Les Vilains Garcons
39A Laval St., Gatineau (Hull sector),819-205-5855, lesvilainsgarcons.ca
Open: Tuesday to Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 5 to 10 p.m., closed Monday
Access: restaurant is upstairs
I would be Ottawa’s happiest foodie if a local restaurant served dynamite pintxos.
In Spain’s Basque region, pintxos (pronounced pinchos) are bar snacks — the region’s diverse and delicious tapas, you could say. The smallest of small plates, they can be as simple as perfect ham from acorn-fed pigs, served on bread, or as fancy as seared foie gras with caramelized apples and mango purée.
Pintxos were also jaw-droppingly cheap — about $3 each — when I filled my stomach with them in San Sebastian, Spain, in 2013. At every bar I visited, tempting pintxos were heaped on plates for patrons to eye. Once chosen, they were heated and served immediately. For any food lover, eating pintxos in northern Spain is a bucket list trip.
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I recently learned that a Hull eatery called Les Vilains Garcons, which opened in April, focuses on its own interpretation of pintxos.
Kudos to this convivial, popular upstairs place for seizing on the notion. However, I’ve been three times this fall, and regrettably, the food has too often disappointed. Some items hit the spot, but more were dragged down by blandness, off-the-mark or muddled flavours or odd combinations of ingredients.
Running LVG’s kitchen is its young chef/co-owner Romain Riva. Previously the Wakefield Mill’s executive chef, Riva is from Bordeaux in France, about two-and-a-half hours north of Spain’s pintxos country.
He’s made LVG’s pintxos appealing, price-wise. Each pintxo, which consists roughly of a few bites, goes for $6 a piece. Three cost $15 and five cost $25. For non-snackers, there’s often an main-course-sized choice such as steak with foie gras ($25) or fish and chips ($18).
LVG has no fixed menu, relying instead on blackboards listing each day’s selection of, say, a half-dozen pintxos at lunch or more than a dozen at dinner. For those averse to surprises, LVG promptly posts photos of those blackboards on its Facebook page.
Examine a batch of blackboards over time and you’ll see Riva’s go-to ingredients reoccurring in mix-and-match juxtapositions. Veal tongue might come with eggplant purée one night or celeriac on another. Lamb sweetbreads (yes, Riva’s creations can appeal to curious, adventurous eaters) might come with carrots and corn or spaghetti squash or spinach. Tofu tempura might come with carrots, onion compote and hoisin sauce, or with sunchokes.
And yet, what’s worked best for me has been the most direct, conventional fare — some haddock fritters with a spicy mayo, or a large portion of crisp, beer-battered cod, fresh from the fryer, albeit with too-salty fries.
Fish and chips at Les Vilains Garcons
I also liked the generosity and complexity of two amuse-bouches. One night’s interesting starter was some marinated zucchini and confit corn served with an espelette-pepper-spiked raspberry purée. At lunch last week, the gift of a bit of cured fish, nestled in beet purée, offset by a slice of pickled vegetable, was lucid and well balanced.
Amuse-bouche at Les Vilains Garcons
But during my initial visit in October, we wished for more food of that calibre.
Slices of veal tongue were OK, but would have been better with a crisp sear. Their sweet accompaniments — parsnip with chocolate, hoisin sauce — seemed like a mismatch. Similarly, pork cheek was fine, if unseared, but its partner, marinated celeriac, added little.
Morsels of deep-fried tofu were underseasoned and needed more than soy and some seaweed to amount to much. Beef tartare came with cabbage slaw, but missed the perky acidity, saltiness and mouthfeel pleasures of more usual toppings such as capers or a quail’s egg.
Clockwise from top right: veal tongue, beef tartare, pork cheeks, haddock fritters, beef cheeks, tofu tempura at Les Vilains Garcons
A plate of raw items ($22) seemed dull on our palates and lacked winners. Two oysters were very small and clumsily shucked, with debris from the shell. Beef carpaccio and arctic char sashimi, a nice and uncommon choice, needed acidity and salt. Scallop ceviche was underseasoned and too simple. Meanwhile, beet purée and candied tomatoes puzzlingly skewed the plate in the sweet direction.
Two weeks ago, at my next visit, more was amiss. Oily, unappealing lamb sweetbreads came with a too-bitter green-tea-salsify purée and a bit of spaghetti squash. A round of foie gras torchon came with a giant dollop of pear purée. Salmon ceviche was so-so. Shell-on shrimps were moist, but tricky to eat, to be picked out of a bowl of tomato-jalapeno broth.
From left to right: salmon tartare, foie gras torchon, mackerel, shrimp, lamb sweetbreads at Les Vilains Garcons
A lunch visit last week was more on track. There were better proteins — flavourful, nicely textured smoked sturgeon (paired with corn) and meaty, if perhaps too-lean, rabbit rillettes (paired with beets) — as well as the lowlight of ho-hum beef gyoza with a negligibly spicy cream sauce.
Smoked sturgeon, rabbit rillettes, beef gyoza at Les Vilains Garcons
The pintxos-on-toast plate ($10) was a mish-mash of chorizo sausage, mushrooms, manchego cheese and corn — pintxos as hangover food, served with beet-bolstered salad.
Pintxos on toast at Les Vilains Garcons- pic by Drake Fenton Ottawa Citizen Photo Email
Of LVG’s desserts ($6 each), creme brûlée was twice more custardy than creamy, and a spiced pumpkin rendition was too much spice, not enough pumpkin. Chocolate in a spring roll wrapper had a grainy texture and was supposed to be spiced but wasn’t. Mango sorbet from La Cigale in Chelsea was good.
I haven’t tried the wines at LVG, listed on a separate blackboard. But nearly all are private imports and available by the glass.
The eatery’s website speaks of “deliciously irreverent gastronomy” and dishes that are “never the same, inevitably original.” I get the whimsical, risk-taking concept, but think that if LVG focused on and perfected a few knockout specialties, as Spanish pintxos bars often do, there could be better results and more consistent, meal-length satisfactions.
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