didn't taste all that good. There were highlights, but tellingly, the two tastiest dishes in our meal (#0, #2) were the plainest visually.

The quality of the food was wildly inconsistent, and M. Laprise and his team put on a impressive spectacle, making just about every mistake it's possible to make in a professional kitchen at least once during the meal. Two dishes were under-salted (#1, #3), yet one was over-salted (#5), meaning that these problems are not simply a difference of taste. One dish was over-peppered (#1). One dish defied the law of noncontradiction by being simultaneously over- and under-cooked (#5). Several of the dishes were poorly conceived, making them unpleasantly difficult to eat. One dish challenged the eater's dexterity and composure (#1) and two dishes comprised such a bewildering farrago of components that it was impossible to know how the chef meant them to be eaten (#3, #4). And so perhaps the most damning thing that can be said of M. Laprise is that he is not idle.

(#0) Amuse-bouche: sweet corn and celery-rabe mousse. {****} The amuse was served as a soup: several mouthfuls of foamy liquid that had to be spooned out of a large bowl. It was thus much larger than the single bite one expects as an amuse. Also, it wasn't at all acidic, which is usually best for kicking off a meal. These criticisms were rendered largely irrelevant by the single, simple fact that it was wonderfully tasty. Topped with a daub of melted butter, the amuse was essentially several spoonfuls of liquid, salty, delicately creamy-sweet popcorn.

(#1) Tuna-wrapped crostini with lime mayonnaise. {*} The first course was a single crostini wrapped with paper-thin strips of beautifully marbled fatty tuna, which was then dusted with chili powder and pepper. The crostini arrived at the table in a small bowl, leaning its hip against the inside edge. At the bottom of the bowl was a layer of lime-infused mayonnaise topped with some fresh arugula sprouts. This dish was a big disappointment: the chili and pepper overwhelmed the tuna, and the dish tasted under-seasoned despite the presence of what should have been a happy marriage of flavors because there just wasn't enough salt. Using a prosciutto instead of tuna may have been more predictable, but it certainly would have tasted better. This dish was also difficult and a little embarrassing to eat, because it's impossible to snip tuna fat with your teeth. Each bite engendered a tug-of-war between the crositini and my mouth, with the fish strung out between. We were left with the ugly impression that the chef had never simply tried to eat this dish in its finished form.

(#2) Scallop, cheese, and bacon tartelette. {*****} There's a grizzled old culinary rule that one should never combine seafood and cheese. We were delighted to discover that M. Laprise had broken it. This is dish was a thoughtful, playful, and scrumptious reinterpretation an an Alsatian classic. Potatoes replace the crust in this tartelette, which is then filled with in a bacon, cheese, and scallops. The potatoes, astonishingly, add air and lightness. Despite its innocuous appearance, this was a impressively accomplished and satisfying dish. High cuisine at its very best.

(#3) Mackerel and summer vegetables. {*} The slender half-fillet of mackerel arrived on a capacious plate, dressed with an understated sweet soy sauce, and surrounded by a carnival of seasonal fruits and vegetables. We counted not less than 14 (!) distinctly prepared and presented components on the plate, not including two pinches of different chili powders and what we believe was a smear of pesto. Of all the dishes we were served, this was the most infuriating. Everything on the plate was well cooked, but it was impossible to grasp how the chef thought the dish should be eaten. It was as though the chef had made a trip to Jean-Talon Market, purchased a bit of everything, and then asked us to decide how it ought to be eaten. Are the chili powders and the pesto for the fish or the vegetables? Which seasoning with which vegetable? Are the vegetables to be eaten with the fish or with each other? It's unsurprising that anyone should be dazzled by Montreal's local produce (I know I am), but it's flat out amateurish simply to serve a plate of bewildering options to your patrons.

(#4) Charcuterie plate with sausage, stewed rabbit, pancetta, and black trumpet mushrooms. {**} This plate was another visual and gustatory train-wreck, with too many components creating too many options. The stewed rabbit was adequate, the pancetta was... well, it was bacon, and the black trumpets were inexplicable. The small portion of sausage, however, dressed with what we think was a strawberry and balsamic reduction, was divine; those two bites of sausage were two of the most transcendentally perfect mouthfuls I've ever had. (This dish gets one star for each bite of that sausage.) I'd really like the chef to explain why he chose to dilute transcendent perfection. Everything else on the plate just got in the way. Especially the bones; both my brother and I found bones in our meat. I found one in my rabbit, and my brother one in his pancetta. Now, bones are not supposed to leave the kitchen, but it can happen. You generally let the kitchen know about it in the spirit of helping them prevent it from happening again. And the chef (or sous-chef) generally apologizes in a spirit of contrition. We found two of them. Our server apologized perfunctorily, but we never heard anything from the kitchen or from management. Nothing. Not even a simple request for our forbearance. M. Laprise and his staff may have talent, training, and fabulous ingredients, but they evidently do not care about your experience, your good opinion, or your second visit.

(#5) Seared Kobe beef with a baby leek. {*} This was the first dish ever served to me at a fine dining establishment that I actually sent back to the kitchen unfinished. (My brother sent his back as well.) Amazingly, even after the choke-bones from the previous course, sending back a half-eaten cut of Kobe beef provoked no response from the kitchen. Continuing with the tour de force of sauces, the steak and leek were dressed with an excellent veal-stock reduction featuring (we think) blueberries and beets. The baby leek was so forgettable I already can't remember it. The beef was improperly cooked: excessively charred on the outside so that it tasted strongly of charcoal (not just a hint--strongly) and underdone on the inside (I like my steak bloody, but this meat was so raw it was stringy). The steak was also inexcusably over-salted. To add insult to injury, this ultra-rare steak was served without a steak knife, forcing me to hack and saw at it with my butter knife.

(#6) Lightly melted cheese over summer vegetables. {***} A simple, tasty cheese course: sweet yellow tomatoes and summer squash covered with a blanket of slightly melted cheese, dressed with fresh herbs and blueberry vinegar. Unremarkable except for the blueberry vinegar, which was utterly extraordinary. Another instance in which the best item on the plate got lost in the effort to impress the diner with packaging.

(#7) Dessert: Raspberry tart and blackberry sorbet. {**} The simple tart comprised some fresh raspberries, whipped cream, and pancake crisps, all of which were stacked together to form a little tower. The scoop of blackberry sorbet at the other end of the long plate was well made, perfectly shaped, and rather dull. One welcome surprise was the presence of tiny clippings of fresh, fragrant herbs beneath and over the whipped cream, each of which provided a startling little burst of flavor in an otherwise relatively bland dish. While the presentation was pleasantly whimsical, the dessert amounted to little more than fresh berries with a few accompaniments. Not that I don't like fresh berries, but I expect a great chef to use his skills to improve his ingredients--not simply to re-label them.

Rating Key:
{*****} Superlative: inspired, astonishing, and just plain delicious.
{****} Good: creative, fun, and tasty.
{***} Acceptable: competent, but I wouldn't order it again.
{**} Fails to suck: inoffensively forgettable.
{*} Sucks: never should have left the kitchen.