The food was fantastic. The atmosphere delightful. The service - not so much. \n\nLocated on a side street in the old quarter of Montreal. The interior is fairly dark and suitable for a romantic dinner or a quite dinner with friends. \n\nWe felt very welcome upon arrival. Quick attention upon entry and quickly led to our table.\n\nAs with many Quebec natives you should always attemp your greeting or pleasantries in french. Doing so, I believe, conveys respect and a willingness to integrate as much as possible. Many will recognize quickly if it is not your first language and will immediately switch to english. Such was the case with our waiter but the switch was accompanied by a slight sneer. And I swear he gave an ever-so-small upward turn of his nose.\n\nAfter greetings were exchanged he seemed to be interested in helping us understand the details of the menu (it was in english) and the specials. He was moderately engaged and we appreciated his knowledge. We thought we were off on a decent foot, but the 45 minute wait between app and entree, the 15 minute wait for my empty wine glass to be refilled was just unacceptable. \n\nNow, don't get me wrong. Both of my hands and arms work and I can pour a glass of wine. However, this is a very fine-dining restaurant. The wine I ordered was $150, they decanted it for me and even gave us noticably nicer glasses than several tables around us. At this price level one does not pour their own bottle. Attentiveness, without intrusiveness, should be the order of the day here (and included in the price).\n\nThe food? It was very much above average. I had the appetizer of \"foie gras-duck sausage-apple pie.\" The duck sausage was the size of a cocktail weiner a jtouch too dry for my liking but the foie? Amazing.\n\nMy entree was a 6 ounce serving of Wagyu beef. As a general rule I don't order steak in a restaurant because it's too easy to buy a nice piece of meat and cook it yourself. This was an excepetion because it difficult to find Wagyu (or Kobe) beef in a retail butcher shop. The waiter informed me it was $15 an ounce and there was a 4 ounce minimum order. It was the best piece of steak I've ever had. For once I can actually say with a straight face, it was like butter. It was so good that I refused a piece of my wife's venison because I didn't want to disturb the flavor in my mouth and on my tounge from the beef.\n\nAt this point we'd been sitting for 2.5 hours. Not an unusaully long time. Heck, I've sat at dinner for 5 hours and had no reason to complain because the company was wonderful AND so was the service. At some point in our meal our waiter just checked out. There seemed to be plelnty of other waiters so I don't believe they were short handed.\n\nWe would have tried a dessert but became so disenchanted by the service and attitude that we left. Such a shame because the food was almost perfect.
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