Restaurant: L’Inconnu
Chef: Riana
Date: Sunday April 8th 2018
Table of: 2
My favorite dish: the avocado burger

I had the pleasure of brunching at L’Inconnu as their guest. L’Inconnu is located on the North-West border of the Plateau and the Mile-End, on Saint-Laurent just above Laurier. They offer a wide variety of typical brunch dishes, as well as some house populars like smoked salmon, pork ribs, eggs Benedict over French toast and many more. Oh, and did I mention that everything is HOMEMADE? From bagels and sausage, to smoked salmon and burger buns!

We also had the opportunity to sit down with owner and chef, Riana, who is from Madagascar. I’m specifying this, as you can see some Madagascarian (?) influences in L’Inconnu’s menu. Riana has more than 9 years of experience in this industry, which is what pushed her to open up her own restaurant. She created a menu based on what people want to eat, while offering quality dishes and reasonable prices. There’s something for everyone on L’Inconnu’s menu, from meaty options, to vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options as well. I liked the way Riana put it: “J’offre mon savoir faire a mes clients”.

We ended up ordering three dishes; 2 savoury brunch plates and 1 sweet dish as a “dessert”. First up was the eggs Benedict with homemade sausage, sautéed mushrooms and caramelised onions, which was good. The homemade sausage was delicious, as were the breakfast potatoes full of yummy garlic. However, I did find the Hollandaise sauce a bit bland; it could have used more butter and salt to my liking. The same goes for the homemade English muffins, which could have been more flavorful. I really liked the dressing on the house salad, which was both sweet and salty. However, there were multiple bits of the salad which were no longer fresh and should have been removed. With all this said, overall, it was a tasty dish.

The second dish we chose was the avocado burger, with beef patty, bacon, cheese, guacamole, tomato, mayo and caramelised onions. At first, Alex was taken by surprise, as part of the burger was raw; so we had it returned to the kitchen and cooked more. Now, let me explain what happened. Typically, in Canada (or at least in Quebec), burger meat should be cooked well done, when using ground beef that is purchased as such, because of contamination risks and the fact that you are eating the meat from not just 1 cow. However, if you buy your own meat and grind it yourself, you don’t need to be that precaucious; you can basically cook it like you would a steak (or eat it raw, hence beef tartares). However, we figured this is what happened and when we spoke with Riana, she confirmed that she in fact does grind her own meat and thus you can eat it partially raw. So, moral of the story, when you order a burger at the restaurant, always make sure you and the waiter are on the same page as to the how you want your beef cooked. Now, back to this avocado burger. I loved the burger; it was moist, juicy and I loved the seasoning on it. It was very tasty, especially with the crispy bacon strips. It was served with the same delicious potatoes as the eggs and a house salad too. The house salad had some cucumber strips and curried vegetable strips too, which was nice and different from your typical house salad. Overall, an excellent burger.

To accompany our mains, I had a latte, which was good and a “La meilleure limonade au monde” which was indeed very good. I liked that they used limes instead of lemons and ground mint which always adds a fresh and refreshing touch to drinks.

For dessert, we shared the French toast with fresh fruits and homemade chocolate sauce. I really liked this dish; the French toast was nice and thick, crispy on the outside  and fluffly on the inside. The fresh fruit selection was very good as was the delicious homemade chocolate sauce. We ate our dessert with a Ciel velouté smoothie (blueberries, banana and house lemonade). The smoothie was also very good and refreshing and tasted a lot like blueberry versus banana, which I liked, as I don’t like bananas that much. There were also some hints of lime and mint, from the house lemonade, which made the smoothie different from others you would typically get.

Overall, we enjoyed a delicious brunch at L’Inconnu. My favorite was definitely the avocado burger and I wished I had ordered it for myself instead of for Alex lol. What I liked the most about L’Inconnu was that they put a lot of effort into preparing everything themselves (aka homemade), which not all restaurants do, especially some breakfast chains which shall remain unamed. That’s something that I appreciate a lot, along with very reasonable prices for good quality food. So if you’re looking for a good brunch place, with homemade and affordable dishes and no line-up, give L’Inconnu a try!

UP NEXT: my guest review of Restaurant La Demande Générale (#PASTAWEEKMTL)

*This restaurant post does not contain my usual restaurant review criteria of restaurants, as this is a sponsored post where I was invited to the restaurant as a guest.

*All photos are mine