Nolan excels at hospitality and deluxe dinner party vibes

The folks at Nolan describe the eatery’s fictional namesake as follows: “Nolan is your neighbour, he is a bit of a lost artist finding his way.”

Taken from a longer preamble printed on the menu, the story paints a picture of a bon-vivant — the type to throw a lavish dinner party that lingers into the wee hours. Nolan sounds like someone I know; he probably sounds like someone you know, too. It’s a narrative that’s all well and good, I suppose, but to me, it’s also a bit trite. Nolan is a lovely little restaurant with an impressive wine list and a well-composed (and mostly well-executed) menu. That’s as much storytelling as I need.

Located on the Notre-Dame strip, Nolan is a great-looking restaurant that lives up to its self-described living room vibe — only much nicer. With its cosy chartreuse-hued tongue and groove wall panelling, milk glass pendant lights and rust-coloured marbled tabletops, it is undoubtedly charming. Before I get into the food and drink, I want to highlight the service, which it must be said, was perfect from start to finish. In Montreal, we have a style of service that attempts to blend a certain casual approachability with razor-sharp professionalism. When done right, it’s the best version of hospitality — effortless and charming without ever missing a beat. The problem is that it isn’t always done right. Many restaurants take a bit too much from column A and not nearly enough from column B, leading to friendly-enough but often careless service. Not so at Nolan. The service team (led by co-owner Abel Goulet-Garcia) is prompt, deeply knowledgeable and directs a good dining experience without ever imposing. You get the sense that creating that dinner party feeling is tremendously important to them.

Now for the comestibles. The bar offers a tidy little cocktail program that I’m sure is quite good but Nolan is a restaurant well known for its wine program. Overseen by co-owner Julien Bétancourt, the wine list is deep and full of exceptional cuvées from some of the world’s most prestigious producers. It’s clear that this list is one made by someone with an appreciation for great wines, but there’s a catch — the list is almost entirely unaffordable for the average diner.

On this particular occasion, I was joined by a friend who, like me, is no stranger to shelling out for a particularly great bottle of wine, but with the bulk of the offering in the $100+ range (and many more in the $200–$800 range), we struggled to pick a bottle that felt appropriately casual for a Wednesday evening dinner. After some discussion with our server, we landed on an excellent bottle of Trousseau from Jura’s Domaine de la Tournelle. The wine was powerfully aromatic, blending field berries and baking spices with atypical bracing volatile acidity that, lucky for us, was well integrated. Priced around $130, it reflected the median price for the list. I should also say that we found fewer than five references under the $100 mark. To me, that all seems a bit off for a cozy living room-type restaurant that prides itself on inclusivity.

Chef Charles Dumais’s menu (15 dishes and 3 desserts) is just the kind of food I like: straightforward, not overworked and ingredient-driven. To begin, We started with a trio of salads: tomatoes from la Ferme la Rosace, haricots with boquerones and new potatoes with smoked eel. The tomatoes were spectacular, which is saying something as the restaurant tomato salad is often not better than what you could (and likely do) make at home. Dumais’s version is a triumph of seasoning, which made the tomatoes, red onions, greens and goat’s cheese absolutely erupt with flavour. Personally, I could have done without the blueberry garnish, which I found superfluous, but it didn’t detract much from the dish.

The haricots were well cooked and well seasoned but the dish was ultimately too simple. A small pile of blistered green and yellow beans are topped with five generous filets of white anchovy and the lot sits in a schmear of crème fraiche, finished, we were told, with riesling vinegar, though I can’t say it came across on the palate. I’m of mixed opinions on this dish. Boquerones are expensive and Nolan doesn’t skimp on them, so I see the value, yet, at $17 for a humble portion of beans, it does leave you somewhat wanting more. The least successful dish was the potatoes and eel. Beautifully presented (as were all the dishes we ate), the potatoes were just completely under-seasoned. The smoked eel added little more than smokiness to the dish; I would have loved to see some bigger pieces. I suspect that the potatoes were deliberately underseasoned to accommodate the salty eel and trout’s roe garnish, but the whole thing just ended up tasting like a pretty run-of-the-mill potato salad.

Of the two larger dishes on the menu, we chose the contrefilet, which was served with the first of the late-summer chanterelles and a cognac-hued sauce aux poivres. This is a really phenomenal dish that owes its success almost entirely to the perfect sauce. Silky, luxurious and generous with green peppercorn, it is everything you could wish for a pepper sauce to be. The steak itself was cooked perfectly, though I would have liked a few more mushrooms.

To end the meal, we ate a truly excellent slice of corn and chilli basque cheesecake. The silky, almost custardy cake, with its characteristically charred exterior, captured all the bright sweetness of summer corn, while the chilli caramel brought depth and complexity that brought out the savoury side of both the corn and the crust. Lovely.

All said and done, my experience at Nolan leaves me of two minds. On the one hand, there is so much to like. The service and the space are delightful and the food, if a hair inconsistent, is mostly very good. On the other hand, this cozy living room that invites you to come as you are also comes with a price tag similar to some of the city’s most exclusive restaurants — a reality somewhat at odds with the restaurant’s self-imposed neighbourhood joint identity. In any case, a good dining experience is on offer at Nolan, just keep in mind that while the “lost artist finding his way” certainly has good taste, he probably also has a trust fund. ■

For more on Nolan (1752 Notre-Dame W.), please visit their website.

This article was originally published in the Oct. 2024 issue of Cult MTL.

For more on the food and drink scene in Montreal, please visit the Food & Drink section.