Brownstein: Lavishly restored Le 9e is ‘love letter to the city’

Article content

This is a rarity: At a time when builders can be too quick to forget and to demolish city landmarks to make way for more condos and skyscrapers, a blast from the past has been lovingly and lavishly preserved and is coming back to life.

Shocker.

Article content

Welcome to Le 9e, a stunning, 29,000 square-foot art deco space containing a restaurant, two private dining rooms, two bars and an events area that pays tribute to a bygone era. Architecturally and design speaking, that is.

Article content

As of May 17, Île de France, the restaurant portion of the space, will be open to the public for their dining and perusing pleasure.

Toggle full screen modePrevious Gallery Image

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

11. 

12. 

13. 

14. 

15. 

16. 

17. 

18. 

19. 

20. 

21. 

22. 

23. 

24. 

25. 

Next Gallery ImageToggle gallery captions

All 25 Photos for Gallery

Function Not Available

Full Screen is not supported on this browser version.

You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen.

OK

Article content

With the closing of the downtown Eaton’s department store in 1999, also bidding adieu was its legendary ninth-floor restaurant. The department store’s serviceable interiors may not be recollected by many, but the same cannot be said for the restaurant, from its majestic facade down to its intricately designed oak floors and almost everything in between.

The entire edifice, built a century back, was purchased by the Ivanhoé Cambridge real estate group in 1999, and while the Eaton Centre soon came into being, the ninth-floor resto was to sit empty for the past 25 years. But by a quirk of good fortune and fate, the provincial government’s Ministry of Culture and Communications had been quick to deem the restaurant a heritage site, this ensuring its decor would be kept.

Regardless, there was no guarantee the restaurant would ever return. The hope was that some civic-minded entrepreneurs would step in, with more of an eye toward preservation than profit.

Unbeknownst to most, a group of entrepreneurs did enter the fray in 2016 and has worked with Ivanhoé Cambridge ever since to achieve that dream.

Article content

Article content

The chair of the group operating Le 9e is investor/philanthropist Jeff Baikowitz, a normally most low-profile executive who has played a pivot role in the financing of such iconic city restos as Joe Beef, Liverpool House, Vin Papillon, McKiernan, Bistro La Franquette and Park.

“This is a passion project, pure and simple,” Baikowitz says while conducting a private tour of the new facility, from the dining rooms to the restrooms. “It’s not about making money. The interesting thing about everybody involved this project was that no one looked at it as a profit centre.

“Everybody had been frustrated for 25 years, because we have one of the finest art deco dining rooms in the world and it had just been collecting dust. We all felt this had to be given back to the city. It never made sense otherwise.”

Baikowitz recalls coming to the original restaurant as a kid in the days when, according to the lore, the blue-haired set would lunch on de-crusted cucumber sandwiches served on a doily.

“But it was the decor that stood out most for me. The food wasn’t inaccessible. It wasn’t Michelin-style dining. But the room was always grand. And the look of the place now is exactly the way it was.”

Article content

Baikowitz is circumspect about the amount of money his group has invested on Le 9e project but suffice it to say that it far exceeds what sums spent on any of his other restaurants. “More than all of those places combined,” he acknowledges.

“We were also most fortunate in having Ivanhoé building the space for us and the EVOC Architecture firm carrying out the oh-so-detailed renovation work as authorized by the MCC,” Baikowitz says. “The goal was to bring it back to the 1931 specifications, and they did.”

The Île de France, which will eventually be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, sits 100, while the two private dining rooms, which can be booked for general use, can each accommodate 20 patrons. The event space, which can hold up to 500, will be available for rent for private functions — from charity galas to weddings — as well as cultural activities. The latter will be run by former Just for Laughs exec and co-founder Andy Nulman.

“We’ve already booked 24 Candlelight Concerts in the first year as well as other ticketed events to come,” Nulman says. “And we’re just getting started.”

Article content

In setting out to find a team leader to oversee the entire operation, Baikowitz consulted Joe Beef founders David McMillan and Fred Morin.

“I asked them who would be the best manager of operations for a project like this and David said there was one guy, but he’s a Montrealer and he’s in Halifax working for the Oliver and Bonancini national chain. He said he wouldn’t come back for anything else, but he would come back for this.”

And so Marco Gucciardi, best known here for his involvement with Bar George and the Burgundy Lion group, did come back to become Le 9e’s operations director.

“I started off as a restaurant server as a very young man, and I never stopped working in the industry,” notes Gucciardi, who was once a Milos server. “While working in Halifax, Jeff came and seduced me to this project. This is just such an ambitious project and I couldn’t be more excited about coming home again for this.”

Gucciardi, in turn, is pumped that Andrew Whibley — Cloakroom, Dominion Bar — has been conscripted to become Le 9e’s beverage director and operator of the cocktail bar.

The group spared no expense, either, in signing up local kitchen stars Liam Hopkins — Hopkins, McKiernan, Park — as executive chef and Derek Dammann — Maison Publique, McKiernan — as culinary director.

Article content

“The challenge is going to be to hit the mark for everybody who has strong memories of the space,” Hopkins says. “It will be French inspiration, but we won’t be beholden to it. Less classic French, but a little bit more Mediterranean influence as well. We’re trying to have some fun with it all.”

“We’ve worked well together in the past, and we naturally jive together. We’re trying to tap into the nostalgia that everyone has from here,” says Dammann, who returns to the kitchen following the closing of Maison Publique last August.

Adds Hopkins: “With food and labour costs getting higher all the time, our goal is to keep our prices as accessible as possible. We will have options that fit a lot of budgets. This is a heritage space and a whole new vibe for Montrealers. I don’t have strong memories of the space, but my mother recalls her mother taking her here. They weren’t vastly wealthy, so it was quite the experience for them.”

But the question that begs to be asked is whether patrons will wend their way downtown — often a maze of construction sites — to partake in the experience.

“Most of the gourmet downtown restaurants these days are full and doing quite well,” Gucciardi claims.

Article content

“People have been less skeptical of late going downtown to eat, knowing that there are a lot of options in the area,” Whibley suggests.

The tour continues with Baikowitz, pointing out smaller touches like the space’s original monelle alloys, the lighting fixtures and washroom sinks.

“About the only things that are new here are the urinals,” Baikowitz muses while checking out the restrooms.

And for that we can all be grateful.

“Le 9e has really been all about transcending the trends,” Baikowitz rhapsodizes. “We want to bring back the magic of a classic restaurant that served multi-generations.” Pause. “This is really our love letter to Montreal.”

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

Article content

Article content