Meat Press Creative Charcuterie and Sandwich Shop
45 Armstrong St., 613-695-7737, meatpress.ca, twitter.com/MeatPressShop
Open: for sandwiches Tuesday and Wednesday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday and Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. (takeout only after 5 p.m.), Saturday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (brunch is also served); for dinner Thursday to Saturday 5 to 10 p.m.; closed Sundays and Mondays
Prices: sandwiches $9 to $12, charcuterie boards and mains $20 to $28
Access: steps to front door
I wanted my final restaurant review of 2017 to be a positive one, and chose my dinner out last weekend with my fingers crossed. Friends and I tromped over to Meat Press, the high-end sandwich shop on a backstreet in Hintonburg.
Opened in the fall of 2015, Meat Press is admittedly not everyone’s ideal restaurant. As its name suggests, Meat Press might be enough to send vegans running away screaming with chef-owner Étienne Cuerrier’s focus on making myriad and delicious animal-flesh products.
Two years ago, I was very impressed when I reviewed its lunch-time soups, salads and sandwiches. This year, Cuerrier, formerly a chef at Soif wine bar in Gatineau, began serving dinner three nights a week, as well as wines and beers. So, last Saturday, six of us entered his warm, woody, cosy shop for some meaty indulgences. (Well, at least all of us except for the pescatarian.)
Cuerrier’s dinner menu, which changes each week and can be previewed on its Twitter page, is typically concise, but filled with a range of intriguing, made-from-scratch options.
Last weekend’s first page was dedicated to five boards laden with cured meats (made in-house or brought in) and cheese or focused on red meat, poultry, seafood or seasonal vegetables. Page two included five specialties, of which three were main courses, a dessert, and beverages including local craft beers by Dominion City Brewing Co. and Tooth and Nail Brewing Company, which is practically around the corner from Meat Press.
We grazed on four of the boards. The cured meats and cheese plate for one ($21) was filled with winning items, not the least of which were Cuerrier’s capicollo, plus some poached pear and fine honey that brought sweetness into the mix.
charcuterie and cheese board at Meat Press
Our pescatarian friend enjoyed her array ($23) of tuna tataki plus two fried treats — sole fritters and crisp soft shell crab. In hindsight, though, she and the table ought to have ordered a vegetable board as well, given how flesh-forward and veg-less the other options were.
Fish and seafood board at Meat Press
The “bovine” board ($20) contained the only items that left us a little cold. Its fried sweetbreads were up to scratch, but I thought the coarsely chopped tartare could have been more refined in terms of flavour and texture, while the bone marrow, presented without brightening elements such as parsley and capers, struck me above all as disappointingly over-roasted, cooked far beyond the spreadable lusciousness I associate with marrow.
Bison tartare, sweetbreads and bone marrow at Meat Press
All was right, however, with the duck board ($28). Duck rillettes were chunky and brimming with flavour, slices of duck-breast prosciutto were impeccable — tasty and rimmed with soft, flavourful fat — and duck hearts were much more delectable and spicily seasoned than they were chewy.
Duck rillettes, duck prosciutto and duck hearts at Meat Press
Duck also shone in Cuerrier’s cassoulet ($28). A purist would say that the Meat Press rendition of the classic bean-and-meat casserole from the south of France was amiss with its proportions, which usually balance beans and meat. Cuerrier’s cassoulet assembled a near-perfect confit duck leg (Oh, for crisper skin) and smoked duck breast with a great spicy pork sausage and a scattering of beans in a lightly sweetened duck stock reduction. If my pals and I were to return to Meat Press and if the cassoulet was available, we might well be unanimous in choosing it.
Cassoulet at Meat Press
That said, steak frites here would be a very solid and satisfying pick, based on the juicy, deeply flavoured Enright Cattle skirt steak ($27) that came with great fries, great slaw and a rich Béarnaise sauce.
Steak frites at Meat Press
Pork stew ($20), with shreds of pork hock and plump meatballs in a no-frills ragout, was comforting, homey and quintessentially French-Canadian.
Pork stew at Meat Press
All of our carnivorous exploits left us with no room for Meat Press’s only listed dessert, a maple chamomille crème brûlée ($7). Determined to be thorough, I returned earlier this week for lunch, when we sampled that item. If, like Amélie Poulain in the movie of nearly the same name, you delight in cracking the caramelized crust of a crème brûlée, then that aspect of Meat Press’s dessert meets expectations. I did think, though, that the dessert was a little more eggy and a little less creamy than I like.
Crème brûlée at Meat Press
Before the crème brûlée, we tried three of Cuerrier’s hefty sandwiches on his homemade buns. The smoked duck breast and smoked beef sandwiches ($12 and $9 respectively) topped the porchetta sandwich ($9.50), if only because the nonetheless tasty latter sandwich was a little more unwieldy to eat and heavier on the slaw than the meat.
Smoked duck sandwich at Meat Press
Brussel sprouts and smoked beef sandwich at Meat Press
Porchetta sandwich at Meat Press
Perhaps the best compliment that I can give Cuerrier and his shop (which also sells tourtière, smoked duck breast, duck confit and other items to go) is this: It brings to my mind Montreal’s renowned and gloriously meat-centric restaurant Au Pied de Cochon, but without its practically debilitating excessiveness. Here, in Hintonburg, it is possible to thoroughly enjoy the culinary pleasures of the flesh, but without being a total glutton about it.
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