Gibby’s

Riding in a horse-drawn carriage through old Montreal in the month of December is very cold. Despite the heavy blankets and the rather temperate weather during our excursion, the wind coming in from the St. Lawrence can chill to the bone, making it rather difficult to take tourist photos. I fumbled off with my gloves and tried to conjure enough warmth into my bare shutter finger to snap a few pictures for my mother, but soon gave up. Luckily for me I live here and already have these photographs anyway. I could easily make duplicates of anything I’d missed.

As our driver mentions local points of interest, a few restaurants are mentioned as well. I don’t know if the drivers get kickbacks from the restaurants themselves, but there are three that are invariably mentioned during every carriage tour. The only one of those which has been recommended to me by locals is Gibby’s.

Gibby’s restaurant is housed in a building whose original construction began as far back as 1694, and had served as a hospital for the Grey Nuns. The building consists of three (that I saw) floors, the one which we dined in being underground and dimly lit by lamps and strings of Christmas lights. Although the building was extensively renovated in 1967 as part of an old Montreal restoration project, I preferred to think of our dining room as a former wine cellar, instead of the restored place of deathbeds for people with polio or whatever else was killing people like flies in the 17th to recent centuries.

Despite three floors of dining accommodations, at least during the holidays, it is recommended to make a reservation. The place was packed efficiently with few available seats during our visit. From my vantage point, the room was divided by the original old brick walls and support beams, and with the help of the lighting, really helps to reduce a feeling of crowdedness. It actually feels quite private.

Our drinks arrived with a loaf of bread that gave less resistance to the knife than the two kinds of butter that accompanied it. The loaf was extremely soft and warm, having virtually no crust that one would expect, just a butter-basted exterior as soft as what was inside. Hundreds of these loaves must be created every day, I assumed from a starter, as it had a faint sourdough taste. I know that the restaurant itself was not nearly as old as the building, but it’s fun to pretend that the starter in my loaf of bread was as old and complex as the history of the stables it’s created in.

The bread was addictive, and I’d soon downed several slices before even ordering appetizers. We ordered only two, the sautéed garlic shrimp and Chesapeake Bay crab cakes. One need only take a quick glance at the appetizers to realize that the menu is hardly local or seasonal. It features gazpacho in the dead of winter. The crabs are imported from the States. We received two crab cakes with a generous portion of corn salsa, which was sweet like the antipasta my mom would make at Christmas. To me, the crab cakes were overdone, but the table consensus was that they were still very good. The shrimps were split so five filled a plate, and soon they had filled my stomach.

It soon became obvious that the service was impeccably paced. We’d hardly finished our appetizers before the salads arrived. I had ordered the Gibby’s salad with anchovies, which is (perhaps far more than) a meal in itself. I indulged in the option of croûtons and bacon bits and by the time I’d finished, I was pretty much done. The dressing, at least with the anchovies, tasted like a sweetened light Caesar, which somehow had me devouring bite after bite of lettuce, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes until I was scraping the bottom of the bowl.

Soon our bowls were removed and a new one had been placed in front of us: a lime sorbet. It was far too large to be considered a palette cleanser, though that’s certainly what it was to be, but when I’d finished I (and my stomach) felt as though the dinner had come to a close, properly finishing dessert and bursting at the seams.

And then the steak arrived. I ordered the Gibby’s cut (rib steak) with both garlic and spices (I had the option of either and chose both). To picture the Gibby’s cut, imagine a side of beef and remove a single rib section. It would be the whole thing, unaltered. It dwarfed the plate it lay upon. To eat it would be an impossibility, at least without the purchase of a new wardrobe, without previously downing a pitcher of beer and perhaps being cheered on by a few friends. Even then I probably would have failed. I had sliced a single strip off, cut it into six pieces and ate, thumb up in approval, but ready to retire. Another twenty-some ounces would be transferred to a container to bring home.

Next to it were a few asparagus, that were actually quite good, and a twice-baked potato stuffed with cheese, chives and bacon. Gibby’s must employ the use of a different type of oven, or at least a different temperature, because the things baked in it, the bread, the potatoes, were different than food I was used to. I’m not sure how to explain it. It was uniformly cooked without ever being blistered. The bread had no distinguishable shade difference, the potato was consistently speckled with brown. It was rustic without having the elements you’d typically use to describe such a word. Our meal ended with a chocolate mint branded with the Gibby’s logo, the gates to the stables that we entered through. The mint was probably the best I’d ever had, and I consumed two without the room for either.

The price tag for a meal at Gibby’s is easily $50 a head before wine, but the cost is met with abundance that will exceed your expectations. The food is delicious, but in such a way that you find yourself indulging to excess. It is like your favorite cookie that you cannot help yourself from consuming. It is so good yet so unsatisfying, until your satisfaction is found in being able to physically eat no more. In my opinion satisfaction could be found with reduced prices and portions, but my opinion is perhaps of no importance, since the opinion of others keeps Gibby’s walls filled to 90%+ capacity on a regular basis.