Auberge Saint-Gabriel

426 rue St-Gabriel
Montreal, QC H2Y 2Z9
(514) 878-3561

I will start off by saying, this is possibly one of the most elegant and stunning restaurants in Montreal. It is nowhere near pretentious like Europea or others in that class, but when Mr. Cirque  du Soleil bought this place over, he got a famous decorator to redo it. The designer is the same as Club Chasse et Peche, one of my favourite restaurants, from the food to the decor. The chef Eric Gonzales, once cooked for Bill Clinton and used to work for the amazing XO restaurant in the hotel St-James. Located in the always busy Old Port area, I knew I was walking into a gem. An extremely busy Thursday night in mid January had me me surprised by the immensity of this location and the amount of people present at 7:00 PM.

To start off I took the delicatessen platter (16) ( the whole pig from snout... to trotter). A delicious assortment of pork, or as I call it, a pig lovers paradise. Each different part of the pig was fantastic, such a wonderful assortment and a couple little dishes of vegetables and beans.

My favourite dish of the night was the homemade cannelloni au gratin(28), stuffed with braised beef cheeks, parboiled brussels sprouts, bacon onion and marrow.  A really divine dish on all aspects, from the visual aspect all the way to the taste.

The half free range guinea fowl legs(32), made with mushrooms, figs, artichokes, pistachios and spelt enriched with bacon and cream was another delicious tender dish.

The amuse-bouche that really stood out that night ( there was 3 or 4 of them) was the dessert, white chocolate, cashews and pineapple served in a small glass. A delicious mixture of white chocolate worked wonders with the salty and sweet of the two other items.

I must say, the best part of the night was the vanilla ice cream mixed with nuts and iced fruits(10). The saltiness of the nuts mixed with the vanilla ice cream and the frozen chopped fruits was another not to be missed dish.

Close to 5 hours later at midnight, it was time to go, I really did enjoy Auberge, but more for the atmosphere then the food. The food was good but it was not outstanding and not worth the price. The question is would I go back? The answer is yes I would, but I would be careful on which dishes I ordered from and not for along time...

Food: 7/10
Atmosphere:10/10
Location:9.5/10
Service:9.5/10
Price:7/10
Overall:8.5/10