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L’Avenue
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First things first – you’ve never seen anything like the bathrooms at L’Avenue, the favourite Montreal brunch restaurant that recently inaugurated its first Toronto location at The Well.
L’Avenue’s bathrooms are outrageous, funky, fun, fantastic, madcap, mischievous, trippy and totally unexpected. And I’m not going to offer any spoilers, but people literally, and very excitedly, line up to get into them… even if they don’t actually have to go to the bathroom. In an impressively short time, all four of them have become tourist attractions in their own right. And don’t even start with the TikTokkers…
But enough about the bathrooms. Although one could argue that they feed into the whole persona of L’Avenue itself, which is to be the most outrageous, funky, fun, fantastic, madcap, mischievous, trippy and totally unexpected brunch spot in town.
The space and décor are certainly complicit in this aspiration. The vast, high-ceilinged, big-windowed, main floor dining room offers seating for over 100, much of it in comfy aquamarine-toned banquettes, with more on the outdoor patio (weather permitting). The walls are awash in non-stop, eye-popping murals in which Pop Art meets graffiti meets manga. Then there are the tchotchkes: they start off small – Lego assemblages and Charlie’s Angels’ lunch boxes – before graduating to a life-sized, mirror-encrusted mannequin and, milking an Easy Rider vibe, a vintage 1969 BSA motorcycle that dangles casually from the ceiling.
Owner Hannah Le, who purchased the franchise rights for all of Ontario, sums the vibe up as “high energy,” as in don’t come to L’Avenue if you’re in the mood for one of those languorous, low-key, eco-mellow brunches in a quiet, cozy, little nook of a cafe.
L’Avenue is brashly and resolutely about pulsating colours and high volumes (both in terms of its playlists and crowd sizes). It’s also about Montreal, where the original Mont-Royal L’Avenue opened its doors in 1994, before expanding throughout Quebec, into Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and now, finally, arriving in Toronto.
“The brunch scene is bigger in Montreal than it is here,” observes Le. “When I got into this, I started visiting all the brunch places in Toronto. There’s some great food, but what makes us different here is the vibe. The first time I visited the Mont-Royal L’Avenue, I sat down and thought, ‘We don’t have anything like this at home. I have to bring it to Toronto!”
Of course, vibe will only get you so far. Vibe will expand your consciousness, but what about your belly?
Rest assured that famished brunchers who seek sustenance at L’Avenue will have no size issues to speak of. Indeed, Le confesses that one of her biggest concerns in bringing the Montreal menu to TO was that Toronto brunch portions tend to be much smaller. Would local expectations (and stomachs) adapt?
In the end, Le opted to stick with the large portions. As much as she wanted to stay true to the L’Avenue brand, she also generously recognized that eating out in Toronto can be an expensive experience. It’s a great sensation when you can walk (or waddle) away from a blow-out brunch, feeling as if you’ve gotten your money’s worth (not to mention take-home containers filled with leftovers).
It’s a truism that bigger isn’t always better. Happily, at L’Avenue, the food not only satiates, but also satisfies. Presiding over the kitchen is chef Manolo Quilang. Arriving at L’Avenue after stints at various French restaurants, among them La Banane, he brings both precision and unbridled enthusiasm to his execution of the menu’s extravagant breadth of offerings.
Whether your brunch proclivities skew sweet or savoury, L’Avenue has you deliciously well covered. On the sugary side, there are various inventive iterations of waffles, American pancakes and French toast. The Pistachio French Toast, for example, consists of two thick, pillowy slices of milk bread sandwiching a luxurious layer of pistachio cream. Blanketed in a cascade of red raspberry coulis, each “sandwich” is topped with crushed pistachios and fresh berries. Although French toast can be cloyingly sweet, this version is both nutty enough and tart enough to actually warrant the addition of Quebec maple syrup, conveniently available in all-you-can-pour quantities.
Savoury offerings include omelettes, eggs Benedict and toasts topped with everything from eggs and avocados to smoked salmon and rib-eye steak. Bennies are particularly well-represented with popular options such as the Spicy Chicken Benny and Truffle Duck Benny.
One might be hard-pressed to refer to an egg dish as glamorous, but the Pink Salmon Benny is a veritable head-turner. Sitting atop a chewy bagel (Montreal-style, natch), two poached organic eggs are topped with citrus, ginger and chive cream cheese, avocados, smoked salmon and marinated onions, enrobed in a voluptuous Hollandaise sauce whose scandalously pink hue owes its intensity to pureed beets. Like all egg dishes, it’s served with breakfast potatoes, marinated overnight in spices before being roasted so the centres are flavourfully tender, the exteriors delicately crisp.
Any of the aforementioned dishes are substantial enough to sate a healthy appetite. But should you be seriously hungry (or greedy, or both), L’Avenue offers a variety of “Complete Breakfast” platters for those who favour brunches on an epic scale and know exactly what they want.
And if it so happens that you’re famished, but find yourself, understandably, at a loss as to what to order (hey, it happens!), L’Avenue has a brilliant innovation just for you: The Indecisive.
With The Indecisive, you can choose your eggs anyway you want them – knowing that they’re not only organic, but boast yolks as vividly orange as the complexion of a certain U.S. president. You then select a bread (baguette, multigrain, bagel or naan), as well as both a savoury side and a sweet side as accompaniments.
Savouries include bacon, honey and orange glazed ham, homemade sausage, house cretons, veggie pate or guacamole. The more substantial and unusual sweets run the gamut from carrot cake pancakes, with cream cheese sauce, walnuts and candied carrots to tiramisu-style French toast, stuffed with mascarpone and coffee coulis and topped with crumble. Indecision never paid off so well – or tasted so good.
There’s also a lot of decision-making involved when it comes to drinks. In terms of non-alc beverages, options include a vast array of fresh fruit juices, shakes, herbal brews, mocktails and teas, coffees and lattes (both iced and hot). Meals in themselves, “exotic” and hyper-nourishing smoothies promise to alternately energize, detoxify, anti-oxidize and rejuvenate. Chock full of superfruits – such as açai berries and dragon fruit – they’re served in swimming pool-sized goblets, large and alluring enough to bathe in.
Spirited beverages are equally plentiful. In addition to a compact selection of beers, wines and bubbles, there are a dozen classic cocktails as well as brunchy standards such as mimosas and sangrias, boozy milkshakes and coffees.
While L’Avenue’s bread and butter is definitely brunch, Toronto’s location also offers brunchy lunch options and, in a first, dinner as well.
Among the more intriguing appetizers is a beet carpaccio featuring thinly sliced red beets, marinated, then slow-roasted overnight. Arranged like an abstract installation of flat purple discs at the bottom of a deep plate, they’re adorned with pickled yellow beet shavings, dollops of creamy goat cheese, and peppery arugula. A dusting of zaatar and roasted pecans add earthy, nutty crunch while a generous drizzle of balsamic reduction and pecan vinaigrette make it all zing.
Of the menu’s half-dozen burgers and sandwiches, the most “Wow!”-worthy by far is an inspired surf-n-turf invention whose braggadocious name – The Ultimate Soft Shell Crab Sandwich – lives up to the brag. The crab in question looks miraculously intact, to the extent that you can imagine chasing it out of the restaurant and down Wellington Street were its shell not unobtrusively dipped in a lightly fried batter.
The crustacean’s flesh, sweet and tender, contrasts ingeniously with the small avalanche of crisp and meaty bacon strips piled on top. The big challenge here is keeping this lip-smacking, but unruly heap securely sandwiched between two thick chunks of butter grilled brioche, slathered with a zippy kimchi tartar sauce. Upping the happiness factor exponentially is a side basket stuffed with golden waffle fries.
Among the mains, there are plenty of protein-forward salads, but if you’re craving some carbs, cream and comfort with your protein, the Rib Mac & Cheese will satisfy them all in one big silver cassolette. The mac and cheese itself, bathed in a silky Bechamel sauce that’s creamy without being heavy or stodgy, is crowned with a crunchy golden lode of grilled panko. On top sits a robust layer of shredded pulled pork, slow-roasted for eight hours in a Carolina BBQ sauce spiked with turmeric and maple. Briny pickles and house coleslaw add bracing acidity that staves off any excess richness.
L’Avenue’s devotion to brunch is such that several dishes are available after dark as well. As Le astutely recognizes, there are a lot of people who not only want to begin their day, but bring it to a satisfying conclusion with a piquant Red Shakshuka or a luscious Truffle Duck Eggs Benedict.
Indeed, if Toronto’s brunch scene is truly ready to live up to its full-bellied potential, L’Avenue is the ideal emissary to lead the way. As chef Quilang puts it, “We’ll not only make it memorable, but we’ll show Montreal how it’s done.”
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