Stellar cellar

>> Chic little wine bistro Les Trois
Petits Bouchons delivers the goods

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

As my friend and I settled into our table at Les Trois Petits Bouchons, a waiter stopped to ask the people next to us how they were enjoying their meal. “Perfect,” the man said, practically beaming. “Incredible,” said his female dining partner. This little eavesdropped snippet of conversation seemed to confirm what I had been hearing about LTPB for months: that it’s one of the city’s best new bistros à vin, or wine bistros.

Not to be confused with wine bars—BU, Pullman, Aszú and the like—where mostly smaller plates or antipasti typically play second fiddle to the vino, at your bistro à vin, the menu might be short, but the food is on equal footing with the wines and often comes in the form of French bistro classics. And as for the wines, they’ll tend toward the approachable, affordable and relatively young (i.e. not many show-off names or astronomical price tags).

LTPB, open since last fall, is the first restaurant venture of Michel Charette and Xavier Burini, who met while working at Hotel St-Paul’s Cube restaurant (Charette was maitre d’ and Burini was sommelier). The look of the semi-basement space is very new-school wine cellar, with its old stone walls contrasted against a sleek, pale, wood bar and matching shelves stocked with wine bottles. The abstract paintings and cute chalk drawing of their mascots, the three little wine corks, in the semi-open kitchen clue you in to the contemporary, playful vibe.

An added bonus, for those of us concerned with environmental and ethical food issues, is that the owners have put a lot of thought into where the food and wine they serve comes from: sourced from smaller farms and vineyards working the old-fashioned way (as naturally as possible), or using organic or biodynamic principles, their meats are mostly free-range and free of hormones and antibiotics, while the wines generally have low or no sulfites, chemicals or artificial yeasts.

To start with, my lady friend and I treated ourselves to a glass of bubbly, a 2002 Francois Chidaine Vouvray pétillant ($10), which had an enchanting, delicate sweetness to it that had us oohing and aahing. From the menu, written on a chalkboard, we chose to start by going halvsies on the pissaladière ($6.50). Having spied on our neighbour’s choices, we noted that the mains, while not huge, came in generous portions, and we wanted to make sure to leave room for dessert, so an appetizer each seemed like too much (we were right).

I was leaning toward the plate of charcuterie to start (apparently it’s divine) but my pal’s a vego, so we stuck to the classic pizza-like dish from the south of France. It was an excellent choice. The very thin crust came topped with onion confits, sliced marinated black olives, arugula and shaved Parmesan. There was a slight lemony tang to the buttery onions that kicked the delicious mélange up a notch.

Next came our mains—the souris d’agneau (the smaller tip of a leg of lamb, $22) for me and the flétan poêlé (pan-fried halibut, $26) for her. My lamb came in a small roasting dish, a pool of aligot (mashed potatoes blended with Tomme cheese) accompanying it. The aligot was the one disappointment of the night: it was only lukewarm, a bit too liquidy and lacking its signature elasticity. Her halibut came perfectly cooked (crispy on the outside, tender and flaky just beneath the surface), with a tasty stir-fry of small shrimp, corn and mushrooms and a smear of black olive purée.

Then came dessert: one delectable maple crème brulée ($6), two spoons. My one gripe with this was that the maple flavour was so subtle it verged on undetectable. Otherwise, the requisite vanilla beans were in full effect and the crust provided the perfect crunch and burnt caramel taste. We both scraped at the bowl (or large tea cup, as it were) while singing its praises. Our server came by moments later to take the dish away, remarking that we must have really hated it. “Yes,” we nodded vigorously. “Terrible!”

As we rubbed our full bellies and waited for the cheque, we agreed that LTPB was just one of those restaurants that had “it.” Defining that special something can be tricky, but when that magical confluence of elements elevates an eatery from good to exceptional, it’s a beautiful thing.