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Restaurant review: Joe Beef team hops to Little Italy with Mon Lapin

The delightful wine bar keeps things fresh and natural, and is the latest addition to a family that includes Liverpool House and Le Vin Papillon.

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Mon Lapin

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★

$$-$$$

Address: 150 St-Zotique St. E. (Near Casgrain Ave.)

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Website: vinmonlapin.com

Open: Tues.-Sat. 5 p.m. to midnight

Wheelchair access: Yes, but it would be very tight

Reservations: None taken, so be very early or very patient

Cards: Visa, Mastercard

Vegetarian-friendly: Yes

Licensed: Yes

Parking: On the street

Price range: Small dishes easy for sharing, $6-$28

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Entering Mon Lapin wine bar on the first truly hot day of the season, I needed something refreshing. Sitting at the short bar, enjoying the light-filled space, I was amiably steered to a sparkling Quebec white, Ces Petits Imprévus, from Domaine du Nival near St-Hyacinthe. Sweet-sour, bracingly acidic and faintly peary — I was revived immediately.

At Mon Lapin, the food is local and fresh, and the wines are natural, which means minimal intervention during the making. Natural vineyards are organic or biodynamic, and the producers aim to make interesting, lively, quaffable drinks. If organic food is good for the environment, safer for the farmers and arguably healthier and more flavourful, it follows that organic wine is, too.

Mon Lapin’s menu changes daily, depending in part on what chef Marc-Olivier Frappier finds in the morning at Jean-Talon Market.
Mon Lapin’s menu changes daily, depending in part on what chef Marc-Olivier Frappier finds in the morning at Jean-Talon Market. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

Mon Lapin is linked to Joe Beef, which was the first of the cluster of Little Burgundy restaurants to be opened by Allison Cunningham, Fred Morin and David McMillan, in 2005. Joe Beef begat Liverpool House shortly after, and the team opened Le Vin Papillon in 2013 with their sommelier Vanya Filipovic and chef Marc-Olivier Frappier.

Happily for those who live on the other side of the mountain, the famous five expanded to Little Italy with Mon Lapin this spring. Other Vin Papillon émigrés are chef Jessica Noël and maître d’ Marc-Antoine Gélinas.

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Mon Lapin is small, and I took it in while waiting for a wine-geek friend. It’s best to arrive early, as there are no reservations and you won’t be seated until your whole party is there. The space fills fast.

There are plants and interestingly labelled empty bottles on shelves up high. An undulating wood sculpture with tangerine paint gives a brief bright slash against the white walls. There are blurred-landscape paintings by Montreal artist Peter Hoffer that look like they were wrested from old European cabinets and given a thick glossy lacquer. Bunny homages appear here and there, one a sketch after Dürer. McMillan is also a painter, so it figures he would ensure there’s good art in the room.

A halibut dish was served with a garlic ramp sauce and topped with white garlic flowers at Mon Lapin.
A halibut dish was served with a garlic ramp sauce and topped with white garlic flowers at Mon Lapin. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

When my friend arrived, we moved to a small table. Though the room has only around 30 seats, loads of personable staff weave around each other with ease, providing fun backstories on the food and wine.

You can drink wines by the bottle or glass, which always comes with a preliminary pour so you can change your mind if it’s not to your liking. They also offer Joe Beef pilsner and a few ciders. The menu changes daily, depending in part on what Frappier finds in the morning at Jean-Talon Market, which he toodles to on his Vespa.

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There was so much tempting food to choose from the day we were there, from goose egg with rapini to duck with mustard leaves. We started off with a bang — tempura fried fiddleheads that were crisp and tender inside, with a bright green lovage mayonnaise dip. There was a smokiness that went well with a South African chenin blanc called Terre Brûlée that, true to its name, had a burnt-earth quality.

Mon Lapin’s rose salad mixes three kinds of radicchio with marinated elderberries and shaved foie gras.
Mon Lapin’s rose salad mixes three kinds of radicchio with marinated elderberries and shaved foie gras. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

The season’s pretty first radishes were served with dulse butter, and a bread made with wheat and Jerusalem artichoke flours came with emulsified sunflower oil spread. “This is one of the most beautiful specialty breads I’ve had in ages,” my friend declared.

We had a beguiling macerated wine (often these are referred to as orange wines, because the grape skins impart colour as well as flavour) called Voyage en Terre Géorgienne, from Domaine d’Émile et Rose. Though it comes from the Languedoc-Roussillon region, the wine was made in the Georgian style, which means aged in a giant clay pot buried to the rim in the earth.

Back to our food: halibut had been steamed and then brought to room temperature, served with a garlic ramp sauce and topped with white garlic flowers. It had a wonderful, creamy texture — unusual for fish.

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Mon Lapin sommelier Vanya Filipovic presents an intriguing array of natural wines.
Mon Lapin sommelier Vanya Filipovic presents an intriguing array of natural wines. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

The tables are close enough that we were distracted by our neighbours’ tantalizing leftover fiddlehead nuggets, which did get slowly eaten. By now the place had filled up and hipsterati were milling about the front, waiting for tables. Though the room got loud, it never got clattery; and though crowded, it was never stifling.

The rose salad, a regular guest star on the menu, was a mix of three kinds of radicchio, marinated elderberries and shaved foie gras on top. It’s a lovely mix that went beautifully with our first red wine of the night, Un Air du Sud, an Alsatian pinot noir with a shy nose and surprising palate.

Our final savoury dish was smoked eel carbonara, another mainstay, which evokes Joe Beef’s famous lobster spaghetti. It was made with homemade chitarra pasta — rough, long noodles so called for their resemblance to guitar strings. It had a wonderful texture and was rich and peppery, though I wished for a bright note somewhere.

A meringue and pastry cream dessert was presented atop strawberry and rhubarb at Mon Lapin.
A meringue and pastry cream dessert was presented atop strawberry and rhubarb at Mon Lapin. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

When we got our dessert — an orb of pastry cream and meringue on top of vivid strawberry and rhubarb — our neighbours on our other side oohed and ahhed and inquired. It was perfectly delicious, though I still wonder about the dessert we forwent, a sort of frozen goat cheese yogurt with spruce tips.

Mon Lapin definitely struck the right notes. Grounded in its neighbourhood, it’s both homey and professional. The wine was intriguing and lovely to drink, and the food was approachable and fun yet inventive. My friend mused that the dishes skewed rich, but I (and my younger liver) didn’t mind. I certainly plan to return soon, with other wine-curious mates.

Lesley Chesterman returns next week.

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