Let’s say that you’re not going to make it to Portugal this season. Let’s say that the closest you’re going to get to Lisbon is…Montreal. Lucky for you, because Old Montreal is the locale of Helena Loureiro’s new restaurant, Helena.
Those who know Loureiro’s work as chef and owner of Portus Calle, one of Montreal’s more celebrated restaurants since its opening in 2003 in the heart of Montreal’s Portuguese neighborhood on the Plateau (aka Saint Laurent Boulevard), know that the next best thing to an Iberian sojourn is a meal by Loureiro.
(Source: MRNY)
A resident of Montreal for nearly thirty years, the Portuguese-born Loureiro trained in Lisbon before completing her culinary degree in Quebec. The author of “Helena: 100 recettes portugaises,” Loureiro imbues her restaurants with such a warmth of character that the Mediterranean sun seems to be shining right outside their Montreal doors.
Loureiro opened Helena on historic McGill Avenue in the summer of 2012 and in the ensuing year, the restaurant has become the neighborhood’s de facto canteen – and particularly at lunch when Helena‘s two dining rooms buzz with the energy of fashionable denizens of Old Montreal eating happily alongside a flock of gourmand hipsters.
(Source: MRNY)
More than a restaurant, Helena feels like the elegantly-appointed domicile of a Portuguese designer. Furnished in the warm colors of the Mediterranean coast, with white-washed brick and dark wood and walls of sunflower yellow festooned with Portuguese ceramics, the sleek and stylish rooms provide a complementary contemporary counterpoint to some of Loureiro’s classic Portuguese cuisine.
(Source: Helena Restaurant)
The focus at Helena is on seafood and healthy fare, evinced in a selection of Portuguese petiscos (tapas) such as salted cod carpaccio with Granny Smith apple salad and cider or an appetizer of grilled octopus with tomato and red pepper sauce. The classic Portuguese soup “caldo verde” is as homey and soothing as a mother’s touch. A squid and octopus salad with a leek vinaigrette is a blissful amalgam of sea and garden.
(Source: MRNY)
Loureiro’s light touch, combined with the confidence earned from her years serving a loyal and discriminating clientele, results in a meal that evokes the best summer of your life – when you found that little seafood restaurant along the coast while hiking through Europe.
A second bottle of vinho verde – and you’re twenty-two again, toasting to the joys of eternal youth and Portuguese cuisine.
(Source: MRNY)
