The Raw and the Cooked

The Westmount Gastro Pub’s only hindrance may be its lack of signage. The restaurant depends solely on the name pasted to its front door to draw the undersized crowd that has been frequenting its space for the two months it’s been available to the public. Is there a strategy here? Is there a reason for no sign on a strip that boasts giant signs making customers aware of what lies in Westmount plaza’s sprawl? I’m too old and jobless to care about any semantic s; if the academy wasn’t a dying animal, maybe I’d put in the effort for a more consequential conclusion. I will say this, however: it’s a crying shame. The Gastro Pub makes a valiant effort to deliver good scratch to the palettes of our polis. I only hope the food it attempts to make from scratch doesn’t go unnoticed and spoil before it gets the privilege of feeding many more mouths. Word on the street is that’s what’s happening. A crying shame. It’s good. I dare say it’s delicious. The Gastro Pub plays the game well against the urbane restaurants already around. Its fare is familiar, but it diverges with a hodge-podge menu that offers interesting twists on meals we’re familiar with. A risotto with fresh ground lamb comes to mind. And the attempt at making everything from the most basic components an impressive foray. Hats off to The Gastro Pub; it does its best to exist as an appendage of Waterloo- trying to buy local, trying to be fresh, naming drinks after city streets. The first restaurant I’ve seen to rhetorically foster a sense of community with what it cooks. If it doesn’t succeed, it serves as at least a testament to the sad truth that Waterloo’s philistines don’t really care as much about the community as they say, and will disavow any sense of the word as soon as losing face is no longer a worry in front of their shameless social climbing peers. Hmph. My thesis was useful, after all. But no more academic tangents from this point on. There’s much more important matters to attest to, like the Pub’s food, and its space.

I have exhausted every way to describe an atmosphere like The Gastro Pub, simply because its persona borrows from the banal cosmopolitanism that dresses every haute food hole in this town. Black ceilings, brown everything else- the power suit colours of a restaurant space. It’s not a bad thing. I wasn’t repulsed sitting and eating. I liked feeling clean and pretending I was on business; but, the Pub’s mission statement of ‘a public house that specializes in serving quality food without pretension’ made it hard to stomach. And as playful as the bricolage menu is, it does very little to bolster any sentiment. The plating too. These appeals to humility only exist, paradoxically, as anti-aesthetic aesthetics, and make The Gastro Pub absolutely pretentious. But hey, the food was good, and the service even better.

If you’d like a little of everything, the sandwich options are a good choice, especially for those of us doing lunch, offering small tastings of sides like double-blanched French fries, or the daily soup. I went for something a little more ambitious, however; a main event; the beer can chicken: a slow roasted half-bird basted with Honey-Brown Lager. And though my first ordering relayed a poultry with an undercooked, bright pink flesh, my chef did everything a good restaurant does by footing the bill and delivering unto me an entirely new plate with the most tender bird and pastoral lavender meat, bone and all. Basted in beer, it gave off a nectarous aroma, reminiscent of the odours we find cooking with white wine. Any honey flavor imparted onto the chicken itself was slight, but perfectly suited to the mellowness of the meat. 

Accompanying that was a serving of sautéed vegetables, perfectly done as far as I’m concerned, with enough crisp zeal to teeter it on the edge of the raw and the overcooked. To that, I added fries, conventional in constitution, but accompanied with a homemade catsup full of texture, tongue tickling tang and fresh tomato to cool off any overpowering sweetness typical of the stuff we buy off of shelves. I would have liked the fries separate though, the juices from meat and vegetables running over them before I had a chance to enjoy any crunch.

For dessert I was treated to a buttery crème brulee with a side of wild blueberries simmered in their own sour juices. On a plate decorated with chocolate sauce and cinnamon, my buttery brulee, atypical to its boring custardy siblings, was left open to the option of adding even more levels of flavour. However, its soft-butter texture and down dulcet flavor made it a joy to eat all on its own, and did well enough without the ruddy wild berries. Its charred caramel was my favourite part, reminiscent of roasted marshmallows.

I have to admit, you’ve wowed me Gastro Pub, even after an embarrassing introduction; and I’d like to believe that’s a difficult thing to do. 

Aside from a jejune pretension and slow start, know this: I’m rooting for you.

One, dishonest photo this week. Why? The tyrants said I wasn't allowed to take photographs. True story.

The Westmount Gastro Pub

50 Westmount Rd.

Waterloo, ON

Mon- Fri: 11:30 am-10:00 pm

Sat-Sun: 11:30 am-10:00 pm

ANY PAYMENT

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