THE DÉCOR at this 30-seat restaurant at the edge of The Village is spare, verging on austere. The floor is cold stone and the walls are white. The tables — some hightops among them — are handsome dark wood but bare, set with grey porcelain water cups and chairs upholstered in grey felt. For colour, there’s something special, though — a pair of spectacular backlit murals by Jean-Paul Mousseau, a prominent Quebec artist in the ’60s and ’70s, artistic director of the Montreal subway and, most important, grandfather of Le Mousso’s founder and chef, Antonin Mousseau-Rivard. With his restaurant now open just three days a week and only for a single 7 p.m. service, meals unfold theatrically. Menu descriptions are minimalist (e.g., crab-celery-bergamot, lamb’s tongue-harissa-spices and wild boar-porcini-walnut), but Mousseau-Rivard describes each dish of his tasting menu to the room as it is served by his handful of chefs. (There are no servers, just a maitre d’ and a sommelier.) The original and assertively flavourful dishes present a Québécois take on neo-Nordic cooking with hyper-local ingredients. The surreal plating is inspired by scandalous 1940s Quebec Automatiste artists.

…the closest we have to a good molecular restaurant”

–Howard Levitt

Photography by: Antonin Mousseau-Rivard