oregano & onion bread
seafood salad
Duck Gizzard confit
Beet Ravioli
coffee serving set
brown sugar cubes
Crackerjack (Popcorn ice cream)
So this dining experience was the result of a last minute road trip to Canada, Sherbrooke, Quebec to be exact.
My friend Pablo is always good for an impromptu road trip and I have to say this was a different one.
Not knowing anything about Sherbrooke, I googled best restaurants in Sherbrooke and the #1 restaurant to appear on the list was
“Antidote Food Lab”, well being that we were only going to be in Sherbrook for 1 evening (so 1 dinner) I stopped reading at #1.
Well we took a chance and didn’t make a reservation and just showed up, they were booked for the evening but they gave us 2 seats at the bar and in my opinion the best 2 seats in the house.
The bar seats are positioned so you can look directly into the kitchen and that is a show on its own. The kitchen staff is a well-oiled machine moving around that kitchen like organized chaos, but each member of the team doing their part to perfection.
Each staff member I met (including the head chef/owner) was welcoming, friendly, and very informative of each dish I inquired about.
Pablo and I were not partaking in alcoholic beverages that evening but I was watching the bartender make some fabulous looking cocktails all evening.
He brought us out a bucket (yes a bucket) of oregano & onion bread…..I’m going to let you think about that for a while. This bread was amazing (we ate 3 buckets of it).
It was fabulous on its own, with a little bit of butter or sopping up the mushroom gravy from my entrée (I would use this bread to eat most my meals) .
Then we ordered an appetizer, the fabulous Seafood Salad pictured above. This was visually stunning, with 2 kinds of shrimp, scallops, radish, cucumber and apricots. The seafood was super fresh, and a perfect blend with the dressing, squid ink, and toppings. There was no fishy taste or smell, which has disappointed me in the past at other restaurants. Fresh fish should not smell fishy; it’s a very basic fact.
Pablo got the beet ravioli’s (which I was toying with ordering) and he enjoyed every morsel, the raviolis were plump and loaded with beet, mushrooms and goat cheese, beautifully plated around tomato and beets salsa, with a cream of candied garlic & tarragon foam. I was eyeballing his plate as soon as it arrived but he was guarding it cautiously. A generous portion but not so much you wouldn’t be able to get dessert (Wait til I get to Dessert)
I got the daily poultry dish; it was duck confit with duck gizzards, potato and mushrooms, with a very nice puff pastry and served with decadent mushroom gravy. I enjoyed every bite; the combination of the mushroom gravy with the duck was heavenly. I would make the trip up to Canada again for this dish alone. A generous portion, the duck cooked & seasoned just right and I could make a meal alone with that amazing bread and this gravy. I know mushrooms aren’t for everyone, but if you are feeling a little adventurous I think this dish could make you a fan.
Now at this point we are both pretty full, but something caught my eye. The bartender was preparing coffee for a customer and the coffee serving set that comes with a mug of coffee, reminded me of one of the best things I love about European bakeries. They give you a black cup of coffee, and then they offer a jar of brown sugar cubes, a container of cream, a container of milk, and a jar of white sugar. It’s the little touches sometimes and this is one that I just adore. Well obviously if we order a delicious cup of coffee, we had no choice but to split a dessert and while they all sounded amazing, I had no choice but to use my veto power and order the Crackerjack (Popcorn ice cream, crispy caramel salted butter powder and popcorn) this is pictured above, and each bite was better than the last. So creamy and salty, the salted butter powder is served under the ice cream ball, and you want to make sure you get a little bit of everything with each spoonful. This was the perfect size, just the right amount after the amazing dinners. Even less guilt if you share like we did, although I confess the sharing might have been 60/40 in my favor ;-) .
One of the things I am not expressing enough was how much I loved the creativity they show in putting this menu together, and the different culinary skills they use in their kitchen/Laboratory. Watching these mad scientists creating each dish is watching a labor of love and I can’t recommend the Antidote Food Lab enough to anyone who finds themselves in the Sherbrooke area.
Have a great night, and an even better mea.
Bon Jour
Kevin B.
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