Pop! tarts

>> Laloux’s recent offspring is a wine
bar with an impressive dining menu
and some swell cocktails

by MARK SLUTSKY

One of the city’s loveliest dining rooms belongs to Laloux, on des Pins: it’s all booths and mirrored walls. But Pop! Bar à vin, which the owners opened last year, could give its big brother some competition. Pop! occupies a long, narrow space next door to Laloux, and it’s furnished entirely in a beautiful Danish modern fashion: all vintage cozy stylish woodiness.

Pop! was already a fine place to go for a glass of wine or a cocktail, and now they’ve introduced a light dining menu overseen by Laloux’s pastry chef Patrice Demers, formerly of les Chèvres. The new menu has a relaxed, bar-friendly feel to it, with a focus on shareable tartes salées, and the prices are surprisingly reasonable.

But you could definitely start with a cocktail. Full disclosure: Pop!’s mixologist is friends with this column. But the drinks really are great. Montreal’s not a particularly hospitable place for those who like mixed drinks made with any degree of sophistication beyond adding gin to tonic, making Pop! a welcome haven.

The High Wind in Jamaica (dark rum, homemade ginger beer, lime juice, mint, $8) is a particular favourite, and you can’t go wrong with a drink named after a Preston Sturges movie, The Lady Eve (bourbon, Granny Smith apple juice, caramel, $8). A new addition to the menu is the Milky Way (dark rum, warm milk, spices, twist of lemon, $8), which is a soothing concoction for a cold winter’s night.

Desserts aside, the food menu comprises two main sections: savoury dishes, mostly starter-size and the aforementioned tarts. (Charcuterie plates and cheeses are also available, as well as a daily special main.) For starters, you might want to try the arancini ($5), six deep-fried Sicilian rice balls. These were crispy and orange-brown (thus the name) on the outside and delightfully cheesy within: perfect bite-sized poppers.

The chickpea purée with yogurt and Espelette pepper ($6) didn’t quite have the consistency of hummus—a little less viscous, and served in a glass, with wedges of crisp flatbread. Fresh and tasty. But the real standout among the starters was the brussel sprout salad ($7). The sprouts were peeled, with the leaves as the salad’s greens, and you could also find sliced green apple, chèvre, fried onions and bits of rosette de Lyon saucisson in there. A crisp and beautiful marriage of textures, of sweet and savoury. Outstanding.

The tarts are made on a thin, crisp dough, almost like light pizzas. They’re big too—definitely good for two, if you go for appetizers. The Alsatian tarte flambée or flammeküeche ($12) is not actually set on fire—the name comes from the traditional preparation of the pie in a super-hot oven. It’s topped with créme fraîche, onions and lardons, and while the flavours are pretty harmonious, it might just be a bit too rich, too salty, for some tastes. That’s not true of the tart made with mushroom marmalade (!) and walnut oil and topped with watercress and shaved mimolette cheese ($12). The greens keep the tart tasting fresh and light, and the sharp orange cheese, wonderful in any setting, is a beautiful touch. Another slightly heavier tart ($16) is made with chorizo sausage, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, walnuts and Ossau-Iraty cheese (a ewe’s milk cheese from the southwest of France). It’s a lot of flavours to assimilate, but well worth the effort.

Sweets are obviously worth checking out if you have room, considering the kitchen’s pedigree. Demers’s signature chocolate pot-de-crème ($8), topped with caramel and Maldon salt, is a jar of sweet-salty delight always worth dipping into, and there’s shortbreads, tartes sucrées, sorbets and various other creative and refreshing combinations. Or you could just go for another cocktail...

Tips? Questions? Recipes? Email eattothebeat@gmail.com