Sous Sol shines

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This article was published 24/02/2016 (3786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Sous sol” is French for “basement” and that’s where you’ll find the Winnipeg restaurant of the same name, tucked into a subterranean Osborne Village space previously occupied by La Bamba, Mise and earlier ventures at this oddball spot in Confusion Corner.

You enter from the rear of the building. There’s no sign to indicate the restaurant exists, other than a door inscribed with the name “Vandelay Industries,” a nod to the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza creates a fictitious company in order to prevent his unemployment benefits from being cut off.

The deliberate obfuscation could be taken as an ironic attempt to perpetuate hipster stereotypes. It could also be seen as self-important, because typically, only the most venerated restaurants — say, L’Express in Montreal or Toronto’s Bar Raval — don’t bother to advertise their presence with conventional signs.

In the case of Sous Sol, the misdirection on the door is supposed to evoke the entrance to a speakeasy. Prohibition-era chic has arrived in Winnipeg, long after it arrived in cocktail bars in New York and Portland, Ore., and being grumpy about it is just as pointless as complaining about the return of acid wash and other hideous fashion crimes.

It’s also pointless because Sous Sol is fantastic at the one thing any self-conscious faux-speakeasy must do in order to avoid ridicule: it makes exceptional, perfectly balanced cocktails.

The extensive list of drinks, created by Winnipeg’s Erik Thordarson, are executed so well, you won’t even roll your eyes at Rencontre dans le Jardin, a $19.50 gin-and-chamomile concoction for two, served in a teapot to evoke Prohibition-era contraband.

This is a rare place where the cocktails alone justify a visit. The kitchen is also capable, even as it kicks out old-school French dishes that would have been entirely foreign to diners during the Prohibition.

Speakeasy culture peaked in the 1920s, which is well before North Americans fell in love with French food. People on this continent didn’t embrace classic Gallic cuisine until the 1960s and ‘70s, when Julia Child sold millions of copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and New York Times restaurant critic Craig Claiborne sang the praises of a good bearnaise sauce.

But again, the anachronism doesn’t matter, as chef Mike Robins appears to have a blast recreating stodgy, old French standbys and reinventing some in the process on a short menu that usually changes from week to week.

A couple of clusters of whitefish roe added Manitoba content to a seafood gratin of snails, bay scallops and crab claws. A soft-poached egg enlivened a classic lentil salad. Rootbeer-glazed chunks of braised, boneless short rib were perched over a parsnip purée laden with crunchy bits of roasted corn nuts and pickled rutabaga. 

A pair of lamb chops were seasoned simply, cooked medium-rare and served with quenelle-shaped dollops of cold feta, tomato and eggplant. A filet of Mediterranean sea bass was also seasoned simply and properly pan-fried. Horse tartare, topped with a raw egg yolk, had just enough tartness to allow the sweetness of the meat to shine; there’s a beef version for $5 less, if you’re squeamish. A starter-sized “cassoulet” of white beans and rabbit was overpowered by tomato sauce but remained pleasant.

Fried slices of lightly breaded zucchini, dressed with hollandaise, and garlicky potatoes dauphinoise were the best of the sampled starters and sides. Less successful were gluey dumplings, an unremarkable salad of endive, spinach and walnuts and an excellent, fluffy crêpe marred by a filling of tinny-tasting snow crab. One of the mains was also a complete miss: slices of duck breast were gummy and oversalted, possibly from bathing too long in brine.

Desserts were uniformly good, though, like a cinnamon-toast-crunch crème brûlée that could serve as millennial catnip, and a small round “clafoutis” that bore little resemblance to the classic dish of fruit in eggy batter. 

All of this is served in an underground room decorated with old glassware, rugs and other hipster-friendly accoutrements. The effect is not as precious as it sounds. There’s enough competence in the kitchen and excellence at the bar to allow you ignore the vintage camera hanging in a leather holster, or the old cookbook pages on an alcove wall or… well, you get the point.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca