Alas Le Pré is no more. Instead, indoor dining is back in action at Restaurant Pearl Morissette. The food remains focused on locally-produced options, including vegetables from their own gardens, meats from nearby small farms, and flavouring options that don’t have to be imported from afar. Every dish packs together a multitude of ingredients that contribute different flavours and eye appeal. They continue to offer a wine pairing that features some of their own best bottles as well as other fine choices. And the juice pairing is equally satisfying and interesting. Service remains deft, helpful, and unobtrusive.
The wine of the night was an extra that we ordered a glass of to start: Pearl Morissette Heintz Vineyard Chardonnay from Sonoma 2012. Remarkably it shifted in flavour and aroma many times over the evening: initially lemon, then peach/apricot with a bit of melon, then mushroom, then ripe apple, then startlingly milk chocolate, then honey, then tomato!/pizza then honey and mushroom again. We were so intrigued, we bought a bottle at the exorbitant restaurant menu price (it’s not in the bottle shop) to take home.
Sweet raw scallop from Mahone bay, fresh Niagara Muscat grapes, rose, elderflower and leaves and flowers (borage, strawberry spinach). Floral and seafood goes surprisingly well together.
First pairings:
- Irouléguy Domaine Ilarria 2021 - French white blend (petit courbu and petit & gros manseng), malolactic fermentation and brief skin contact on the petit manseng) - crisp, high acid.
- Juice: apple, grapefruit, mint with a touch of fennel - especially smooth and delicious
Lobster from Bonavista Bay, lightly poached in butter, with celtuce, purple and snap peas in lovage cream, holy basil flowers and leaves, some blackcurrants - an amazing combination.
Next pairing:
- The wine above carried over to this course, but the juice was a sweetened cold tea, fragrant with rosemary, lavender, and rose monarda from the garden.
Sourdough bread, einkorn and red hard spring wheat with whipped butter from St Brigid’s creamery and sea salt - giant slices, amazing as always.
Razor clams also from Bonavista Bay, steamed then grilled, Walla Walla onion purée with sour cream and fresh chives, sugar snap peas, thinly sliced green strawberries, vetch, wood sorrel, chive flowers - multiple onion flavours and contrasting sours from the strawberries and wood sorrel.
The wine pairing was a 2021 Pearl Morissette White Ball Riesling - fine, but mainly strong on the acid.
Pot roasted Caraflex (pointed) cabbage, caramelised whey from Upper Canada Cheese Co., hazelnut, horseradish, wild Acadian sturgeon caviar, pickled green apricots - sweet cabbage, a perfect umami-rich sauce, and light sea accents from the caviar.
Pairings:
- Bodegas Cota 45, Ube de uberrima, El Reventon Tosca Cerrada 2021, palomino grapes - low acid, nutty, great with the dish.
- Juice: Suyo Long (?) cucumbers, lemon verbena, candied spruce tips - also lovely.
West Coast halibut steamed with a shellfish mousse (scallops, fish trim and spinach), nasturtium, fresh figs from Fisherville greenhouses, sauce with parsley, dill and fennel, snapdragon flowers and day lily petal - fresh and light, with a medley of herbal and floral flavours.
Pairings:
- Luis Seabra Vinhos 2021 Xisto Ilimitado Douro - rabigato, códega, gouveio, vioshino and more - floral and peppery.
- Juice: Strawberry with false cardamom and ginger - light fruit and subtle spice.
Slow-roasted then peachwood-grilled duck with honey garlic-scape glaze, from Back to Nature organic farms, with broccoli florets, prickly ash, and green gooseberries, brassica flowers, broccoli and apple purée - great, though the jus was just a touch oversalted.
This was paired with the 2019 Pearl Morissette Irreverence, 6 month skin contact on gewurztraminer - very stonefruity, minimal mushroom.
Slow roasted hogget (lamb) from Tamarack Farms with farcis cherry tomato stuffed with lamb sausage, and summer squash from Chez Nous farms, pesto with sea kale and cucumber, and zucchini blossoms. A more straightforward meat and veg dish, with clean flavours to savour.
They gave us two wines for this dish:
- Clos des Mourres Syrah “A Table” 2016 - cherries, gentle tannins.
- 2021 Domaine Marcel Lapierre Morgon 2021 (Beaujolais) - subtle strawberry, metallic/bloody in a good way.
Extra cheese course: Alfred Lefermier from Fromagerie La Station in Compton Quebec: raw cow’s milk, farmhouse style, aged for eight months - salty and nutty.
This was paired with a 2014 Chamboulé Y.T.E. Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast - peaches, honey, but not actually sweet.
Tangy rhubarb sorbet under angelica mousse, fresh Korean celery, strawberries marinated in pine syrup, candied Angelica flowers - the celery and pine added interest to an always enjoyable combo.
Raspberry mille-feuille, alternating blobs of chantilly, black currant leaf infused pastry cream, elderflower and pansies, and a gorgeous blackcurrant reduction - like eating sweet black currant air.
Pairings:
- Azienda Agricola 499 Vento del Mare Moscato D’asti 2022 - sparkling from secondary fermentation in the bottle - smells like gardenia, wonderful.
- Juice: rhubarb, white grapes, elderflower - wonderful balance of tart and sweet, with a hint of floral.
Tartlet with white currant marinated in lemon verbena with hogweed seed cream, bachelor button flowers - a fragrant last little bite of sweet.
We finished with a hot tea of fennel and lemon verbena, with a heady and relaxing aroma.
