Beyond BYO

O’Thym’s French market cuisine is a classy
take on the usually boisterous scene

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

To BYO or not to BYO? My answer, most often, is not. It isn’t that I dislike spending less money on my dinner bill or that my arms are so spindly I can’t lug a 750-millilitre bottle to the restaurant (I can even do it while riding a bicycle). It’s just that at many BYO’s, it’s not about the food, it’s about being a venue for rowdy groups celebrating birthdays or reunions. Ditto for terrasses—on a balmy summer night, some of us will settle for less than stellar food if it means sitting in a leafy outdoor setting that makes us feel like the living is easy. Of course, excellent restaurants of these kinds do exist, you just have to do your research.

With summer cruelly taking its leave of us, a cozy BYOW seemed the right choice for our not-so-rowdy group of extended family one recent Monday night. We settled on hitting up O’Thym, a restaurant specializing in French market cuisine, launched in 2005 in the Gay Village, by the people behind À l’Os and Les Infidèles. The occasion: my cousin was leaving to take up a volunteer position in Madagascar for a few months. So six of us sat down amidst the exposed brick, oversized mirrors and blackboard menu with a modest two bottles (one red, one white) and healthy appetites all around.

After perusing the water list, which features sparkling and non choices, mostly from Europe, we settled on some old fashioned eau de Montreal, that is to say: tap. As for the food, it starts off with a small bowl of soup (included with each main), this time a potato-leek number with strong thyme flavour (a cute nod to the name of the place). An appetizer of mussels came bathed in a sweet and creamy Pastis and fennel sauce ($12), while some plump little seared scallops sat atop their mild salsa, which was more like a salad, of thin mango strips and chayotes ($11).

The summery salad of melons (honeydew and water) and prosciutto was nearly bubblegum-sweet, served in tiny balls with chunks of salty feta and soaked in a coriander-flecked vinaigrette ($10). The star of the opening act, though, was decadent tatin of foie gras, with a flakey pastry bottom, buttery tender figs, satiny shallots and pillowy liver ($18).

There were hits and misses among the mains. The tuna in curry coconut sauce ($31), served near raw, garnered two complaints from its eater: the fish was not exactly sashimi grade and the sauce was far too scant. The salmon with garlic flower and basil butter ($24) had a distinct smoked salmon flavour to it, while the rabbit special ($28), a filet mignon-type cut stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes and olives, was incredibly flavourful and very tender.

My lamb cutlets with roast garlic and honey sauce ($27), which the waitress said would come medium rare was a little too raw for my liking and its sauce was strangely similar to the sauce drizzled over the tasty salt-crusted duck magret ($24) with thyme (yep, there it is again). The deer rib steak ($34) with wild mushrooms and cipollini onions was another fave—tender, juicy and packed with funghi flavour. Fish dishes came with quinoa and a section of veggies cooked just right (a little al dente), like sugar snap peas, zucchini and turnips, and the meats came with the same veg selection, only trading the quinoa for mashed potatoes.

A sad little scribble at the bottom of the blackboard was a stark reminder that our province is currently in the grips of a cheese-induced listeriosis outbreak. It read “Fromages Québécois: non-disponibles.” So we split three desserts six ways. The crème brulée’s ($6) custard was rich and satisfying but the thing was too soggy, without a hint of crunch to its top (perhaps it was blowtorched well in advance, only to go soft while sitting out in the open in a hot and humid kitchen?).

And a ho-hum cheesecake ($7) with mushy graham bottom and a sauce listed as honey-port tasted more like strawberry jam. The marquise au chocolat ($7) rose to the occasion, eliciting oohs and aahs. Somewhere between mousse and cake, its velvety-buttery mouth feel and intense chocolate flavour more than made up for its fellow desserts’ lacklustreness. Hopefully the cheese will make a triumphant comeback soon.