Restaurant Pearl Morissette

Restaurant Pearl Morissette is located near the Niagara region of Canada in an area called “Jordan Station” neighborhood of Lincoln, Ontario. My partner and I visited Niagara Falls recently, and wanted to make a trip out to this restaurant from the U.S. side of Niagara. The drive into this area was very easy. Because we foolishly decided to eat at this restaurant rather late, we initially did not find any availability. However we checked again a few days before our trip, and we were able to book a table for 2 for 8:30 PM on a Friday night.

This restaurant’s mission statement reminds me a lot of Blue Hill, where they source their own local ingredients, both from their own plot and from nearby farms. They also have their own wine, which I was excited to give it a try. This mission statement was also consistent in restaurant ratings, in that it has been awarded 1 Michelin Star in 2024 in the Ontario region of Canada was awarded 6th best in 2024 Canada 100 Best.

Ambiance & Service

When you walk in, there are stairs leading to the restaurant on the second floor, and optionally to the left on the first floor will lead you to the actual barrels of wine. The interior of the restaurant was fairly loud, and at night, you don’t have much of a view into their vineyard or factories at all. The service was good, but it felt the pacing sometimes was off. We noticed that they forgot to serve one of our pairings, so I confirmed with them if that was true. Other than that, the service was very friendly, as one of the servers was excited to personally show us the winery downstairs.

Note that if you decide to order the bakery goods for $30, they provide a bag of a large loaf of sourdough bread and 3 different bakery goods. I felt it wasn’t really worth the price since we wouldn’t really be able to appreciate it till a few days later. The 3 bakery goods were decent bread goods with some fillings in them. Some had a scone like texture, and others were similar to a sticky toffee cake.

Food

The dinner ended up being CA$185 per person, with the “garden pairing” (non-alcoholic) at CA$62 and beverage pairing at CA$140.

This was the first and second course.

The first course was the West Coast Dungeness Crab, which came with persimmon marinade, lemon verbena infused tomato water, orange thyme emulsion, bartlett pears, and ground cherries. This was absolutely delectable and heaven. The crab was very sweet, and all the complementary ingredients added nice tart and green fruit flavors.

The second course was a Carrot Crisp from Cookstown Greens, which came with scallop roe pate and dried chili. In the rear, you’ll see a coffee-colored stick. The pate is located inside of this roll. It was quite flavorful and reminded me a bit of crackers with tuna can meat, relish, and mayonnaise.

The first garden pairing was made with sorrel leaf and roast thyme. It was very light, grassy, and herbaceous.

The Amevive Marsanne 2021 came from Santa Barbara. This wine was surprisingly pretty decent coming from the area. It’s tranquil and has notable floral and stone fruit notes to it. I recall it having a slight creamy after taste to it.

The third course was a Sourdough made with einkorn and iron fife, and it was served with whipped St. Brigid’s butter. Each slice of bread had a noticeable hefty weight to it, but it was deliciously sour and was sublime with the butter.

The fourth course was Fresh Scallops from Mahone Bay, which came with apple gelee, oyster pearls, celery leaf oil, horseradish, and hung yogurt. The horseradish was subtle, and the scallops were delicious. As you can imagine, this had a lot of creamy textures in it. What was interesting was there was a leaf that when you bite into it, it tastes like the cucumber flavors of the oyster.

The second garden pairing was made with wine tea and rose. This was light and floral.

The Vouvray was made with 100% Chenin Blanc and came from Francois et Julien Pinon, Loire, France 2017. I recall this being absolutely delicious with very noticeable fermentation notes that were dry, floral, and crisp.

The fifth course was Grilled East Coast Lobster from Nova Scotia, which came with habanada pepper espuma, lobster roe, pickled green peaches, spicebush oil, sweet onion, and rose glaze. The presentation of this dish seemed a little chaotic, and overall the flavors of this were not memorable. The lobster claw was cooked perfectly, and the sauce had a light kick to it.

My partner had an allergy and received the Braised Longhorn Beef Short Rib from YU Ranch, which came with the same flavors above. The braised short rib was very tender, and the rib strains fell off with ease. It was neither too fatty nor too lean.

I don’t remember the third pairing here because they forgot to bring it with the food. They also mentioned that this pairing was the same for both garden and wine pairings. Whether that’s true, I will never know. I remember this being nice and crispy.

The sixth course was Salt Baked Celeriac from Green Acres Farm, which came with wild Acadian sturgeon caviar, caramelized cream, smoked egg, fried onion, and potato crumble. Celeriac is a root vegetable, so it was expected to be a little mushy when it was grinded. The saltiness of the caviar, fat of the cream, and the potato crumble textures helped round out its nice earthy flavors.

The fourth garden pairing had honey crisp apple and agastache, which is a type of mint.

The Cuvee Dix-Neuvieme 2017 was a chardonnay that came from their own vineyard. I thought the overall flavors of this were not as memorable as I hoped. There were noticeable apple notes to it, but the way it finished wasn’t as appealing to me.

The seventh course was Slow Grilled Striped Bass from the Miramichi River (New Brunswick), which came with false cardamom ginger butter, butternut squash, beurre monte, pickled fennel seeds, and onion puree. The bass was quite dense and firm. Beurre monte is an amazing butter sauce, so practically anything with it would be good.

The fifth garden pairing had strawberry, basil, and chili. This would apply for the next 2 courses for my partner. The chili was very subtle and not spicy at all.

The fifth wine pairing was the Cuvee Madeline 2016 from their own vineyard, and they considered it their flagship red wine. This was a Cabernet Franc that was meant to be very full body. When I tried it, it was rather chalky with tannins that stuck around for too long. I ended up not being able to finish this because it felt rough around the edges for some reason.

The eighth course was the Butter Roasted Guinea Hen from Back-to-Nature Organics, which came with wild pine mushrooms, cauliflower, black cumin seed jus, prickly ash, and lemon thyme mousse. The hen had an interesting fatty layer, and the meat itself was quite tender. The wild pine mushrooms had very mild mushroom flavors. As you can imagine with these components, the dish was overall very rustic and earthy in taste and textures.

The sixth wine pairing was the NV15 Cain Cuvee from Napa Valley, CA. This was a blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and petite verdot. I’m really starting to enjoy blended wines because there are new flavors coming out of it. This one I really enjoyed, despite it being full bodied.

The ninth course was the Grilled Hogget from Tamarack Farms, which came with braised hogget, Korean celery, oyster leaf, hakurei turnip, and spinach and fennel puree. Hogget is a word used to describe lamb between 1 and 2 years old. The hogget had an interesting texture in that it was tender, but the meat itself was somewhat difficult to cut. It was easy for the meat to cling onto the knife, despite it being very sharp. The flavor was very mild. The vegetables did complement it, and it gave it a meat and vegetables complementary conveyance.

The dessert courses started with the Rice Tartlet from Fraser Valley, which came with rice pudding cooked in sweetgrass, wild pawpaw, northern hardy kiwi, and sake lees mousse and shiso. The tart had a nice pie-like crust, adn the inside basically tasted like pie filling with some kiwi and shiso flavors. It definitely felt like a light palette cleanser because it was so different than all the other prior courses.

This was paw paw (apple custard) cider with white tea and cherries. The paw paw flavor was pretty mild, but it was crisp and nice.

The Riesling Brand de Turckheim 2009 came from Zind Humbrecht, Alsace, France. This had a lot of residual sugars, and was very smooth and delicious.

The second dessert course was Apple Mille Feuille, which came with apple tuile, caramelized apples, apple vinegar curd, and false cardamom ginger chantilly. This was also pretty decent, especially if you like thin, sweetened pastry sheets. I’m usually not a fan of this because these are quite brittle and if you cut it the wrong way, you can get an imbalanced bite of components.

The final dessert course was Black Koji Ice Cream Sandwich, which came with black koji cookie, toasted hazelnut ice cream, and candied hazelnuts. Similar to an ice cream cookie, this was pretty good. The black koji is supposed to have a plum like flavor, but it was definitely not noticeable since the hazelnut flavors were very aromatic.

Final Verdict

If you’re in the Toronto area or the Niagara area and are looking to try something that’s very much a farm-to-table type cuisine, Restaurant Pearl Morissette is a great option that should be visited. The food overall was definitely Michelin quality, with some hits and slight misses. Their wine pairing was just OK for me, and I couldn’t get into some of their homemade wines as much. However, the overall package of the price, atmosphere, and food was still worth the visit. I think the wine pairing was interesting, but if I had to do it again for pairings, I’d go for the garden pairings.

Yelp Jabs

We arrived early and wanted to visit the shop/winery but couldn’t find it. We later found out that there is no storefront for the winery.

We learned that the winery was directly below the restaurant. When you do winery tours, you actually just go into that room. The barrels look really young, and the people there told us they’ve been around for less than 20 years. The restaurant itself has only been around for less than 10 years.

The issue for the most part was the salt content. Most of the dishes, all except for two and the desserts, were way too salty. I love my sauces and soups, but I could not dive into any of them.

I didn’t have any of this problem directly, so maybe they adjusted their seasoning since this Elitist’s review. I can definitely attest that some of their dishes were on the saltier side.

Revisions

1. Nov 1, 2024 - Initial revision.