Do not be fooled by chef-owner Massimo Piedimonte’s minimalist menu; his cooking is anything but. The mainstay “charcuterie and its accompaniments” recently featured pâtè en croute studded with sweetbread and beef tongue, suckling-pig head cheese, a classic chicken liver mousse and kohlrabi pickled in rose-flavoured vinegar. Piedimonte’s Italian heritage, pedigreed French training and creative perfectionism combine for dazzling tasting menus. Mexico City–born chef de cuisine Santiago Alonso has added a passion for charcoal grilling to the culinary equation, and a few other tricks besides. Like yellow corn tortillas made from Ontario heritage corn nixtamalized on-site, lately featured in a tostada. Nightly eight-course tasting menus can be upgraded with luxurious extras, like caviar, truffle, scallops — and, this summer, a local rarity of raw Nordic shrimp, in this case, lightly cured in Quebec kombu, mixed with fermented pepper and stuffed into a tiny crisp-fried rosette of pastry. For pasta, expect an artichoke-filled agnolotti with barigoule and a sprinkling of Niagara hazelnut. Steak marinated in barley and koji, then cooked over charcoal, is regularly featured in seasonally evolving iterations. New sommelier Ellie Cohn joins fresh from Mauro Colagreco’s team at Raffles London, while new pastry chef Raffaele Stea has returned to Montreal after a recent gig at Canoe. Service is ultra-professional, while the ambience at this industrial chic space is lighthearted and fun.