Restaurant La Louisiane — Restaurant in Montreal

This place has a special spot in my heart, when I was in cooking school I ended up doing a stage here that was under original owner Michael Minorgan, and while the place was somewhat atrociously run, they didn't even know if they were making a profit, the food was good, the music was awesome and the atmosphere cozy. I also proposed to my wife here, and have been on friendly terms with the current owner Kyle for many years. Having moved out of NDG over 10 years ago we haven't been as often as we used to. It's hard to tell a restaurant owner that things are not as good as they use to be, though there may be consistency over the last 15 years or so, the usual menu items may have drifted from the original recipes. I can't speak for the Table D'hote items because these are changed regularly. The entrecote steak was not as I remember it, it was served with an ettouffee sauce which frankly does not compliment the steak at all. The ettouffee sauce is thick and somewhat bitter, the owner actually suggests taking the sauce on the side, which wasn't suggested to me by our server though I wish it had been. The hushpuppies do not look good the way they're done now, they look like Timbits, and the recipe has been changed they are far more dense now with more corn meal than they used to and I found there to be an off-putting after taste of bicarbonate of soda. My deep fried alligator was ok, though a little sodden with cooking oil, I think a quick toss in corn meal would do it more justice. My wife had the Shrimp Magnolia, penne with shrimp in a cream and creole sauce flavoured with Pernod. I used to make this dish, and the sauce is now too fine, the vegetables in the creole sauce used to be a rustic large cut, are now cut a little too small. They used to use a higher proportion of cream to creole sauce, and having tasted it I found I couldn't really pick out the Pernod flavour or the signature fish spice that is used to spice up the dish. The good news was our dessert was as I remember their bread pudding, which they serve with an insanely sweet butter and bourbon sauce. We used to choose they double chocolate chip bourbon pecan pie with a boozy creme anglais and chocolate sauce. The original used to use chunks of both dark and white chocolate, but at some point the irregular good quality dark chocolate chunks, chunked by hand, were replaced with a inferior chocolate chip, that are generally to small, don't have the same consistency as the chunks had after cooking, in general just not a pleasant mouth feel. I did dicuss with Kyle these points after my meal, with all candor, I know at this point it would be difficult to drift back to original recipes as there is a client base who have come to expect their meals the way they're served now. Which is a shame as I think those clients might actually like the way these recipes were if they weren't tied up in expectations. Which I suppose is my issue too, my expectations of having the dishes as I remember them. At least the place is still cozy. Though the jazzy Nawlins music has been replaced with more contemporary music, and for some reason I heard The Lumineers Ho Hey played 3 times in the last 30 minutes I was there. As Thomas Wolfe said You Can't...

We used to love coming here! We are sad that a lot has changed😔 we haven't been since covid so at least 3 years. We used to come often because food was amazing! However we were very disappointed. It was bad from the start… so yesterday was a humid day, we reserved to sit inside. However when we got there we noticed that the doors were wide open and windows too. There was a huge fan blowing inside so no Air! When we sat at our table this fan was blowing right in the back of me… not pleasant at all so we asked to sit outside which was not that pleasant either but who cares we came for the food! So we finally get a few drinks, Caesars, which were good and then we ordered but as time goes by we realize that it was taking quite long… but who cares no rush, right?!we get it, maybe they are short staffed etc… finally an hour goes by and then the waitress comes to us to apologize for the wait and that we are next to get our food… so another 15 min and another waiter comes to us and says its coming. Finally our food arrives, we were only 3 people… we ordered the 2 pastas, the shrimp and seafood and the other dish was the Jambalaya… my dish which was the pasta was okay, asked for extra spicey… and it was a little better then the other 2 plates … the Jamabalya was so weird.. there was no chicken? But chunks of ham? It was mostly rice…hardly any andoullli sausage! You figure we are at a cajun resto and this is their signature dish, jamabalaya??hardly any spice, and tasted very sweet? So my hubby asked for some spices and he fixed it up a bit but was very disappointed. My cousin’s dish was seafood creole pasta and hardly any variety of seafood, mostly muscles and 1 shrimp… and a very sweet sauce? My shrimp pasta was ok but why leave clumps of tamatoe in my dish? Presentation was awful, the Jambalaya was a mess, looked like rice sitting in tamatoe soup. ….and then because we waiting so long the waitress said deserts on us and when we ordered the three deserts she comes back and says only one. To which I replied… its okay, we want our 3 deserts. We are 3 people. FYI We didn't come here to get free food….really? Wow. Anyways its too bad that the food lacked flavour , ingredients …just 3 sloppy plates. Ps: do not waste...

My wife and I had the perfect experience at Restaurant La Louisiane. We had reserved a table and were given our choice of tables when we arrived.

It was right at opening at 5:30 so it wasn't very busy yet and our server took our order very quickly.

It may be a small thing, but this restaurant is one that uses glass carafes instead of metal, so the water tasted perfect. Metal carafes tend to make the water taste awful.

We ordered crab cakes as an appetizer and they were served quickly. They were delicious and perfectly cooked.

For our entrees we both ordered the blackened fish with Cajun rice. The seasoning was perfect and the fish, which seemed like it was salmon, was tender and complemented the rice very nicely.

We decided we'd try a dessert as well and went with the Bananas Foster, something we'd both never had before. We loved this so much! There was a caramelized brown sugar rum sauce that really satisfied my sweet tooth, soft banana slices and quality vanilla ice cream.

After all of that we were comfortably full and sat a while and talked and enjoyed the jazzy music before paying and leaving.

It really was the perfect experience and I can't wait to visit again to try other dishes. The dinosaur ribs are something I definitely want to try.

Thank you, Restaurant La Louisiane for a...