Sabayon

Lily Moore’s “Heart of Glass” wafts into the trim dining room. It’s apt. We know the Blondie classic by heart, about as well as we knew the menu at Patrice Pâtissier. The couple’s prolific pastry shop was selling a steady 4,000 pastries per week and left a tartelette-shaped void in Little Burgundy when it closed in 2022. As Moore pares the familiar tune back to the essentials, so do Demers and Beaudoin. Sabayon is unequivocally them, nothing more, nothing less.

Here, their ambition thrives on every plate of the set seasonal six-course menu. Is the dainty tomato and creamy ricotta tartelette prettier than it tastes or tastier than it is pretty? The question confounds. It’s Demers against Demers, besting himself both ways. The Arctic char follows a different tack. Eminently unembellished, the fish with grilled onions seems almost stately. The brown-butter broth feels restorative. I look around the 14-seat dining room and watch as guests bow their heads for reverent sips.

For dessert, a mushroom dish layered with arlette pastry and their namesake sabayon sauce. Just kidding: The dish closes out the savoury courses. But Demers nearly had us fooled with the caramelized maple crisp of the arlette. Instead, dessert comes in the form of a pistachio cake under a dazzling fuchsia sorbet. Beaudoin recommends we bring the cake’s pops of praline to full effect with a sparkling glass of Bugey-Cerdon, La Cueille from Patrick Bottex. We do.

As Demers and Beaudoin walk us out, we pass a photo from their wedding day, framed on the wall. From Centre Street, I steal one last glance of the restaurant. Framed in the window, I see him in the kitchen, washing the dishes, and her, bidding their guests good night.