On the corner of Avenue La Salle and Ontario Street East, in a part of Hochelaga that has none of the bustle of downtown, Hélicoptère occupies a spacious, light-filled room. A long square bar, dressed in a soft pale green, faces intimate tables set on the other side of the room. Pale wood dominates, the colors stay deliberately muted, and trailing plants run along the walls. A scenography by Mise à Jour Studio, following a major renovation led by Les deux marteaux. The hand-blown glass fixtures, original works by Marc-André Fontaine, were reworked for the occasion by Studio Botté, keeping the place’s soul intact while giving it a fresher feel.
Hélicoptère’s story begins in July 2018. Chef-owner David Ollu, who came up through the kitchen at Bouillon Bilk (one of Montreal’s essential tables) with detours through San Francisco and France, decided to take flight on his own. The restaurant’s name is no accident. It refers to the famous “helicopters,” those maple samaras that spin down to the ground every fall. An image the chef himself claims as a nod to Quebec identity and to his own journey. A good share of the vegetables and herbs used in the kitchen even come from the restaurant’s own rooftop garden. Since opening, the table has racked up recognition with a Michelin Guide nod and a spot in Time Out Montreal’s Top 50.
The concept is built around sharing; the menu offers a multi-course tasting menu with a wine pairing, along with à la carte dishes meant to be shared at the center of the table. The menu changes with what’s arriving at the market, meaning the exact lineup shifts from one season to the next. On the budget side, the tasting menu ran me $90 per person. It’s also entirely possible to share dishes à la carte instead.
My experience at Hélicoptère
The Îles-de-la-Madeleine scallops open the meal, cut into small cubes in a minimalist presentation. The confit jalapeño delivers its kick with a lot of restraint; the coriander sauce pooled at the bottom of the plate brings a welcome freshness, and a few pistachio pieces bring in the crunch the dish was missing. A touch of horseradish is scattered on top, without ever overwhelming, in just the right amount. The scallops were served a touch too cold, almost verging on frozen, which slightly muted their natural texture.
The house-made sourdough that follows, served with a lightly salted homemade butter, doesn’t try to surprise, no funky note here, but it does its job very well. The oyster mushrooms, for their part, sit on a feta with an almost smoky flavor, closer to crème fraîche, surrounded by generous little croutons. The mushrooms keep a real depth, the result of a cook that doesn’t cut corners. A dish I’d call powerful in its smokiness and umami, and my favorite of the evening.
Next comes a composition of tomatoes, built up like a small sculpture over a sesame purée at the bottom of the plate. A pairing that works beautifully. Honey, basil, and Cuban oregano round out the picture, and the oregano flowers bring an almost fermented note, while the puffed barley scattered on top adds an unexpected crunch. The whole thing is accompanied by little bites of saucisson and cucumber, a refreshing wink of a garnish.
Then come three scarpinocc stuffed with beurasse (that assertive Quebec goat cheese), chanterelles, green peas, and garlic flower, composing an almost monochrome, all-green plate. The pasta, cooked al dente, holds its texture well, and the peas burst in the mouth with a freshness that wakes up the whole dish. To me, the plate’s beautiful colors really play into its vegetarian side.
The lamb course is easily the high point of the meal. The sausage, intense and unmistakably gamey, makes its presence known right away. The zucchini, crisp, carries nice grill marks, though I would have liked them to lean harder into the smokiness those marks seemed to promise, a note that never quite comes through. The black garlic sauce, on the other hand, is a total success: succulent, intense, with a remarkable length on the finish, finished with precise dots of mint sauce and wild garlic (ail des bois). Then there’s the lamb leg and bacon skewer, lacquered in a lightly sweet BBQ sauce, cooked absolutely perfectly.
Dessert closes out the evening on a lighter note: strawberry, meringue, Thai basil, lemon balm, and Timut pepper, in a deliberately deconstructed plating where the meringues sit like little candies, neither crisp nor sticky, landing in a fairly successful textural in-between. The sweetness stays discreet, carried mostly by a delicate strawberry syrup, while the Timut pepper adds an herbal facet that nicely extends the tasting.
