Restaurant Le Carré — Restaurant in Montreal

Le Carré is a fine place to get a nice dinner if you’re around. Service in English was great, and all around I felt very attended to. Staff were professional and knew what they were talking about. The food was good, though some plates were a little dated. I think the chef needs to relax on the microgreens on the next menu overhaul, they were on every dish we had (even the lemon pie dessert!).

We ordered the charred broccoli as an appetizer, which was very tasty, though the broccoli could use a little time in a steamer perhaps as they were a touch hard. Flavours on the plate were very good, well thought out. Probably a 3.5/5 (mainly due to the micros, and only getting 2 pieces of grilled peach [one of which still had a piece of pit on!])

I had the grilled octopus as my main, and it was wonderful. The octopus literally melted in my mouth. The corn salad was very good as well, but I feel the chorizo could have been incorporated into the dish better, it provided and excellent salty/spicy component to the dish, but the grilled bias cut seems a little out of place considering the general „fanciness” of the place. 4.5/5

My wife got the gnocchi (she’s vegetarian and it’s the only vegetarian main on the menu, definitely room for improvement there), and I was genuinely surprised at the quality. Very very flavourful. Once again the plating could use some touching up, but when the food tastes that good, it doesn’t really matter. 5/5

Finally, we shared a piece of lemon „pie”. This was more of a deconstructed tart than a pie, and probably the biggest miss of the dinner. Flavour-wise was very good. The curd was luxuriously smooth, and the „exotic salsa” (a mélange of brunoise mango and other yellow fruit that I couldn’t place) was really tasty. Unfortunately the base crust of the „pie” wasn’t very good. The menu listed it as „short bread” and while technically true, turned out as more resembling the dry cookie part of a Jaffa cake than anything I would consider a „short bread” in the context of a lemon tart/pie. Also, just a massive bunch of undressed microgreens on the plate. What purpose did they serve? I ate them, and can tell you they served 0 purpose. Had it been a sprig of mint it would still be a dated plate, but at least the mint tastes like stuff. 2.5/5 (for $15, I was unimpressed)

Overall, good! Though a bit pricey. With 2 drinks, our total was $160, but the service did make up for it a bit.

Be warned! This restaurant is attached to a hotel, so if you’re looking for a nice, quiet, adults-only dinner, maybe...

Very disappointed. Had seen the incredible reviews and went for a business lunch. We were the first table served on a weekday- given the lack of patrons, I incorrectly assumed we would be assured an excellent dining experience.

Food: Our starters were fine though not memorable. What was unfortunately memorable was the mains. My $32 waygu cheeseburger was served with fries that were room temperature and soft - any fast food location serves fries an order of magnitude better. Worse still, while I like my bread grilled, the brioche of the burger was burnt black to the point of being completely inedible. As this was a time-limited meeting, I did not have time to send the food back. This is the first meal I have eaten out where I have not finished my plate, it was that sub-par. My guest ordered the duck pasta and was visibly displeased/confused to be served a warm pasta dish piled over with edible flowers and shoots of some kind, which do not mix well with steaming pasta... he commented it was unpleasantly over the top and random.

Staff: One-star for the polite staff. We were seated in a timely fashion and were served food relatively quickly.

Overall: AVOID A real missed opportunity given the location and ambiance. The presentation needs to be dialed back with focus on the basics - I don't particularly care how artfully/"Instagramable" my side salad if the basics aren't done properly and my main is inedible.

In a city with so many excellent restaurants, I simply can't justify taking a $$$ gamble on whether quality control is in the building that day or not. Given my experience, I would recommend taking your business to one of the many other fine establishments in Montreal that are up...

On the good side, the main course food was good and well presented. My wife had salmon and I had lamb; both tasty with nice sides that made the meal interesting. But on the bad side: the wine list was limited and the head guy (owner?) didn't know his wine - he claimed the Chablis by the glass was a Sauvignon Blanc and the Saucern was a chardonnay ... When we asked for the Chablis we got a glass that was certainly Sauvignon blanc (not poured from a bottle at the table so even more suspicious). Meanwhile the bartender was doing shots with a couple at the bar - is that even permitted? - instead of helping the wait staff serve the wine that was ordered. The restaurant is quite small and a large table took up half the restaurant so it was very noisy, but that's expected at Christmas party time. However we were extremely rushed through our meal with our complete meal from arrival to departure only 45 minutes - they wanted us out FAST. Anyway, summary is that food was good but everything else bad. We will certainly...