Denise — Restaurant in Montreal

This establishment is a hidden gem, I figure most of QC has places like these. We were recommended by a friend. There is a seasonal narrow selection, and for at least what we ordered, everything was tasty. Some dishes we liked more than others of course, but overall a very pleasant experience. I think service in QC is very different in Toronto, despite what you hear, everyone is friendly, staff are very knowledgeable, and the team felt very cohesive together in such a small space. The kitchen is tiny, but the culinary team can pack a bunch of flavour in their dishes. I can't recall all the details for every dish but I will try my best. Also, I believe they have a seasonal menu, so everything changes after a while. We started with these corn croquettes with a gochujang butter. They must make their own gochujang, typical Korean red pepper paste is sweeter. The butter was quite mild and most likely from the fattiness of the butter cut the spice. Overall it was a good crunch, slight sweetness, and creamy mild kick. Next, we had beef tartare, I guess it's a common French dish, but the beef they used was perfectly fatty and very well prepared. Eating it with crispy rice and nori, kinda pays an homage to kimbap or maki I guess. Very tasty, it was one of my favourite dishes of the evening. Thirdly, "fat noodles", this is a little hard to describe, the noodles are made from scratch I believe and they are paired with kale, some crispy shallots and a sauce. It was pretty tasty, the kale absorbed a lot of the sauce though, so at least for me it was a little salty. I am a little more sensitive to salt than my wife. The noodles had a good chew, bouncy and shaped in a way that could absorb all the flavours together. Lastly (before dessert), I think it was a homemade duck sausage, overall it was good and well balanced. But maybe the ratio from pork to duck is missed. My palate isn't amazing, but it was hard to taste duck. I love meat, so no real complaints. Dessert is the "not quite like ferrero rocher", and it was amazing. A perfectly scooped quenelle of chocolate ganache, topped with hazelnuts (I think), and a dehydrated blueberry compote was out of this world. My wife and I reminisce on the perfection of this dessert. It's like that center in a ferrero rocher, but not as light, but still very silky. We had some orange wine to pair everything together. My wife enjoys wine more than I do, and she loved every sip, she is trying to look for the bottle in Toronto. Overall, a very lovely experience, still astonished by the chefs that cook and serve in such a small kitchen. Literally, they would cook and prep with their backs just nearly touching anyone washing...

We had a lovely time at Café Denise, although it did not live up fully to my high expectations given what I had heard about the place.

First, the food is amazing. The dishes were fun and tasty, fresh, and well presented. Really fantastic work on the flavours! The drinks we got were also good, although we did not try the extensive wine list.

Second, the service is warm, friendly and makes you feel right at home. The place has super cute decor and lighting, making for a very good date spot.

Now the reasons why it (barely) didn’t live up to the expectations: the food came out of the kitchen very slowly (it was a busy Friday night, but it was nonetheless on the very slow end). Even for though three out of four dishes required limited cooking such as the cucumber salad and burrata and the tartar, we were looking at 40 minutes until we got the cucumber salad, and at least 20 minutes between other dishes. For four plates, we were at the restaurant for a little over 2 hours. The final dish (cornish hen) took unusually long to arrive, the staff apologized which we appreciated. This alone did not disappoint me too much since the vibes of the place are nice and, if you’re having more cocktails or wine you could fill that time up easily.

However, the other negative point was price-value. Although the food we got was individually fantastic in flavour (when it did arrive), the quantities are limited for the price paid. I don’t mind paying a steep price for quality food, but I was surprised by the small quantity in some dishes, especially the 14$ cucumber salad. It made it almost hard to share between two of us. The burrata, on the other hand, was more substantial and what I would expect for similar restaurants at similar prices.

Conclusion: I recommend the spot for a cute date and drinks later at night, definitely try the food which is fantastic. On the other hand, I would probably have a snack or meal...

Pork Echine, Garlic Scapes, Olives, Chamomile, Japanese Whiskey Tare 🐷❤️🥃

I have to honestly say that @cafedenise is probably one of my favorite experiences I have had in 2025 so far. If you can go there and eat modestly it won't be too expensive but to be honest with you the portions are a little bit small but flavor packed. I wish they were a little bit larger but otherwise amazing.

It's Tapas style dishes meaning they're really meant to share and each one that we had was better than the next . For me the star of the show was the pork, a absolutely flavor sensation the whiskey you taste that tare gives a #umami bomb everything extremely well balanced.

We got other star dishes like there halibut Crudo with passion fruit there Caesar salad that had fresh anchovies marinated accompanied with Nordic shrimp, this Buratta dish that honestly left me pretty speechless I've never had a dish prepared this way with Beretta and honestly 11 out of 10! Everything just kept getting better and better and better even the end of the meal where we had their Basque cheesecake with Thai tea and dolce de leche was FOODGASMIC 🙌.

It's hard to kind of pinpoint the exact Style of food but you can clearly see that they take elements from Japan, elements from Thailand as well as French cooking techniques it's really a spectrum of everything but if I had to guess their influence is more in the Asian sector but fine dining flare! I've been twice so far in a 3 week span and I'm definitely going to come back again!

The Two Chefs in the kitchen both own the restaurant and so far are absolutely killing it...