Antonyme
150 rue Principale, Gatineau (Aylmer sector), 819-557-0523, restaurant-antonyme.ca
Open: Tuesday and Saturday 5 to 10 p.m., Wednesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m., closed Mondays
Prices: tapas $6, small plates around $15, tasting menus $35 and $45 per person
Access: steps to front door, washrooms upstairs
When we first popped into Antonyme last month, we were a batch of folks who were hungry to the point of impatience, confronted by a blackboard listing plenty of tapas and small plates. All of the choices looked good and the prices — $6 a pop for intriguing and even outré-ingredient-laden tapas, $15 for “large tapas” — were even better.
Sometimes you just have to throw up your hands, put your faith in a restaurant, and order one of everything. And so we did.
“That’s smart,” our server said.
While we waited for our food and sipped our craft beers, we thought that it was too bad our travels didn’t take us that frequently to the main drag of Gatineau’s Aylmer sector, where Antonyme and several other newish restaurants are located.
For its part, Antonyme opened in February 2016 in a cosy, two-storey converted heritage home. There’s room for almost 30 or so downstairs at its bar and a few woody tables, and a few more guests can sit in an upstairs room. During my two dinners, the vibe has been relaxed and the service has been engaging, knowledgeable and bilingual — all the better to prime us for the kitchen’s flights of fancy.
Owned by the youthful trio of Spencer St-Jean, Marc-André Camaraire and Richard Martineau (the latter two are in the kitchen), Antonyme pumps out distinctive, from-scratch dishes that attest to culinary creativity and curiosity, industriousness and even improvisation. Here, the menu on that blackboard changes weekly, while three- and five-course blind tasting menus change nightly.
From what I can tell, the kitchen crew has enviable cooking chops, a fondness for spotlighting proteins such as octopus, bison, cured and seared fish, foie gras and sweetbreads, and a seemingly massive mise en place of fastidiously prepared and often pickled vegetables.
When Antonyme’s food worked well, which happened much of the time, the impeccably prepared star of the plate received fine support from secondary ingredients and garnishes, making for a cohesive, memorable dish.
The drawback, I’ve found, of Antonyme’s restlessness and penchant for change has been dishes that felt overly thrown together, which included components that seemed either jarring or extraneous, and which taken cumulatively felt repetitive in terms of techniques and flavours.
Perhaps these are simply dangers for a restaurant determined to resist serving the same old same old or, indeed, its own greatest hits.
At that first visit, most of the nine tapas we ordered were arrayed together haphazardly on a platter. Still, they hit the spot nicely, with seafood in particular standing out. A chunk of pan-fried halibut was perched on a pleasing tomato salsa, and brightened by persimmon with lime and some ground cherry vinaigrette. Mahi mahi was properly cured and accented with a tarragon cream sauce. A clean-tasting ceviche of bass played with marinated pattypan squash, paprika-bolstered cucumber and crisps of fried kale. We scooped up mild, galanga-brightened shrimp tartare with taro chips. Pork cheek, served with roasted potatoes, was good and unctuous. Like a few other dishes, it could have used a bit more salt.
Assorted tapas at Antonyme
A notch less pleasing was the gazpacho, which was a touch too sweet and watery. Mussels came with a laudable white wine cream sauce, but a few were sandy.
We had no complaints though about the larger plates. Tender octopus tentacle was worth a second helping. Morsels of raw tuna benefitted from the company of beet chips and endive’s bitterness. The red-meat lovers at the table homed in on rosy medallions of bison on a bed of diced sweet potatoes and surrounded by sautéed chanterelles, and slices of beef carpaccio bolstered by perky marinated shallots.
Beef carpaccio, bison, octopus at Antonyme
Tuna crudo at Antonyme
A less venturesome eater among us ordered Antonyme’s fish and chips ($19) and pronounced his battered pickerel excellent. The “veggie surprise” dish ($15), probably another choice geared for diners with particular preferences or eating solo, was built around good deep-fried tofu and featured marinated daikon, carrots, sweet potato mousse and more.
Fish and chips at Antonyme
Tofu and veggie surprise at Antonyme
The playfulness at Antonyme extends to the desserts where brownies can be spiked with jalapeño and even black garlic can find its way into an otherwise sweet meal-ender. Let’s just say that regardless, the dessert trio ($15) disappeared quickly.
Dessert trio at Antonyme
On my return visit this month, I saw a blackboard made over with seven new tapas and four small plates, offering everything from duck gizzards to trout tartare to shrimp risotto. Rather than choose, the two of us put ourselves at the mercy of the kitchen and opted for the blind tasting menu.
The five-course food parade began well, with cod gravlax, lightly cured and buttressed by ground cherries and a watermelon salsa that made for a stimulating dish that popped with saltiness and acid. Then, perfectly seared scallops shared their slate with pickled daikon and sweet potato mousse.
Cod gravlax at Antonyme
Scallops at Antonyme
Chunks of foie gras came hidden in a thicket of ingredients that included everything from lotus root chips to celeriac to blue cheese. While its individual elements were basically sound, this dish felt like a madcap hodgepodge.
Foie gras dish at Antonyme
Juicy pieces of veal steak outshone the overload of ingredients underneath, while a generous mound of sweetbreads seemed a bit one-note to me, sautéed but lacking a crisp exterior, glazed instead with a sweet-soya reduction. Served side by side, the two red-meat courses felt like a crowded jumble.
Veal steak, sweetbreads at Antonyme
Given my meals, I’d recommend choosing from Antonyme’s blackboard over the blind tasting. It would be the more conventional way to go, but you’d be guaranteed to get the night’s most appealing items, and you might not feel, as I did, that dinner was too unrestrained.
But even when it’s somewhat slapdash or over the top, the cooking at Antonyme deserves marks for flair, personality and tastiness.
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Peter Hum’s restaurant reviews