Le Cathcart — Restaurant in Montreal

And I received the notification "how was Le Cathcart"... What can I say... Empty, the shiny highly polished normally bustling brand spanking new food court at Place Ville Marie that "recently" opened, was almost completely empty sauf a couple of tables of people working and having a bite from the few restaurants that are still open.

It was a shame, the last time that I was downtown precisely at Place Ville Marie was at the beginning of March attendeding a business meeting, and after observing the super busy space and the hundreds if not thousands of people eating and waiting for a table, I mentally self declared in tune with worldwide news, that this place was to be avoided in the near future until the situation normalised. Lo and behold, 5 months down the road and with the worse city in the whole of Canada still grappling with the pandemic, it was painfully empty.

I sincerely wish for many things like convincing Legault to enable the contract tracing app that the rest of Canada is using, or that not so many small businesses fail, but for that to happen Montreal, if not Quebec needs to show self restraint and discipline, two characteristics that painfully are missing from current behavior.

You cannot return to a certain sense of normalcy until you reign on your own impulses and emotions, you cannot wish the virus away but you can control the way you react to the whole situation, and I must say painfully, that the lack of compromise and discipline in Quebec is palpable, and the emptiness downtown is witness to that lack of intent and overflowing self-centred arrogance where the me first...

UNACCEPTABLE!!

I went Thursday august 24th for the first time for the the 5 à 7 with one of my friend. We arrived early so we had our drink and we were sitting on the table and having a discussion. Few minutes by the head security chief came to us asking us to follow him to talk.

We then we're welcomed ( not so) and firmely accused by MANOLO COSTA the general manager that we were here last week and drugged their employees. It was my first time at this place and to be accused directly like that was SHOCKING!

We were stopped and frisked by the manager right in front of all the people passing by. This situation was really uncomfortable.

MANOLO kept saying that his employees safety are his top priority (fair enough). But never took a look at the security footage one week before to see who's the real criminal nor contacting the authorities to initiate an investigation. As a manager you got to do your due diligence before falsely accusing customers and kicking them out.

We got asked to leave the place after being frisked because we allegedly looked liked the criminals.

This sould Never happened in any situation and accusing people whitout any proofs is shocking and can lead to a slippery slope. But most importantly our integrity was compromised due to a lack of transparency by the manager and all his staff. At the end of the day, MANOLO COSTA, you are the manager and you need the hold accountable for this discriminatory practice. It should...

Beautiful food court. Looks really high end. Nice and courteous staff.

During my visit, I tried the Pizza bar. I ordered a Margherita pizza and a Cesar salad.

Pizza ($13): Nothing special. The dough is not hand stretched, which should be a must for a pizza of this type of pizza (and price). The tomato sauce was fine, lacking oregano and a little salt. The basil was fresh. I would have liked to have a little more of it. The Pizza was cooked perfectly. The main issue with the pizza was the mechanically stretched (or flattened) dough. This makes that pizza texture too uniform (lack of air pockets of various size).

Salad ($7): The bowl was nice. The salad was too wet from the dressing (was it dressed way before serving?). The dressing was too vinegary, lacking depth. I had better store bought dressing than the dressing I was served. The croutons looked like slivers of flat bread (very nice). The Parmesan was fine. Overall, nothing amazing but the price was right.

It has to be noted that I did ask for cracked pepper for the salad and I was told they did not receive the pepper mill yet (2nd day of opening).

Overall, this place is fine. A little expensive if someone is just looking at the food but considering the location and the amazing renovations that was done to the food court, I would say it is acceptable.

On a side note, I would be more tempted to head to brigade restaurant if I wanted to eat a better Neapolitan...