Down-home delicious

Kitchenette’s Southern touch
adds spice to seafood classics

by JOANNA FOX

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a restaurant and wanted absolutely everything on the menu, but that was the case when I visited Kitchenette, a small eatery on the edge of the Village. Opened in 2008, Kitchenette has been quietly building up a solid following since. With its mixture of modern cuisine meets Southern-style home cooking, the food is down-home delicious.

Originally from Dallas, chef/owner Nick Hodge has made this a family affair, collaborating with his Québécois wife and her parents—a choice that has no doubt contributed to the warm service and amazing food. Hodge mans the grill in the diner-style, open kitchen directly in front of a long bar where you can sit and watch the action. With its minimally stylish décor, the room’s banquettes, modern wood tables and chairs and pendant light fixtures create an open yet intimate setting.

Serving lunch and dinner, lunch is a must for the best fish tacos in the city. Although Montreal has many cuisines, Mexican food has never been our forte. Taco lovers, delight: two soft warm tortillas are melted together by gooey cheese (so the cheese is uniform throughout the taco), generous chunks of perfectly grilled mahi-mahi, iceberg lettuce, chipotle mayo, lots of coriander, a black bean and pineapple salsa on the side and a slice of lime ($15). For lunch only, the restaurant now boasts a separate taco menu with four varieties to choose from.

Dinner at Kitchenette is just as impressive, their menu chock full of so many mouth-watering dishes, it’s hard to contain oneself. With eclectic choices ranging from General Tao lobster to shake ’n’ bake halibut, my dining companion and I settled on the recommendations of our gracious waiter. To start, we sampled a baked beet salad with curried almonds, Medjool dates and an onion bhaji ($10), a BBQ octopus salad ($14) and crab cakes ($12).

The beet salad had a hint of curry and, mixed with almonds and dates, was very sweet, cut only slightly by baby coriander leaves. The bhaji on top lacked crispiness and salt, making the dish only so-so, but the octopus was perfection. It had that smoky, char-grilled taste on the outside but was so tender on the inside, it almost melted in our mouths. Combined with a succotash of black beans, corn, lime zest and a hint of poblano chili that came on as a pleasant afterthought, we devoured every bit. The crab cakes were palm-sized patties filled with tons of fresh crabmeat. Maryland in style, Hodge explained they were a mixture of crab and soda crackers, making them light, fluffy, simple and so, so good. With a ranch dressing dip, and presented on red and white checkered paper, it was in true crab-shack-by-the-sea style.

For mains, we shared the braised beef short ribs ($24) and the cioppino ($30), a type of Italian fish bouillabaisse crammed with fresh seafood. The ribs had been slow cooked for five hours and removed from the bones, so we received a giant slab of moist, juicy meat smothered in a lightly spiced BBQ sauce. Surprisingly lean, these ribs were sumptuous. Accompanying the dish was garlic mashed potatoes and green beans—good, but a bit heavy for a summer dish.

The fish stew was in a light tomato broth with crab, shrimp, scallops, mahi-mahi, mussels and clams. Served on the side were the characteristic slices of grilled sourdough bread and an amazing rouille (saffron mayonnaise) that matched the seafood perfectly. Despite the broth lacking a bit of punch, the whole dish was generous and amazing. What we really wanted to try but could not manage was their lobster roll (market price). My dining companion had already sampled it on a previous visit and swore it was one of the best he’d ever had.

For dessert, made by Loulou, Hodge’s mother-in-law, the original selection offered sticky toffee pudding with cracker jacks, banana Foster, strawberry shortcake, an ice cream sandwich and our choice, a rich, gooey chocolate cake with raspberry coulis ($8–$9).

Kitchenette is one of the most original and interesting restaurants on offer in this city and I can’t recommend it more for a lovely dining experience, day or night.