Vin Mon Lapin — Restaurant in Montreal

Read full review!! This was a tough review to write because there is good and bad! And food isn't the only review necessary when eating out. This review is based off service and food quality. To start. It's French cuisine it's hard to know what you really are eating. Everyday is a different menu which adds to the experience. We were a group of 6(3 couples). We did not know what to order since you cant just google the dishes. That being said we did some math , to order the whole(most) menu it would have costed roughly ~50$ person. We decided rather than ordering 3 to 4 things per couple and not sure what we would or wouldn't like, we came to the conclusion the table would order it all, try what we like, and decide from there what to order again. Now, we ordered some cocktails,and 2 bottles of wine. We estimated roughly $50 per person on the food plus what ever else we order and drinks. Long story short the bill came out to roughly $1,500. When we confronted the restaurant about our bill, we were told that because the amount of food per dish would have been so little, they took it upon themselves to multiply the dishes by 3 without notifying us. We were clear from the beginning what our intentions were. No couple goes to any restaurant and orders the whole menu for 2 people let alone 3 times for 3 couples! It's absurd to think it is ok in any way to order a menu 3 times and not notify your customers! My wife was offered a drink which she was charged for , not that it matters at a 1,500 bill. That being said. I removed (2) stars from my (5) star review for those reason. The restaurant did work with us to correct some of the bill. For perspectives, we were charged 84$ for the dish of Gnudi, 72$ for the dish of Palourdes (dish with 3 clams on ice)in the pictures provided. 1 person ordered desert but we were brought 3 deserts!(2 different) Now the good: The service was fantastic,We were explained every dish meticulously. Drinks were refilled quickly and food was served at a timely matter that did not rush our experience but at the same time didn't leave us waiting to long between servings. Had there not been any miss understanding or if the restaurant hadn't taken it upon themselves to order the whole menu 3 times for 6 people I would have rated it 5 stars. There was no food that disappointed, people will have different tastes and like different types of food, my food review is based on anyone who actually likes the type of dish they order. Weather you like fish,meat,vegetables etc.. everything was tasteful and left you wanting more.

Final verdict: A bit pricey for the portions and food received. I would only recommend it to people with deep pockets and willing to try it, unfortunately i will more than likely not be back as i prefer other French cuisine in montreal that offer better portions to price ratio. just be clear and clarify when in groups. I also hope the restaurant staff learn from this!!!it should never have happened. $$$$ also looking at some similar dishes to what we received, I wouldn't believe some of our dishes were...

Like everyone else I wanted to try the #1 restaurant in Canada. Not sure if having guaranteed customers has now changed the quality of food but I would say it was pretty good if not the best meal I've ever had. Everything is executed well and I imagine this is fairly consistent given the place runs like a well oiled machine, from the time you step foot in the place to the time you leave. I must have had 5-6 servers at my table as they bring out new plates for every course and clean the table. Service is their claim to fame.

The dishes I got were: the eggplant and cantelope which was a cold appetizer. Very delicate flavour and eggplant is cooked to perfection which I always appreciate. There is a sauce which accompanies the dish which definitely adds value. I also had the scallop and cheese grilled sandwich which was super decadent (meaning fried in about a pound of butter). I didn't taste the scallop at all but that might have been my allergies (slightly stuffed nose) but the person I was with did. But the accompanying dip (avocado I believe with teeny tiny white petal edible flowers) was to die for! Was perfect match for the sandwich and really made the dish pop.

For the main we had the Artic char which was seared lightly so mostly raw in middle and the pork. I'd say the pork dish with sausage was the major disappointment. Two 2-3 inch long, thin slices of pork and one 4 inch sausage. Because most people share you get 4-5 bites. Just so you know the sausage was amazing and pork just average (warning pork is pink but tastes cooked). Again the sauces with each dish were spot on and added another level of refinement. I think the sauces are what sets this place apart from the many high end places out there.

Mon Lapin may not be the best food wise but they certainly know what they are doing. Too bad the portions could not be bigger. For example, at Nora Grey you'd get a huge pork chop for the same price but they don't come close to the flavour at Mon Lapin. Nowadays this is the dilemma...there is always a trade off.

The buckwheat cake was very nice. Tiny pieces of what tasted like brittle in the mascarpone light light cream was sweet but good. The wafers on the sides of the cake were soggy and fell apart when you picked it up...not great.

As I wrote in my review of Beba (where service and respect was lacking), Mon Lapin sets a very high standard in service and you wish all restaurants could pay this much attention to detail and more importantly provide the care and respect to their clientele as they do. So if you are hankering for some TLC while dining (although be warned it is extremely noisy when full) and don't want to be stuffed when you leave this is the...

Started off by booking a table for Saturday August 10th at 9pm. This alone was a mess because applications only open up at 9am 1 month in advance. That I can accept as it was for Canada's #1 restaurant. We booked the only available spot which was for 9pm. We were very excited to try the food and experience the restaurant. We got there a few minutes before 9. Our table was not ready. This was fine since the place looked busy. We can tolerate a busy place if the food is good. After waiting for about 10 minutes we were then asked to have a seat at the outside patio. Which honestly was a fine place. Comfy seats with the heaters on. A waitress gave us our menus and asked us to place drink orders. We placed our orders, but we also wanted to sit inside the restaurant as we had booked well in advance and thought that was the least we could ask for. This in hindsight was not the right decision. We should have just stayed outside. Inside was as expected for a busy restaurant, hectic but fun. This is where our real problems occurred. We were led inside and a new waitress came to assist us. Who again asked for our drink choices even after we had ordered outside. We were then seated near the bar on uncomfortable stools without a backrest. I'm 26 and my significant other is 25 (she just had her birthday and that's what brought us to the restaurant), so we can take a little pain, but these chairs were incredibly uncomfortable. Our drinks came, and they tasted good. However our waitress was nowhere to be seen. We had perused the menu and we were ready to order, but noone in sight to take our order. Finally our third waitress showed up and asked for our order. We placed our appetizer orders and off our waitress went. Our first order came quickly as it was the scallop sandwich. Very buttery, but overall, pretty tasty and definitely unique. Then we waited for about 15-20 mins to place our entree order. However by this time it was much later at night and some of the items we were excited to try were already gone. This forced us to reorder some items that we didn't particularly want but ordered to try. Let me say for a fact that the food we ordered was very tasty. That we had no problem with. The issue we had was that people who walked in off the street with no reservations were treated better and had better service than we did. Overall food was good service was a major let down. I'd suggest leaving this restaurant off your list of things to do in...