Restaurants › French
La Palette
- 492 Queen St. W. More locations ( 1 ) • View on map »
- 416-603-4900
- http://www.lapalette.ca/
Between Spadina and Bathurst, Queen Street is much in need of some good taste, its identity increasingly fragmented by fast food and fabric stores. Shrewdly anticipating a nearby condo development, La Palette co-owner Shamez Amlani has reproduced his Kensington Market bistro on this dodgy strip. Like the market original, the facsimile is a flower among weeds. La Palette’s romantic lighting and floral tablecloths are almost a parody of a French restaurant, but Amlani’s suave hosting is impossible to resist. Brook Kavanagh, executive chef for both restaurants, makes very few changes to the menu. He treats vegetables gently, putting fiddleheads centre stage with a chorus of salty escargot drenched in butter. A mainstay of raw horse is, depending on availability, expanded to a tartare quintet plate that includes elk, wild boar, beef and bison. Ask them to go easy on the caper-heavy marinade, which camouflages the various characters of the different proteins. From the sweet wild boar to the toothsome elk, the little gems are fresh and succulent, each possessing tiny mineral distinctions that need to be savoured with eyes closed. A short, affordable, international wine list is available by the glass. Mains $19–$34.
492 Queen St. W.
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