Dining Out: Dishes and views at ritzy Le St Laurent impress

Had we not chosen to linger, I might have made a clean getaway.

Instead, we were curious, as journalists and former journalists always are, to have a peek at a few more amenities atop Gatineau-based developer Brigil’s luxurious condominium building at 460 St-Laurent Blvd. On the 15th floor, high above Beechwood Cemetery and Notre-Dame Cemetery, the building boasts a classy reading room, pool, sauna and spa and more.

The penthouse level is also home to the three-month-old destination restaurant Le St Laurent, whose chef, Ryan Edwards, approached me in the hallway before I left. “Going to call me next week?” he said, offering me his business card.

The “spring has arrived!” salad ($15) was a harmonious mix of green goodness — more asparagus, fava beans, cress and arugula, compressed cucumber — with pickled wild garlic, fried croutons, parmesan and a vinaigrette of hazelnut butter and sorrel helping to make every bite delightful.

Edwards’ slices of sous-vide beef tongue ($14) converted our table’s sceptics with their near fall-apart texture and clean flavour, contrasted with the acidity of pickled and marinated onions and a briny olive sauce.

Among these choices, grilled B.C. albacore tuna ($15) seemed more ordinary. The fish itself was fine, but the southeast Asian aspects of the dish — a fish-sauce vinaigrette, lime, peanuts, sesame — seemed subdued and didn’t come together.

From four of seven main courses, Edwards’ rabbit dish ($35) was the knockout. While I thought the dish sent to my table looked cluttered (the plate made later for this newspaper’s photographer was more streamlined and eye-catching), it was above all delicious, combining prosciutto-wrapped, mushroom-stuffed medallions with a crisp croquette of succulent braised leg meat, which was fine on its own and even better with lemon aioli or offset by some wild garlic. The dish’s seasoning was salt-forward but not overly so, while pickled and roasted carrots rounded it out.

The rabbit even wowed our table’s red-meat buff more than his steak, although that admittedly pricey and blockily presented dish ($42) was highly satisfying, too. The cast-iron-seared striploin — from an Eganville producer, Edwards told me — was nicely crusted but properly medium rare, suitably beefy and butter-basted, with morels, potato pavé and a creamy potato foam as supporting indulgences.

The women at our table went for the menu’s pasta and fish options respectively, eschewing the likely heavier beef cheek and pork belly dishes I might have ordered if I’d had an extra stomach.

A big portion of cavatelli ($27) was richer than expected with a green pea “nage” (usually a brothy sauce) that was tasty but thick and cheese-bolstered. My friend liked the dish, and ate all of the accompaniments — bits of guanciale (cured pork jowl), arugula, mild fior di latte cheese and more — but left some of the nubby pasta shells behind. Perhaps this is the problem with many a meal-sized pasta.

A large fillet of steamed pickerel ($33) came with more of spring’s best bounty — fava beans, asparagus, fiddleheads, pickled ramps, a ramp-enhanced hollandaise — and even some cured pickerel roe. My friend found the fish was the least impressive item on her dish. Maybe it was too mild of flavour compared to everything else.

While Le St Laurent’s kitchen doesn’t have a pastry chef, two desserts ($12) from Edwards and his team were complex, interesting creations.

Mildly flavoured Earl Grey panna cotta — a narrow strip of the creamy dessert, rather than a bowl of the stuff — was outdone on its fully loaded plate by great crème fraîche ice cream and coconut shortbread. The “fancy Joe Louis” chocolate cake was quickly devoured, and its sea buckthorn ice cream was its plate’s most fancy and striking element.