An iconic piece of Montreal public art was vandalized last month, the Westmount Independent reports.

You probably know the work as “the guy-reading-the-newspaper” statue, outside 4141 Sherbrooke St. West, between Greene and Elm Aves. 

The lifelike statue of a man reading The Gazette has turned many heads since it was installed in 1985.

The nonchalant reader was knocked down and suffered minor injuries in the Aug. 21 incident, captured by a security camera.

Only his briefcase remains (photo shot on Wednesday, Sept. 7) :

There is no truth to the rumour he will be replaced by a man reading an iPad.

The statue will be reinstalled at some point, probably at its previous location, the Independent reports (PDF: page 4 of Aug. 30 Westmount Independent).

The statue, titled Catching Up, is the work of American artist John Seward Johnson, famous for his works showing life-size real people doing everyday things.

Westmount isn’t the only city with one of Johnson’s man-reading-newspaper statue.

One was installed in Philadelphia in 1984. There’s also one in Sydney, Australia and another in Detroit.

More on this Seward Johnson page (click on View the Collection).

One of his works, a 26-foot-high likeness of Marilyn Monroe in that dress in Chicago, recently topped a list of worst public art.

- Andy Riga

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Photos: top – Marcos Townsend, The Gazette; bottom – Monique Beaudin, The Gazette

All is well in the world again.

The guy reading The Gazette statue is back in its rightful place on Sherbrooke St. in Westmount. (Thanks to @peggylcurran for the tip.)

Vandals toppled the statue (outside 4141 Sherbrooke St. W.) in August.

- Andy Riga

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There was a time when the sale of a posh Westmount mansion would have generated intrigued looks in my newsroom -more than one copy editor here has an acknowledged real estate porn addiction.

But hearing that a 15-room English style manor sold this month for $6.4 million – the highest price obtained for a Westmount property listed on the MLS since 2001 -  sparked few gasps.

Real estate in Westmount, one of the highest priced communities in Canada, still regularly fetches seven figures. (Liza Kaufman, a partner with Sotheby’s International Realty Quebec LK said she had two Westmount sales worth more than $7 million, but those were listed privately and not on the popular MLS website.)

But the new trend in high-end real estate seem to be the sale of posh condos, with price tags double, or even triple the value of some of the most glamourous homes on the market in Westmount.  Consider the following deals:

-The 8,000 square foot penthouse at the Montreal Ritz Carlton Hotel sold for about $15 million. 

-The penthouse at the Four Seasons hotel in Toronto sold last year for $28 million, the highest price in the country.

Louise Rémillard, president of Profusion Realty, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, said it’s not surprising that posh condos in new buildings come with a high price tag because of hefty modern building costs.

“Downtown fetches very high prices,” she said. ”It’s normal, this is all new construction.”

 alampert@montrealgazette.com

www.twitter.com/realdealmtl

The beloved independent Nicholas Hoare bookstore chain is preparing to close its Montreal and Ottawa locations, The Globe and Mail reported on Wednesday.  The Montreal store is located on Greene Avenue in Westmount.

…

The folks at Maisonneuve, both present and past, are due the heartiest of congratulations as they celebrate the magazine’s tenth anniversary. It seems a lifetime ago in some ways, but in others like only yesterday: that period immediately post-9/11 when a new periodical was birthed from an office above D.A.D.’s Bagels on Sherbrooke West. (At least that’s where my memory tells me they were; I may be a block off in either direction. At any rate, they’ve since moved to more salubrious digs on Decarie.) It hasn’t been an easy row to hoe, as I’m sure many of the people who have passed through their portals could confirm. Newsstand visibility has waxed and waned (happily it appears to be waxing at present), frequency of publication hasn’t always been predictable (forty issues in ten years tells its own tale), but here Maisonneuve is, fighting the good fight and winning, upholding the great but lately neglected tradition of the general interest magazine with a literary bent and an eye for classically sleek design. Say what you will, you cyberspace soldiers, but there will never be a true substitute for a printed product you can hold in your hands. As a great mind once opined, “If it can’t absorb a coffee spill, I don’t want to read it.” (We shall, ahem, tiptoe around the little fact that I’m making this point in an online blog.)

Maisonneuve’s tenth anniversary issue, now on newsstands, can stand as a handy one-stop for all the magazine’s strengths. There’s a new story by Giller-winning Johanna Skibsrud; a two-page spread by the Captain Beefheart of cartoonists, Marc Bell; a sociological treatise by John Semley on the disproportionate popularity of Iron Maiden in Quebec; a short personal essay by Sean Michaels on a time when Bear Left were bigger than Arcade Fire; a photo essay by Robert Poulton on the Inuit community at Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island; an engrossing investigative piece by Paul Gettlich on Occupy Toronto, and more. Tying together a mix as eclectic as this is no simple matter, but the art direction by Anna Minzhulina pulls it off with aplomb.

To the good ship Maisonneuve and all who sail in her, happy birthday.

* * *

Sure, we book lovers are getting accustomed to feeling like the dwindling membership of some eccentric medieval craftsman’s guild that’s about to be crushed under the oblivious wheels of the Industrial Revolution, but that doesn’t make the ongoing attrition among independent booksellers any less depressing. That point was underlined recently with news of the imminent demise of the Nicholas Hoare shops. Even if I’ve never felt my shoes are quite expensive enough to belong on the gilded pavements of Greene Avenue, I could never resist dropping in on NH on my perambulations through Westmount. You can tell when a store is stocked by people who care about books–who read books–and Nicholas Hoare was always like that. The travel and history sections, especially, always made me feel as if I’d stepped through a wish-fulfillment portal into the home library of my dreams.* Like in the best record stores of yore, you could almost close your eyes and pick an item at random, secure in the knowledge that it would be different and good.

* * *

That rumbling you hear off in the distance is the approaching Blue Met storm. Watch this space for my blogs on the event, and check the paper and montrealgazette.com today (Saturday) for a full preview package.

*When my actual dreams take place in a bookstore, as they do with some frequency, the room is generally an amalgam of six stores I’ve known: NH’s Greene Avenue store and its old branch down the stairs at Ogilvy’s, Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street in London, The Word on Milton Street, Librairie Drawn & Quarterly on Bernard, and Volume II in Edmonton. Three of these stores are still with us. Hope springs eternal.

Ian McGillis

Good news. Nicholas Hoare was just on CBC radio’s Homerun show saying his Westmount Greene Avenue bookstore, which was to close at the end of July, has been granted a reprieve, until December, by its landlords. We’re talking about one of the loveliest bookstores in the country, three floors high, with an excellent selection of quality books, many of them published in the U.K. (Great kids section, too.)

Hoare is very happy that the building owners have listened to reason, granting a rent freeze. “They’re as keen as mustard to keep us on board,” he said. So the reprieve may last beyond the New Year.

But will the store be viable, even then? Asked if people were still buying books, Hoare replied: “They’re buying just as many books as they used to.”

Apparently the announced closing caused a community uproar, with e-mails flying and telephone calls coming in from many directions.

Ten years ago the provincial government forcibly merged all municipalities on the island of Montreal sparking four years of public protests, legal battles and bitterness that endures to this day.

While a partial demerger was finally carried out, the rest is, as they say, history.

But now, someone who was in the middle of that fight has written that history down. Peter Trent has been mayor of Westmount for 13 years and has written a chronicle of those tumultuous years entitled The Merger Delusion: How Swallowing Its Suburbs Made an Even Bigger Mess of Montreal.

We asked him whether we were finished dealing with the fallout of the megacity plan.

Click on the grey icon below to hear what he said. And remember that now you can also listen to us on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/a7b39do

Hello and welcome to The Story So Far for Friday, Jan. 18.

Click on the grey icon below to hear the stories we’re following for you today. And remember, you can listen to us on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/a7b39do  and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MontrealAtTheMoment

Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

Engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, which has found itself in the middle of several financial scandals, has announced a shake-up of its executive ranks. The announcement follows the arrest last year of former CEO Pierre Duhaime for fraud.

It seems a power struggle has erupted between bureaucrats of the Montreal Health and Social Services Agency and doctors at the Jewish General Hospital over the delivery of care to patients who do not belong to the institution’s area of operations. Provincial officials are also unhappy with the hospital’s projected $17.5 million deficit.

Lance Armstrong’s confession that he was indeed a career drug cheat is eliciting little sympathy from former team mates and cyclists. Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey is scheduled to continue this evening.

And finally, PQ minister Jean-Francois Lisee seems to have done well during a visit to the heart of Westmount last night, blaming urban sprawl and not anglophones for the spread of English use on Montreal island.

All that and breaking news as it happens at montrealgazette.com

Were they the first, or not? When I interviewed producer Adam Blanshay, the recently appointed CEO of Just for Laughs Theatricals, for a story published in today’s Gazette on the Tony Awards, he suggested that he and Just for Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon might have just become the first Quebecers to win this prestigious theatre award on Sunday night. (Just for Laughs Theatricals was one of the co-producers of Kinky Boots, the musical which scooped up six awards, which made it the biggest winner of the night.)

I countered with a mention of Christopher Plummer, an actor who was raised here (from infancy) after being born in Toronto and warned Blanshay not to be too hasty to jump to conclusions. The history of the Tony Awards dates back to 1947.

Plummer won twice. In 1974 (for the musical, Cyrano) and 1997 (for his solo show, Barrymore.

Today, Montreal playwright Colleen Curran sent me an email reminding me that Tony Award-winning Canadian/American actress Colleen Dewhurst was born in Montreal, although she left with her parents for the USA when she was about four years old. Dewhurst won  in 1947 for her starring role in Eugene O’Neill’s Moon for the Misbegotten opposite Jason Robards.

Time for a troubling question. Were Plummer and Dewhurst “real” Quebecers? And, if so, which one moreso than the other? And will the Westmount-raised Blanshay lose his “real” status now that he’s based in New York?

I have a suspicion that given the wealth of artistic talent in this province there may have been more Tony-winning Quebecers since 1947.  Possibly in other categories. If you know of someone please let us know by leaving a comment on this blog or send me an email at pdonnell@montrealgazette.com

All the same it was a remarkable win on Sunday night. Blanshay and Rozon did Quebec proud. Congratulations to both of them.

Antonio Park is the celebrated chef behind the innovative Park Restaurant, which opened in February 2012 and Park Market, which opened in September 2013, both located on Victoria Ave. in Westmount. His cuisine is both beautiful and delicious, and the dishes are a product of his eclectic background. Park was born in Argentina to Korean parents, and as well as living in his birth country, he also spent time in Brazil and Paraguay. His family eventually moved to Montreal via Vancouver on a cross-Canada road trip. Vancouver was the family’s first choice but the constant rain drove them to discover Montreal.

The chef draws heavily from childhood experiences in his cooking, and is especially influenced by his mom. “I grew up with everything local and a mom who is an amazing cook. She’s a wild cook too. Back in the day all moms cooked, but my mom was beyond that. She used to dry her own red peppers to make her own paprika in a stone grinder,” said Park. Along with the tutelage of his mom, Park spent nine years working in kitchens in Toronto, Montreal and New York. To learn Japanese cuisine he went straight to the source and spent three years in Japan. Most recently, Park held positions in Montreal as executive chef at private club 357c as well as at the now-defunct Kaizen.

Chef Antonio Park at work in his Park Market. (Photo by Riccardo Cellere)

“Park is exactly who I am. It’s all my cultures and my childhood. It’s what I grew up eating, and what I’ve learned. This food comes from the heart and my life. It’s 50 per cent Japanese cuisine, 30 per cent South American and 20 per cent Korean, but it’s absolutely not fusion,” said Park. A dish that reflects all these influences is his beef sushi. The dish is essentially Japanese, but he adds a touch of Korean influence with kimchi and jalapeno peppers, and a touch of South American influence with chimichurri sauce.

Chef Antonio Park sat down and dished on his favourite restaurants, the most overrated cooking trends in Montreal’s dining scene and his advice for today’s young chefs.

What are your favourite places to get your ingredients?

A lot of my ingredients are private imports but I like a lot of local stuff too. Marché Jean-Talon and Marché Atwater are the best places to go for fruits and vegetables. If you want to eat your fish raw I suggest La Mer fish market. It has some of the freshest fish.

Where do you like to go for a casual bite to eat?

I love Maison Publique, Joe Beef, Liverpool House and Vin Papillon. They are all great places. Derek [Derek Dammann of Maison Publique], Fred and David [Fred Morin and David McMillan of Joe Beef, Liverpool House and Vin Papillon] – I am graciously in love with these guys. I also like Marc-André Royal at Le St-Urbain. He’s a great guy and a good friend.

I like my pho, a Vietnamese soup, at Pho Lien on Côte-des-Neiges and Côte St-Catherine Sts. Their broth is amazing and clear. It’s the best pho in Montreal by far. I also like L’Harmonie d’Asie on Duluth. The decor is old school but you go there for the food. As much as I like decor and ambiance, I’m a cook at the end of the day and I want to eat good food. You know, who cares about the decor? For me, it’s all about the food.

At Park Restaurant. (Photo by Riccardo Cellere)

What’s your go-to restaurant when money is no object?

Maison Boulud. Riccardo [Executive Chef Riccardo Bertolino] is a good friend of mine. I have tremendous respect for what he does and I think he’s a very hard worker. Working under Daniel Boulud is not easy, so being in that position and maintaining that consistency is great. Their food is phenomenal. I have so much respect for him.

Which neighbourhood do you call home and why did you choose it?

Westmount is home. I live here, I have a restaurant and market here, and I’m about to open a second restaurant here. Westmount is like a small town within the big city of Montreal. I love that. And I love that there are a lot of families and it’s a community where we all know and help each other. It’s fun and people are nice.

How does Montreal measure up in the restaurant world?

Montreal is great and should be in the top five restaurant cities in the world. We have superstars here. It’s because of the passion, hard work and food mentality that you find here. A lot of people appreciate food, and our chefs have the passion and the knowledge.

Sushi at Park Restaurant. (Photo by Riccardo Cellere)

What would you tell young chefs who are just starting out?

I would tell them to just say “Oui, Chef,” and do what you have to do. You might have opinions and ideas or different ways of doing things but it’s unnecessary to express it. Keep it all in, and filter it in your head. When you open your own restaurant you can do whatever you want. Until then never say no or talk back because that chef you want to learn from won’t give you any more information. And always be open-minded. It’s the only path to success. Lastly, always be the first one in and the last one out. People say this is old school, but this is the right way to do things.

What’s the most overrated cooking trend right now?

Too many people are copying Joe Beef or opening Japanese izakayas or burger places. Try and be a little bit more creative. Dig into your soul, your background and what really makes you happy. Are you a chef? Then you should be craving something from your childhood. Do that – do something that inspires you. Don’t do something just because someone else is doing it well.

What do you cook when you are at home?

Actually, I don’t cook. I cook 18 hours a day in the restaurant. Sometimes we do staff meals and then I cook Korean or South American food. It’s me, it’s who I am. I like to eat comfort food and what my mom used to make me. She lives in Korea now but when she’s in Montreal it’s heaven for me. The funny thing is, she doesn’t want to give me any recipes. It’s her family recipes so she holds it in. It took me at least ten years to get the kimchi recipe and now it’s the recipe we use in house. It may be smelly sometimes but it tastes good and goes with all kinds of food.

An investor has bought 84 rental units at Westmount Square for $70 million, and says that less than two months after the sale, he has already resold at least 48 of the apartments.

Olivier Leclerc, 26, acting with real estate broker and adviser Albert Sayegh, bought the units at the iconic Mies van der Rohe buildings in August from Elad Canada, a division of the Israeli real estate multinational Tshuva Group.
The deal means that Elad has sold all of the approximately 220 units in the two residential towers of Westmount Square. Now it is proposing to convert Tower 1, with 200,000 square feet of office space, to condos.

But Westmount has slapped a freeze on all conversions from commercial or institutional buildings to residential use and is studying all development in its southeast commercial sector, from Atwater to Greene Avenues. The freeze is in effect until an interim bylaw is adopted and an update on the study is expected in November, said Westmount councillor Theodora Samiotis.

Samiotis, who is the commissioner of urban planning for Westmount, said there are two concerns about such a conversion. First is Westmount Square’s heritage value as a Mies van der Rohe mixed commercial-residential project, completed in 1967. “On a heritage value, obviously we would want to make sure that any architectural aspect of the design would respect that,” she said.

And there are those who would argue that changing the usage combination would change the architect’s vision, she said. The complex was conceived with three towers — two residential and one office — and an 86,000-square-foot shopping concourse.

Equally important to Samiotis is the commercial vibrancy of the area. “So when you tell me you are changing a commercial tower to a residential tower, I am concerned about the impact this is going to have on my commercial district,” she said.
Residential tax rates are lower than commercial rates, so the city also could lose revenue.

“It’s not just the conversion of any building. It’s a landmark,” she said.

They are very much aware of the proposal to convert the office tower, Sayegh said, but the file is currently closed.

“If Tower 1 does occur, we will look at it,” he said.

Elad Canada owns, operates or is developing such properties as New York’s Plaza Hotel, Emerald City in Toronto and in Montreal, the Cité Nature development near the Olympic Village and Le Nordelac in Point St-Charles. The 84 Westmount Square units were the remaining rental units in two of the towers.

In a meeting at Sayegh’s real estate office — he is president of the commercial division of RE/MAX Du Cartier on Bernard St. W. — Leclerc said he bought the apartments in August as an investment, and resold them to various groups of investors, two of which bought about 12 apartments each. Leclerc would not specify how many of the apartments he intends to keep.

It is a significant sale, probably the biggest of the year, said Patrice Ménard of Patrice Ménard Multi-Logement, which specializes in sales of multi-unit residential buildings. But it is not a record. By comparison, the La Cité complex of three buildings with more than 1,300 units sold for $172 million two years ago. Also in 2012, Elad sold the Olympic Village to Capreit Real Estate Investment Trust for about $176 million, Ménard said. Both La Cité and the Olympic Village remain rental properties, however.

Both Sayegh and Leclerc emphasized that confidence in the economy was a basis for the Westmount Square purchase. The reselling was not a flip, but a long-term strategy, Sayegh said. “He has his own chess game,” Sayegh said.
“The context was favourable to take hold of such a prestigious building — the political context,” Leclerc said.
“The socio-economic climate in Quebec has never been as conducive to investments as it is today,” Sayegh added.
Leclerc would not say what profit he has taken so far, nor what return he is expecting.
“It’s a nice acquisition to my portfolio,” Leclerc said. He also owns or has converted buildings in Mont St-Hilaire and Brossard as well as Hampstead Court on Queen Mary, bought in 2011 and now all sold.
Four years ago, Leclerc joined his father, Ghislain, in the business of converting rental buildings to co-operatives. Over 25 years, he and his father have converted more than 2,500 apartments, he said. His father is now semi-retired.
With his father, he also worked on the conversion of the Gleneagles apartments on Côte des Neiges Rd., bought in 2010 and sold by 2013.
“We do major work. We put the building in top shape,” Leclerc said. “Then we make esthetic improvements. After that, we sell the apartments.
“We never throw out the tenants. We profit from the fact that the tenants are in place, who pay rent ‘x’ for an apartment in the state it is in.
“We respect the rental laws.”
Leclerc said he buys only good buildings in good locations. “The area reflects the tenants. Location, location, location.”
At Westmount Square, the tenants are not affected, Leclerc said, as the same company, Cogir, manages the building.
The range of price for the 84 apartments was $400,000 to $2 million.

efriede@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @evitastyle

Other Montreal restaurants may come and go, but Stephen Leslie’s portfolio of establishments just keeps growing. Earlier this year the chef/restaurateur added brasserie Le Sieur d’Iberville to the mix, having already firmly established himself with his two popular bistros: Monkland Tavern, which opened in 1995, and Tavern on the Square six years later.

Like many a successful chef, however, Leslie’s start in the food game was a humble one. As a little boy in Deux-Montagnes, he learned to cook out of necessity after his father died, and his mother’s days became consumed by work and commuting. It wasn’t until he was well into his twenties that Leslie was inspired to turn his passion for cooking into a career: he gave up a well-paying labouring job to start at the bottom, dish washing at Westmount’s La Transition.

At Le Sieur d’Iberville.

A couple of years later, in 1991, Leslie made a big move, both geographically and professionally, by tackling the Vancouver Community College culinary arts program. He topped his class, despite starting college at 6.30 a.m. and working through until at least 11 p.m. at restaurant il Giardino.

Leslie values his time at this high-end restaurant – despite what he describes as chef Umberto Menghi’s “explosive fits,” during which staff dodged flying objects, including knives. “I screwed up on something so I ran to the bathroom and stood on the toilet so he couldn’t see my feet,” Leslie recalls. “I was thinking: ‘Oh my god, what have I done, what kind of profession do I have when I’m a grown man hiding in the bathroom?’ I laugh about it now, but it was pretty crazy.”

Except for those few years in Vancouver, Leslie has always called Montreal home. He moved from Deux-Montagnes to LaSalle at age 12, and as an adult has mostly lived in NDG, downtown and, for the past eight years, Old Montreal. The chef took some time out to give us his take on the city.

Why did you choose to live in Old Montreal?

I was looking for a loft-style place … and I love architecture … I found a place I liked, and went to see it six times because it was a bit out of my budget but I was trying to get the landlord to come down. After the sixth time he said: “I can see you really want the place. What do you do?” I said: “I’m a chef.” He goes: “Which restaurant? Monkland Tavern? That’s my favourite restaurant, I’ll make you a deal!” He was very nice, he made me a good deal and I haven’t moved since.

It’s problematic with its parking and crowds, and it’s getting to the point where I wouldn’t want to raise a family there, but I think it’s the prettiest part of Montreal. The view down my street, the buildings I look at every day, it’s beautiful.

At Le Sieur d’Iberville.

Tell us more about the problems with parking and crowds, and anything else you think could be improved in Old Montreal.

There are tons of little streets that can get really congested, so you can’t get anywhere … After work on firework nights I can’t even get to my apartment the traffic is so [bad]. … If they could somehow limit the driving, if they could make it so that everybody had to park a few blocks away and just walk in … Maybe they could just let residents into the area [by car], but I don’t know how you control it. So the parking is really a pain, and there’s no grocery store … With all the condos that have gone up in Old Montreal, someone’s got to do it soon and I’ll regret it wasn’t me because there’s a huge demand.

So where do go to buy food?

I love Jean-Talon Market. Everything is plentiful, there’s a great cheese shop, and Chez Nino has a great selection of hard-to-find products. I go to Atwater Cheese [La Fromagerie Atwater] as well, I love the cheese there. La Mer for fish. I’d like to spend a bit more time with farmers, but I only get one day off a week. There are some good local farms coming up, Runaway Creek is a good example. I like going up there and getting a whole bunch of organically grown [produce]. You don’t have to do much with it, Mother Nature does all the work. Lufa Farms is another great place.

At Le Sieur d’Iberville.

Which Montreal bakeries do you prefer?

I like Hof Kelsten. Jeff [Finkelstein] is a great guy, and he’s got great bread too. I like Arhoma, they have this Parisian pain au levain. I think it’s the finest bread in Montreal right now. I started buying it for Le Sieur d’Iberville for our crostini, it’s phenomenal. Two or three days old it’s at its peak, then you grill it and it gets chewy, crispy and crunchy.

Where do you like to go for a coffee?

I don’t drink as much coffee as I used to, but I like Café Pavé and Café Myriade on Mackay, they make great coffee.

Chef Stephen Leslie in the kitchen.

Where are your favourite places for a casual meal in Montreal?

I go to my friends’ restaurants: Joe Beef, Vin Papillon, Tuck Shop, Nora Gray, Bremner. I go in there, it’s like, “Stevo, how are you, man? Sit down!” I don’t have to worry about anything [because they choose for me] … If it’s after midnight, L’Express is my go-to place. I love sitting at the bar there. They’re professional in shirt and tie, the wine list’s amazing, it’s not the best food in Montreal but it’s very well done. Where else can you get a meal like that at one in the morning and be served like that?

What about for special occasions?

I love Le Club Chasse et Pêche in the Old Port. It’s formal so I’ve gone there for a few really special occasions. The service is amazing, the food’s amazing. I love going to Au Pied de Cochon too. I like places with great wine lists, because I love wine.

Which Montreal chefs do you admire?

Normand Laprise was always my hero. You couldn’t buy goat cheese at the supermarket before he was around. Half the food you see now at the supermarket, he went to the farmers and got it. We’re talking 1993, when he opened Toqué!. I thought I was a pretty good chef when I went to eat at his restaurant in 1994. I went home and I was so depressed. I was nothing compared to him, I realized: all the techniques that he was using, all the food that he was bringing in. I made a decision that day: I’m either going to quit or I’ve got to do something to get better. So I got on my bike every day and wrote down his menu in the window,and tried to derive inspiration from what he was creating.

[Joe Beef’s] Dave McMillan had a big influence on me becoming the type of chef I was. We used to sit till three, four, five, six in the morning at the bar, talking food, talking food talking wine. I was really moving toward wanting to be a molecular gastronomy–type chef and he was like: “Steve, that’s not normal.” He talked about his style of food. Sitting there and having those three-, four-, five-hour conversations with a chef who you respect moulds you. Even though I already owned my own restaurant and he didn’t yet, he was still a big influence.

West-end residents, you no longer need to venture to Griffintown for trendy dining options.

Falafel balls and crab. (Photo by Marie Charest)

Lea, the new addition to Grinder and Hachoir, will open its doors to the public on Monday, Oct. 20, at noon. Judging by my tour of the three-level dining room equipped with smooth wood paneling, nostalgic stones reminiscent of history’s great navigators, and a taste of the inventive-yet-accessible menu, owners Jean-François Corriveau, Léa D’Amboise, Loan Ngo and Jérôme Cadieux have created just what the community wanted.

“We had a lot of Westmount clients [at Grinder] and they kept asking when we’ll open one two blocks away. We’re a different style, so if they don’t feel like Grinder, they might feel like this,” Cadieux says.

With a capacity to fit 70 people, it has a communal bar vibe (the wine list is extensive and the cocktails like spicy cucumber lemonade are creative), but the food is Lea’s main attraction.

Chilli-cinnamon prawns. (Photo by Marie Charest)

Share a heaping plate of braised lamb shoulder roasted for eight hours in a chilli-espresso rub with potatoes and pickled cucumbers (not quite pickles!), all of which are then braised in their own pan drippings; green pea falafel balls sandwiched between crab meat, house-made pickled onions and beets on a blanket of emulsified mayonnaise; or fried prawns in a chili-cinnamon rub that get all over your fingers like Doritos. Dip the prawns in their Azorean honey glaze with coriander, almonds and lime zest for a surprisingly sweet touch. The foie gras is like butter in meat form, perfectly textured with paprika and caramelized onions in the mix.

Lea’s top floor. (Photo by Alain Dussault)

Designer Zébulon Perron (who also designed Furco, La Buvette chez Simone, Philémon and Grinder) used leather-bound booths, plants and dim lighting to contribute to what feels like a more intimate setting than its Griffintown counterpart. Lea’s top level overlooking Sherbrooke St. feels VIP since the area sits on a one-way transparent glass floor.

The Spanish-Portuguese-style cuisine label is perhaps a way for Lea to differentiate itself from all-meat-everything Grinder. Chef Matt Doyle, formerly of Orange Rouge, Lucille’s and Royal Merchant, says he’s inspired by a trip he took to the Iberian Peninsula, but doesn’t feel confined by any particular formula.

Take his grilled endive salad with kale chips, caramelized shallots and roe vinaigrette, for example. His heartier interpretation of the typical leafy salad is “more Span-ish, than Spanish,” he says. “Everyone’s travelled to Spain so I’m not going to compete with Spain.”

“I’ve spent my entire career crafting dainty plates, but I’m not into fine dining. [In Spanish-Portuguese cuisine], the flavours are aggressive, so I want you to be able to eat a little bit and share it.”

4922 Sherbrooke St. W., 514-508-0545, learestaurant.ca 

Two men suffered minor injuries when the driver of a cube truck lost control of his vehicle and hit parked cars on the premises of an Esso service station in Westmount on Monday evening.

The accident happened around 5:30 p.m. on Sherbrooke St., near Grosvenor Ave. Firefighters were called to the scene in case of an explosion, and part of Sherbrooke was closed to traffic.

Police said the service station’s infrastructure was also damaged in the incident. They said the driver of the cube truck might have lost control because of a health problem that resulted in a loss of consciousness.

The driver of a cube truck lost control of his vehicle and crashed into vehicles at an Esso station in Westmount Oct. 27, 2014.

La Canadienne, the Montreal footwear firm known for its stylish but winter-worthy boots, has set up shop in Westmount. The company already has a flagship on Laurier Ave. W.

The 1,800-square-foot shop opened this month after a year of construction. Sleek, with modern Italian decor, it boasts an impressive all-glass front.

It stocks made-in-Canada, fit-for-Canada boots, along with imported Italian styles for footwear, gloves, outerwear and bags.

The company operates a factory on Paré St., which turns out 1,000 pairs of boots and shoes a day, says Penny Shuster, co-president of the company founded in 1961. It sells to about 300 specialty and department stores across North America.

There is no confirmation yet, but a downtown store may be in the works, as well.

Two models of sturdy winter boots inside the new La Canadienne store in Westmount.

The entry to Westmount’s Victoria Village makes the shopping strip something of a shoe destination. In two blocks, there are at least four independent footwear shops, including Scarpa, Chou Chou and also recently arrived, Mochico, with a gleaming new storefront as well.

La Canadienne, 4920 Sherbrooke St. W

Havie Walker, a stylish lady with silver hair, looks every inch the interior designer. Clad in black from head to toe and wearing chunky crimson beads and oversized black-rimmed glasses, she could easily grace the pages of a fashion magazine.

A couple of years ago, Walker was living in a huge duplex in Old Montreal but when her husband became sick, she decided they should downsize and move to Westmount in order to be closer to downtown. According to Walker, while she loved Old Montreal, as she grew older, she began to feel more and more isolated. So in 2012, the couple upped sticks and moved into a neighbourhood that was closer to medical facilities and where they had friends.

Sadly, her husband has since passed away but he lived long enough to enjoy their new home – a spacious three-bedroom/two-bathroom condo with floor-to-ceiling windows that give spectacular views over the mountain.

Question: What a view! With the fall colours, it looks almost like a painting.

Answer: Isn’t that gorgeous? Quite a panorama. In the 1960s, picture windows in an apartment block were considered to be quite avant-garde.

Q: So the apartments were built around the 1960s? That’s unusual in Westmount isn’t it? Most of the housing stock is much older.

A: There’s a touch of Bauhaus about this building. You can see that in the way it was constructed. As a designer, the space – the way it was put together – really appealed to me.

Q: How did you find the place?

A: I knew about these apartments because my mother had lived here for a number of years. The building is great and it’s easy to live in. It’s not mega-large and the people are very fine. There’s no running up and down the stairs or smoking in the corridors and we have a doorman who keeps an eye on things. The other nice thing is that I know quite a few of my neighbours.

Q: Your unit has a very cozy feel, and I love the way you’ve used lots of unusual colours.

A: The walls were the usual “apartment white,” so I thought I’d take a big risk and paint them dark. They’re the perfect reveal for all my art pieces. At night, the walls disappear somehow. You feel you could almost walk through them.

(The walls are a deep brown/black with white wood trim and they wrap around an L-shaped dining/living room with parquet floors that are covered with multi-hued rugs, one of them an Indian kilim. Occupying almost the entire far wall of the dining area is a three-panelled, multi-paned mirror, which makes the room look even larger than it is. Above the wall, just under the greige-coloured ceiling, march the letters of the alphabet, picked out in white.

To the right of the wall hangs one of Walker’s collages – “I make them just as a hobby” – that grace every room. Using family photos – her feisty grandmother is a favourite – and random illustrations clipped from magazines and newspapers, she creates a theme for her collages, underscored with whimsical text.

One end of the dining/living area opens to the kitchen. The other end frames a family room with a television and an off-white sofa “big enough to accommodate overnight guests” and a television. By the entrance is a sculpture of a man on a bicycle by famed artist Harry Marinksy.

The most eye-catching art, however, are the brilliantly coloured, twin posters of stylized dogs – Salukis or perhaps greyhounds – that hang side by side in the living room, above another off-white sofa. The posters bear the name Antoinette Baronesse von Grone, a German-born, California-based, painter.)

Q: Wow! These are stunning! Where did you get them?

A: Aren’t they fabulous? Believe it or not, I found them in a bin. They were going to be thrown away, so I rescued them! I get a bit of a mixed reaction from friends. Not everybody likes them.

(We walk down a narrow hallway that leads to the master bedroom and a second bedroom painted burnt orange and white, which Walker uses as a home office. She has created an alcove from what was a closet, by removing its doors to accommodate her desk and a couple of shelves. On the way, we stick our heads into the bathroom to take a look at the ceiling. It’s covered with leopard-print wallpaper.)

Q: Very cool. Did you choose the paper?

A: No. That was here when I moved in. I loved it, so I decided to keep it!

SHELTER

Shelter is a weekly series featuring a conversation with tenants or condo owners.

Occupant: Havie Walker, 74

Location: Westmount

Size: 1,395 square feet (3 bedrooms/2 bathrooms) plus a balcony

Purchase price: $488,000

Been there: Since 2012

Chef Angelo Mercuri is the lead culinary talent behind the Italian fine cuisine served at Vago on Greene Ave. Vago’s veal scaloppini, homemade meatballs and tiramisu draw praise, and the restaurant is among only 1,109 in the world to receive the Ospitalità Italiana quality seal awarded by the Union of the Italian Chambers of Commerce and the Italian government for being authentically Italian. Mercuri also creates every dish on the menu — from gourmet wood-fired pizza to Nutella fritters — at the new Bàcaro Urban Pizzeria on Ste-Catherine St. W. just around the corner.

At Vago “locals were asking us for pizza, pizza, pizza,” Mercuri says. His business partner, Tommaso Mulé, had lived in Italy for a long time and after Mercuri told Mulé how much he enjoyed eating at bàcaros in Venice, they came up with the idea of a pizzeria “forged in that kind of style,” Mercuri says.

Gourmet pizza at Bàcaro.

Mercuri was born and raised in Lachine, surrounded by a large and proudly Italian extended family. “We come from the same place in Italy, it’s in Lamezia Terme, Calabria,” he says. “The village is called Mercuri [and] all the residents go by the name Mercuri.”

You could say cooking and owning restaurants runs in the Mercuri blood. He has cousins, brothers and uncles in the restaurant industry and says the family counts 12 chefs. “Almost all of them own restaurants and all together we have 15 restaurants in and around Montreal” he says.

He started working at his uncle’s restaurant, Natalino, in Dorval, when he was 13 and stayed there for five or six years. “Once the foundation was there, the discipline, and when I realized what I wanted to do, then I worked for a lot of restaurants, learning a lot,” he says.

Mercuri never attended chef school. “I read a lot,” he says. “A lot of it was self-taught, techniques and all that, but a lot of it was work.” He’s been at Vago since it opened in 2001.

While Vago is about fine dining, Bàcaro, which opened this past August, is all about comfort food: pizza, stuffed pasta, oven-baked pasta. He creates a feeling of Italy by featuring Nutella desserts and authentic Italian beverages.

For Mercuri, being the executive chef of two restaurants is both fun and challenging. “The menu all comes from me and it’s successful with a great team that are capable,” he says. While he doesn’t cook at Bàcaro, he trains its chefs to meet his high standards. “I’m a little more hands-on cooking at Vago … but [at Bàcaro] I spend at least one day a week researching different pizzas — we have a Pizza of the Week that I change. I’m always fine tuning and I’m kind of everywhere.”

Mercuri and I talked about Bàcaro’s menu, his favourite places in the city and how he de-stresses.

What’s the inspiration for Bàcaro’s menu?

In Venice, the locals when they want to have a quick bite or simple drink, they go to a bàcaro. It’s Venetian slang and it means a place serving simple food and good, young wines. I visit Italy a lot and simply fell in love with these bàcaros during my visits to Venice.

What was your vision for the menu?

We wanted pizza and salads and gelato. We had a firm idea of what kind of pizza, what kind of dough we’d use and toppings. We talked about it for many, many years so when it was time to do the menu it wasn’t hard for us.

Does Nutella hold a special place in your heart?

Absolutely. We all grew up on that.

What’s special about the wine and beer on the menu?

All our wines are Italian. We have two Italian beers in bottles and one on tap. We work with a local brewer, Bierbrier, to develop house recipes that my partner Tommaso [Mulé] came up with.

What are your favourite places (open to the public) to get your ingredients?

For fresh ingredients, the Atwater Market and Jean-Talon. I like to work with a few Italian importers that really have great stuff — Macchi, and another one I go to is Berchicci for imported vinegars. A lot of our drinks come from [Berchicci] that you can’t find over here.

Where else do you find produce?

My parents’ garden. In the summer months, they’ve got zucchini flowers producing so I’ll go in the morning and steal them and make some fritters or simply stuff them.

How would your staff describe you?

Strict. Disciplined. But very generous and very fair.

What’s your go-to restaurant when money is no object?

Le Serpent. They do Italian brasserie-style food and my cousin Mike Mercuri is the owner so [there are] extra perks, “try this, try that, I’m working on this.” So it’s really V.I.P. service the whole way and I learn a couple of recipes as well. We’re always talking about food. We’re always shooting ideas off each other. Really that’s my go-to place.

Chef Angelo Mercuri (left) with business partner Tommaso Mulé (right).

Where do you go for cocktails?

Baldwin Barmacie on Laurier St. W.

Beer or wine?

Wine. I’m not crazy about beer.

What’s your favourite bakery or pastry shop?

Marius and Fanny in Lachine. It’s all French pastries from the Provence region.

Which neighbourhood do you call home, and why did you choose it?

Westmount. You’re downtown but it kind of has that small community feel to it.

Was it a change to move from Lachine to Westmount?

Absolutely. In Lachine you know everybody because there’s a little Italian community there and wherever you go you know someone. But I find the same thing is in Westmount because of my restaurant [Vago]. I know everybody, so a little walk here and there’s conversations popping up everywhere so it’s kind of easy for me.

What do you like about being a chef in Montreal?

I don’t know if I would call it competition, but the constant evolving always forces you to push yourself. If other restaurants have great ideas, it’s “why didn’t I think of that?”

What do you like to cook at home?

I like doing nice paninis, cold cuts, cured meats, dress them up with nice marinades. That’s usually my meal if I’m at home.

What do you do to de-stress?

I play ice hockey. I’m a big Habs fan — I go to about 20 games a year. That’s my de-stressing, the Habs and the NFL. And we play poker, we’re a little group of restaurateurs who play once a week.

When she purchased the five bedroom Edwardian-style Westmount house a few years ago, owner Peggy Essaris Dickey was happy with the big rooms, the high ceilings and most of the public spaces.

It seemed, however, that the rooms that needed work were the ones where most of the action took place – in particular the kitchen and bathroom. So she called on decorator Beth Gold, to whom she had entrusted her previous home and her country house in the Laurentians.

Gold knows her client’s taste: a fresh look – a bit of vintage, a bit of modern, and, with young children, the use of hard-wearing surfaces. “It’s a real British style, a blend of modern furniture and period fixtures,” she says. “It feels the period of a heritage Westmount house.”

The house has a typical cross-hall plan with dining room on one side, living room on the other, and a kitchen at the back with an addition. But there were problems. The kitchen, for instance, was dominated by a huge island. “It was the biggest island I have ever seen,” Gold says. “It wasn’t practical for the family, with two young daughters. They wanted to sit down and have a meal, not be perched on stools, so it was important for them to have a table in the kitchen.”

They also needed counter workspaces, which didn’t exist before the renovation. “Peggy wanted the room to have a little vintage in the aesthetic with contemporary touches, so we brought in the beautiful cream and black Aga (stove), which is both gas and electric. She loved the look.”

A countertop made of butcher block with open shelving below is positioned to the right of the stove, an area for food and vegetable prep, sharing a Carrara marble backsplash with the stove. All the white-painted cabinetry is 1930s-inspired simplicity, with recessed panels and brushed nickel handles on cupboards and drawers.

At one corner, the cabinets form a floor-to-ceiling, four-foot wide pantry, its double doors revealing drawers, shelves, spice racks, and a recessed counter for appliances. The cupboards above the stove mask a shallow extractor fan and also offer ample storage.

Kitchen counters, including those around the sink, are topped with Carrara marble. The patterned curtain concealing the storage area is changed with the season.

All countertops are veined Carrara marble, including the area around the sink, which is prettily situated under a wall of windows. “We decided to use a patterned curtain under the sink to mask a storage area; it’s a nice way to introduce some colour and pattern in a relatively neutral space,” Gold says. The curtains are changed from this fall and winter leaf pattern to sage and white stripes with a big bottom ruffle in the spring and summer. Window curtains are white handkerchief linen, sheer enough to let the light come through while offering privacy.

The highly polished dark wood floors are set off with a trimmed sisal rug underneath the sleek Italian table, with a steel base and smoked glass top, and 1950s-style rattan and metal chairs. “The table can seat as few as two and as many as 10 when expanded,” Gold says, “so they can have children’s parties with plenty of room.” Above the table, a circular pendant light was custom-made in a chain-link-pattern fabric – a design element that’s both distinct and retro. The large master bath, 12 by 18 feet, was another room that was completely transformed, this time in marble. “Peggy likes the aesthetic of this honed marble; it has an Italian feel,” Gold says. “These are luxurious materials, but they feel relaxed.” The floors are Carrara marble mosaic in a basket-weave pattern with tiny insets of black marble for a dotted effect. Carrara marble subway tiles with a chunky trim cover two-thirds of the walls.

In the master bathroom, there’s patterned marble on floor and walls. A lamp on the bench casts a warm light.

Polished nickel fixtures stand out on the pedestal sink and freestanding deep soaker tub by Kallista, set against windows draped in cream and white striped linen. “The fixtures add sparkle to the room,” Gold says. “Polished nickel isn’t as bright as chrome, so it feels more antique.” Two bevelled-glass medicine cabinets above the sinks also add reflection.

The homeowner wanted a serene environment here that would embrace the size of the room, with a glass-enclosed shower at one end and a white-painted two-tiered open console in the French style for her perfume bottles and soaps.

She added a French antique petit-point footstool and a linen-topped wooden bench upon which a silver tray holds a simple lamp and ornateglass bottles.

“Peggy likes lamps, and the house has them in places where (most) people wouldn’t put lamps,” Gold says, “like on the kitchen counter or in the bathroom. They’re often left on, and add a cosy feel to a larger space.”

In the laundry room, a deep farmhouse sink sits atop a zinc counter, with another patterned curtain below.

Another functional room that needed work was the laundry room in the basement. Gold covered the floors with black and white porcelain tiles, cutting the black ones in half to form the baseboards. A custom-made zinc counter supports the above-counter farmhouse sink, curtained below in a red and white star-patterned material, held with mother-of-pearl buttons. The basement windows have simple striped roman blinds in ivory.

The craft room’s harvest table.

A craft room was also created in the basement, an area where Dickey and her daughters can work on craft projects. The girls love to store all the art projects they bring home from school, Gold says, while Dickey uses the space for gift wrapping. Gold designed the room to be both whimsical and functional. “Along one wall, we designed an organizer to hang tissue, wrapping paper and ribbons and even a big spool of craft paper,” she says, while a butcher block corner table has open shelving for the storage of odds and ends.

A craft room was created in the basement, furnished with a metal daybed.

A harvest table forms the centrepiece of the room so the girls can work together; its surface is covered with a piece of oilcloth that is easy to clean after colouring or painting. In another corner, an alcove reading nook is furnished with a white metal daybed, surrounded by “perroquet” wallpaper by English designer Nina Campbell. Wall-to-wall wool-sisal blend ensures it’s always cosy underfoot.

“For me, this house represents comfortable family living,” Gold says. “It’s a very livable house – well used and well loved.”

Rooms styled by Beth God, a partner in Marc Gold Interiors, www.marcgoldinteriors.com.

**Check out all the articles in the print issue here.

When Denis D’Etcheverry sets the table for two dozen guests at Christmas, he’s not just getting ready to serve dinner. He’s setting a scene.

The well-known Montreal florist, co-owner with Gilles Lord of Flore on Sherbrooke St. W., has a reputation for opulence. He decks the halls of some of Westmount’s grandest mansions with forests of flowers and yards of garland, especially at this time of year.

At home, D’Etcheverry and Lord — who are partners in business and in life — like to keep things elegant, but natural. Their idea of holiday decor is woodsy, but with panache. Last year, for instance, they set a long table with a dark grey tablecloth and set four large transparent hurricane lanterns in a row down the middle of the table.

“I never want the look to scream Christmas. And I don’t want too much glitz and glitter at the table either,” D’Etcheverry said. “At the holidays, I want the table to look festive, but natural.”

Whether you’re setting a small table for an intimate gathering or putting on a sumptuous spread, if the budget is unlimited or really tight, here are a few basic rules of table-scaping, courtesy of Flore.

Be fair. Make sure everyone around the table can see the flowers. Though one large centrepiece is show-stopping, sometimes it’s best to run a line of smaller arrangements down the centre of the table. Or maybe one larger one in the middle and two smaller ones at either end.

Or: Eschew the large arrangement altogether — place a small, cut-glass vase or silver julep glass filled with a miniature posy at each place. On other occasions, D’Etcheverry lined up miniature pots of white cyclamens in a row. Or herbs like thyme or rosemary.

“It’s not fair that only the guests seated mid-table get to enjoy the flowers,” D’Etcheverry said.

Be natural. Leave the shiny, glitzy Christmassy stuff to the peripheries. Avoid garish Santa red. Opt instead for burnished textures or jewel tones. Give arrangements a “winter” theme of evergreen boughs, pine cones, berries, fruits and nuts.

Go for cedar and juniper branches or coppery magnolia leaves. Fraser fir branches are especially nice at the table; they don’t lose their needles for a long time. (But avoid mixing pine with cut flowers. Resin doesn’t seem to agree with cut flowers.) Tuck in pomegranates, clementines or tangerines for a bright, fresh look. For height and additional colour, look for branches of reddish Siberian dogwood and ilex berries, which can be cut short for the middle of the table or left long when bundled in a vase on a side table.

Nothing too high or too smelly. D’Etcheverry never uses such intensely scented blooms as paper whites or lilies in centrepieces. They interfere with the smell and taste of the food. Forget scented candles, too.

Keep flowers in the centre of the table to a height that allows people to see and talk to each other across the table. But not too low, or they get lost amid the other elements. A good rule of thumb: the top of the flowers should stop 8 to 10 inches above the top of the stemmed wine glasses.

Coordinate. Take elements from the table and incorporate them elsewhere. Or vice versa. Sometimes D’Etcheverry will set a plain evergreen wreath horizontally at the base of a hurricane lamp glowing with candles. It echoes the wreath on the front door. Or he wires clementines into a garland that winds up a banister and then uses citrus in the centrepiece.

“You want to begin to set a mood even before people come inside. It starts with garland around the entrance or a wreath on the front door,” he said. “That mood should carry right inside and onto the table.”

Leave room for the food. Too often, hosts clutter the table either with too many disparate motifs or too many baubles. If the service is family-style, with platters at the table, make sure to leave place for them. Opt for smaller arrangements.

Get a glow. Don’t forget the candles. D’Etcheverry likes tapers best, but he also uses votives (just don’t forget to remove the aluminum cup). Go for ivory coloured candles. Never red or green.

ssemenak@montrealgazette.com