Apollo Bistro, Montreal

here was a time when dining out was done to avoid the sense that you ever had to make use of a kitchen; like women in Victorian England, the public culinary sphere was separated entirely from the domestic dining sector. Of late, however, the spheres are raucously commingling, restaurants are leaning to a kind of home-cooking, or comfort food concept that’s becoming a bit tiresome. It’s no longer novel to find ‘real’ mac and cheese or ‘grain-fed’ chicken potpie on an upscale card.

The culinary world is all mixed up: homemakers are cooking like chefs due to the infiltration of the food network and chefs are having pissing contests over who would make the best homemaker. Even Montreal, the haute-everything Canadian city, is jumping on the home-cooking bandwagon, but don’t worry there’s a twist…

Introducing Apollo Bistro, a restaurant that prides itself on offering a menu that you kind of “do yourself.” The prix fixe card comes with a salad or soup course and dessert and rotates daily. But the uniqueness lies in the entrée choices; for your main dish Apollo Bistro’s eponymous chef Giovanni Apollo gives you 6 different protein choices, anything from duck, to scallops, to ox; 4 different vegetables options; and a variety of sauces. Following your perusal of said objects, in a creative collaboration of sorts, you choose how you would like him to combine the items.

So, eating at Apollo Bistro might be a little work, but the atmosphere is sheer pleasure. The modish spot takes you far away from home, featuring bright metallic walls, long communal tables, a gleaming lacquered bar, tree-trunks doubling as columns, glossy white dining chairs, and tufted banquette seating.

Put it this way: dining at Apollo Bistro is like living in a lux mansion without the requisite retinue of servants. If you are a control freak in the kitchen nothing could be heavenlier.

Address: 6422 Saint-Laurent, Montreal, QC
Contact: 514-276-0444
Cuisine: Contemporary
Area: St. Laurent
Venue: Restaurant
Hours: Mon. – Sun. 11:00am – Close
Price Range: $$$ (Within Reach)
Payment: Master Card, Visa, American Express

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