Burgundy and royal blue tones, paired with dim lighting and botanical dark wallpaper, give the restaurant an elegant feel, while a structure of concrete pillars injects a modern industrial feel. The marble bar is placed in the center of the restaurant, and a chain-link art installation hangs on the wall next to it, replicating Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Deren in the 1970s French gangster movie "Borsalino." Delon's classic scene. Several pieces of art are scattered around the corner of the restaurant, including a stained-glass style painting by Canadian artist Daniel Mazzone depicting the late French singer Serge Gainsbourg; and a black-and-white photo of the restaurant’s founder’s grandmother.
At the end of last year, the newly opened French restaurant Lucie was located in Toronto's Financial District and gathered a team of outstanding chefs from France. Its founder, Yannick Bigourdan, grew up in the south of France and owns two restaurants in the city, Trattoria and Carbon Bar. However, Lucie was the first French restaurant he owned and was named in honor of his grandmother Lucie. This loving grandmother created precious childhood moments for him. At that time, his parents were busy with work, and his grandmother was responsible for taking care of everything for him. Whenever he comes home from school, his grandmother’s house will be filled with the aroma of delicious food. This restaurant is his tribute to his grandmother who gave him endless love.
Dine with local game
That night we sampled a seven-course tasting menu. After taking a seat, the waiter pushed the dining cart with three types of sparkling wine on display, and the dinner started with a bottle of rose champagne. The first appetizer was slow-braised red cabbage, which was layered with smoked eel skin and paired with the essential ingredients of French cuisine – Ostra caviar and Meyer lemon cream, presenting a refined and elegant look. The presentation is followed by the French consommé, which is carefully cooked with vegetables such as radish and horseradish. It is clear and tender, with salmon cubes from British Columbia at the bottom.
vThe fish main course is Atlantic halibut. The chef stuffs the mussels into the fish pieces and cooks them together to retain the fresh and tender taste of the fish. The French sauce is concentrated for more than ten hours, aiming to bring out the original flavor of the food instead of covering it up, and pursue the perfect ratio of ingredients and seasonings. This dish uses a rich Nantua shrimp paste and is served with edible crispy fish bones. The waiter drizzled us with fine cream foam, and the bergamot flavor added a mysterious atmosphere to the whole dish.
Mussels stuffed with Atlantic halibut and served with edible crispy fish bones
It is not uncommon for French cuisine to feature game. Lucie brought us two meat entrees: quail and rabbit saddle, both of which come from local farms in Ontario. Quail cooked in red wine jus, served with black truffle and rare ingredient salsify. Salsify, after being slowly stewed, has a faint sweetness, similar to oysters, so it is called "oyster dish", which can add layers of delicious taste to quail; rabbit saddle is stewed in slow fire, and the meat rolls are cut into pieces. , you can see the foie gras hidden in the tender rabbit meat, and it is topped with two pieces of fragrant black truffle. Accompanying the dish is a mini rabbit rack, as well as slow-cooked potatoes and nutty and earthy kanti cheese, surrounded by colorful sauces. Finally, the dinner ended with pineapple sorbet and 66% dark chocolate with passion fruit sorbet.
Draw inspiration from childhood memories
Bigourdan's vision was for the restaurant to represent "the emerging culinary trends in Paris," so he recruited several chefs directly from France, led by executive chef Arnaud Bloquel. Bloquel was born in the South of France and grew up in the Caribbean, shaping him into a chef who embraces different tastes and blends the dual food cultures of France and the Caribbean.
Like Bigourdan, Bloquel's love of cooking was inspired by his two grandmothers, one from France and one from Italy. Bloquel said in the interview: "Although they are in two completely different culinary fields, they share a common passion for food and taught me the importance of sharing food in communicating with people." Moving from France to Toronto, Bloquel frankly said that the world Because of this new restaurant, he said: "By chance, I met Bigourdan, who proposed this new challenge to me. He and I have similar backgrounds, both from southwestern France, and were influenced by the cooking culture taught by my grandmother. Nourishing. Our stories seem to be intertwined, cherishing a shared emotional connection and heritage.”
Lucie Executive Chef Arnaud Bloquel
Asked about the inspiration behind the tasting menu, he said: "The menu combines Bigourdan and I's treasured culinary memories with seasonal ingredients from Ontario. For me, food is like a symphony that evokes deeply emotional moments. France The cuisine is deeply influenced by the Mediterranean, and the essence of it is spices and sunshine. When these ingredients are drizzled with olive oil, they can create complex and earthy dishes. "I firmly believe that the essence of any dish is," he added. The principle of harmonizing the flavors of all the ingredients through carefully crafted sauces is deeply rooted in the teachings of my grandmothers, who would spend hours simmering the sauce, patiently observing the changes during the process, and creating a delicate and rich flavor.”
Drawing inspiration from childhood memories, Bigourdan and Bloquel fuse the dual food cultures of France and the Caribbean, and each dish perfectly combines the essence of ingredients with the art of cooking. As Bloquel said, food is like a symphony, and Lucie Restaurant is the conductor of this symphony, taking diners into an incredibly wonderful taste journey.
