L'Express — Restaurant in Montreal

L’Express is exactly what you would expect from a cramped space, too small tables, loud due to the vintage tile floors (this pretty much defines Paris bistro of a certain era)!

Bistros, such as this one, is intimate (smaller in size), served traditional fare and an extensive French wine list. You’ll find casual menu items but are not going to make vegans or vegetarians happy!!! My husband and I came here to make my 80 year old mother happy, she was moderately happy by the end of the meal ;)

The restaurant is in an average neighborhood, we could not shop after, not really a place to wander about after, we ended up driving to a new neighborhood to shop. However, we did not come to shop we came to eat French food.

The French cuisine is simple featuring basics like chicken liver pate with pistachios ($17), goat cheese in kataifi ($16), beet salad with Louis d’or ($15+).

My husband had coffee, I had tea and my mom had orange juice that she could not wait for me to take a photo of because it smelled like well, orange juice! She loved something so simple, it reminded her of her childhood, we bought her a juicer but she never uses it, doesn’t like to get it dirty!

We forgot to ask for the complimentary bread and house pickles that folks talk about, perhaps you should? Maybe they are life changing?

My mom had the chicken with potatoes, she seemed to enjoy, she was quiet, does not happen often.

I had a salad and they removed the meat and my husband had the beet salad. Again with traditional French food no one cares about vegans and vegetarians but perhaps you could have one option?

Very polite staff but for us without my mother no...

This post doesn't even encompass everything that happened but I'll summarize the key events.

I visited this restaurant last year for my birthday and had the worst experience. Immediately, the waiter was extremely rude and unwelcoming. He took an exceedingly long time to take our orders and deliberately ignored us when we tried to make eye contact or gesture for him to come over (which we only resorted to after waiting for over 20 minutes) despite being seated right next to the service table. While taking our orders, he wouldn't make eye contact and when he was unable to hear us due to the loud atmosphere, he masked his face with annoyance and gestured to his ear to indicate for us to speak up instead of politely asking. This was greatly contrasted with the way he was treating other tables (laughing and conversing with them), not sure if the fact that our table was majority non-white is relevant.

After multiple incidents I eventually called the manager over and respectfully requested for a different waiter which he said he would grant. Despite this, the same waiter served us for the rest of the night, switched to french communication (when we requested english upon entry), and completely ignored my presence at the table following this point.

We order the duck leg confit, the steak frites, and another beef dish (I don't recall what it was). I had high hopes for the food but unfortunately it was very greasy and tasteless. Due to this series of events, we decided not to order dessert.

We recited our experience to the manager upon leaving so hopefully they take the steps to improve.

Definitely the worst birthday I...

We came on a busy Friday night. It was packed. This type of dinner service divides good restaurants and great restaurants. But this restaurant is overall decent. I don't understand how a restaurant of this caliber and how highly it has been rated was this bad. Maybe it was an off night?

Anyways we got the Grilled octopus which lacked a lot of depth. Very basic flavors nothing is going on. Still good. The goat cheese was exceptional and delicious. Between the time we got the starters to the entrees it was 25 minutes. On top of that the restaurant is very loud because it's a tight space and no music is playing so you're just surrounded by other peoples conversations and we left with a headache.

For entrees we had the Steak frite. Steak was cooked perfectly but not seasoned whatsoever. Fries were good so was the butter. We also orders the duck confit that was incredible. Finally we ordered the maple profiterol dessert. The ice cream was freezer burnt and way too cold. It also lacked a crunch. A dish like this needs some kind of nuts like candied pistachios to really bind something like this together. It also took 10 minutes to bring to our table? This should've been an easy pickup.

Regardless of the taste of the food which was delicious most of the part. Service was very attentive but not consistent. We also had a very long wait between service and being hungry while also listening to a loud restaurant doesn't help. It seems to me that the chef and the kitchen brigade don't know how to serve at this volume. I understand why the michelin guide will never come to Montreal. Nothing is serious enough around here. Never...