Manitoba serves up Quebec’s wild side

Manitoba is nestled in an old Ebeniste (woodworking shop) on St-Zotique near Parc in the Marconi-Beaumont sector of “Mile Ex.” This neighbourhood was once home to garment factories of the schmata trade, and is slowly giving way to trendy eateries and bars. Dépanneur le Pick-Up was the first, and more recently the Alexandraplatz Bar.

The menu consists of indigenous herbs and mushrooms as well as wild game and seafood. Co-owner Elisabeth Cardin draws inspiration from aboriginal foods that have had a significant influence on Quebec cuisine. She regularly goes into the forest to forage for menu items. Cardin also prefers Quebec seafood species, often ignored because of their reputation as bottom feeders or scavengers, such as crayfish, eel, sea urchins and catfish.

With almost zero restaurant experience, Elisabeth Cardin never planned to be a restaurateur. The 30-year-old Montrealer is a self-proclaimed “forager” who’s been studying ecology, gardening and Quebec’s indigenous wild plants since 2003, and she’s more at home in the woods foraging for cattails and milkweed than in the kitchen. However she says her real education began when she was a child and her grandfather would bring her out into the woods.

Cardin first visited the location on St-Zotique in the hopes of opening a woodworking store, but was struck with a vision the moment she walked into the space and felt it was meant to be a restaurant or bar. She assembled some friends and tried to convince them to open a restaurant, but they brushed her off and called her crazy.

Cardin persisted, and when she signed the lease she had no chef and no business partner. Manitoba could have been a disaster, but the resourceful young woman soon charmed her business partner Simon Cantin, who also owns a construction and design firm. After a chance meeting at a vernissage, Cantin called Cardin the very next day to meet and discuss becoming her partner. Next up she recruited a now former sous-chef who has worked at Olivieri and Hotel Nelligan. Christopher Parasiuk agreed to come on and collaborate on a menu that reflects his food sensibility and Cardin’s vast knowledge of native plants, seafood and wild game.

The space itself clearly benefits from Cantin’s design skill. The ceiling is made of cedar planks, and the bar and kitchen are open to the main room. But the best part of the restaurant is a sliding garage-style door that takes up the entire back wall and opens onto a green space. It’s not exactly a terrasse, but it’s the next best thing.

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We began with an order of sagamité croquettes, an adaptation of a Native-American dish made from corn and fat. The croquettes were crunchy perfection on their own, but even better once dipped in the Québécois-style horseradish-and-mayo sauce.

Next came pan-fried catfish with mussels and bacon lard, smoked sturgeon and mini potatoes. The dish was served up like a stew, and the catfish from nearby Lac St-Pierre was juicy from simmering with the mussels and bacon fat. The potatoes were buttery goodness, their taste reminiscent of hazelnuts.

The vegetarian option was asparagus with king-size oyster mushrooms, parsnip purée and sea buckthorn. The mushrooms were at once savory and a little sweet, and so gratifying to my oral cavity that I almost snubbed the other dishes.

I only had a small bite of the duck thigh confite and coleslaw with wild ginger, but my dinner-date assures me that she found nothing out of balance with the duck, which appeared to melt off the bone. It was well supported by the crisp, vinegary ‘slaw and ginger that co-owner Cardin hand-picked from a friend’s house in Saint Chysostome in southwest Quebec.

For dessert, we had strawberry tart with elderflower and chocolate ice cream. The tart reminded me of something my grandmother Paré used to make, a slice of nostalgia in the form of simple comfort food. The strawberries were served on creamy custard, the strawberries from the latest juicy harvest. The menu announced that the chocolate ice cream is “la meilleure au monde, genre” and I have to agree.

The service was zippy and polite. However our waitress, who was charming and attentive, was not able to answer some of our basic questions about where the catfish was from and what kinds of herbs were used in the dishes we ordered. I don’t expect all the servers to do an advanced degree in foraging but I think Cardin could spend a little one-on-one time coaching her servers before a shift, especially as the menu is not the usual fare.

On a personal note, when I left the restaurant I discovered someone had locked their bike to my bike. I was trapped!! When I reported my dilemma to Cardin she proceeded to go from table to table until she found the offending cyclist. Certainly that kind of attention deserves five stars for service?

Why “Manitoba?” Cardin says the restaurant is named after the Native American practice of eating wild and respecting food, as well as the huge, wild Canadian territory — it means “where the spirits meet.” It’s also bilingual and kind of catchy. ■

Manitoba
271 St-Zotique W. 
514-270-8000