In the mid-1970s I moved to Canada to become a sports columnist for the Montreal Star newspaper, a transition that transformed me into a foodie. It was an unintentional career decision that I should have anticipated.
For me, food always came first. I’ll never forget the prophetic words of the wonderful Philadelphia sportswriter Stan Hochman, who walked by my seat on opening night of my first season covering the 76ers basketball team, noticed that I had two complimentary press-lounge hot dogs arranged on my courtside desk, and said, prophetically, “Kid, you’re going to eat your way out of this league.”
I was ecstatic at being assigned to cover an N.B.A. team. I never expected to leave sportswriting, especially when I moved on to be a columnist—a column being the pinnacle for any journalist. Nevertheless, I could not resist applying for an additional job at the newspaper when the opportunity to become a restaurant critic appeared.
I was surprised when I got the job, and a little nervous when I learned I was to be paired with Bee McGuire, a seasoned reporter who actually knew something about restaurants and food, unlike me.
We were assigned the pseudonyms of William and Françoise Neill, a seemingly quarrelsome couple who never actually dined together but pretended they did. The secret of my success: Larousse Gastronomique, the irreplaceable culinary encyclopedia that made me sound like I knew what I was talking about.
I was aided by a flourishing and sometimes flamboyant Montreal restaurant scene buoyed by French chefs who had abandoned Europe after World War II and fled to Canada. They were welcomed by a Quebec provincial government eager to embrace any immigrants speaking the French language.
These men—I don’t recall a woman among them—were the force behind a restaurant scene that at first flourished, then faded after the financially catastrophic but otherwise excellent 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. The scene eventually returned in a somewhat different, and often more modest, rendition. (Alas, Montreal diners of today will never experience the most extravagant of those restaurants, the dining room of the Hotel Bonaventure, which featured a trio of strolling violinists.)
The present dining scene is sedate compared to what came before, mostly due to the rising cost of operating full-service urban restaurants. I am thankful that many of my favorites survive, including Mon Lapin, where the menu is exotic enough to remind me that I am not in the U.S.A. anymore; L’Express, a perfect bistro that might well be in Paris; the original Milos, of Greek culinary fame; Hoogan et Beaufort, located a few miles from the city center but worth the drive; and a multitude of delicatessens offering smoked-meat sandwiches much like pastrami but far more revered.
The secret of my success: Larousse Gastronomique, the irreplaceable culinary encyclopedia that made me sound like I knew what I was talking about.
However, my favorite Montreal establishment these days is a new, tiny bistro called Sabayon, located in the Pointe-Saint-Charles neighborhood and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Patrice Demers and Marie-Josée Beaudoin. She handles wine and service; he is the chef, perhaps best known for his stints as pastry chef of Les Chèvres and Les 400 Coups, both in Montreal and both now closed. Their new restaurant accommodates 14 guests three nights a week, accepting reservations at the start of each month and selling out in approximately two minutes.
There is somewhat better news: they also offer tea service Friday and Saturday afternoons. This used to be less popular, selling out in 10 minutes. Lately it also has been selling out in two.
Sabayon is unexpectedly inexpensive. The standard tasting menu, which starts with an amuse-bouche and rumbles through three seafood courses, a vegetable course, two desserts, and mignardises, is offered for $125 Canadian, which computes to about $12 per course in U.S. currency. You would be fortunate to find a burger selling for that modest price in Manhattan.
The entire restaurant consists of two small rooms, minimally furnished and immaculately pristine, an open kitchen, and a semicircular bar. The sweetness of Demers and Beaudoin permeates the establishment.
Demers, 44, made his reputation, a stellar one, as a pastry chef, one of the two or three best I’ve come across. When restaurants started closing pastry departments to save money—a tragedy, in my opinion—he and his wife opened a retail shop called Patrice Pâtissier, which they ran for eight years. It was so wonderful that whenever I visited Montreal, I never departed without filling the back seat of my car with cakes and bread.
I even enjoyed the mandatory stops at the U.S. border, where customs officials would peer into my car, take note of the many boxes and bags on the back seat, and inquire as to what contraband I might be transporting.
“Pastry,” I would reply. They always waved me on.
Says Patrice of his experience operating a pastry shop, “We had a pretty good run. Business-wise, we were doing really well at the end, but it was tough. Doing upscale pastry at the volume that we needed to make money meant a thousand pastries every day. It was crazy.”
Whenever I visited Montreal, I never departed without filling the back seat of my car with cakes and bread.
The name Sabayon refers to a somewhat sweet sauce that accompanies their grilled mushrooms, the fifth savory course on the eight-course tasting menu. It is one of the least lavish selections. Our meal began with an amuse-bouche and was followed by scallop, smoked eel, and arctic char before moving on to the mushrooms and an array of sweets.
Those deserve particular attention. They included clementine granita on a baba infused with vermouth, atop Chantilly laced with ginger. Count that as dessert number one. The second, top to bottom, consisted of a sunchoke chip, sunchoke ice cream, a chocolate sable, and creamy chocolate cremeaux. The final touch: caraway caramel sauce.
More desserts followed: a warm maple-sugar-and-buckwheat financier followed by coffee-ice-cream bonbons covered in chocolate.
These days dining in such a manner—a chef and one colleague personally serving a privileged clientele—is a rarity, an exercise in intimacy and exclusivity. And Demers is not rooted to his tiny kitchen: he emerges occasionally to mingle with guests and answer questions, such as the one asking about that sunchoke-and-chocolate extravaganza.
It is not surprising that this past August, Demers was invited by Valrhona Chocolate to teach a two-and-a-half-day course in pastry in Brooklyn. The price of the class: $1,290. It sold out.
A former sportswriter for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Alan Richman has won 16 James Beard Foundation Awards for his journalism on food and wine, and a National Magazine Award for feature writing