Last updated: March 29, 2011 1:55 am
Christina Colizza — The McGill Daily (McGill University)
MONTREAL (CUP) — Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is bringing his restaurant makeover skills to Canada, where he will take over the iconic Montreal chicken joint. But this isn’t a reality show.
Ramsay is now one of four partners in the family-style restaurant Rôtisserie Laurier BBQ, which is scheduled to close down April 17 for retooling. There is no word on how long it will be closed and if staff will still have jobs upon reopening. This has some people in the community up in arms.
“We don’t have this bullshit pretty little piece of food on a plate … we have food,” said Melissa Lopes, a waitress at nearby Rôtisserie Portugalia.
Lopes, also the daughter of Rôtisserie Portugalia’s owner, had much to say about top chef Gordon Ramsay’s British invasion of Montreal’s oldest rotisserie.
“So he comes and buys off restaurants people can’t afford anymore? Him? I even like his stupid show, but I can’t believe this,” Lopes added. Nor could many Montrealers and faithful patrons of this 75-year-old family establishment.
Rôtisserie Laurier BBQ was first opened by the LaPorte family in 1936 and existed for three generations before the last son closed the restaurant’s upstairs section and eventually sold the entire space. The rotisserie offered hearty roasted chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes and mac-and-cheese dishes served on paper placemats, with crayons for the kids. As a family-style restaurant, it was central to a primarily French and more recently Hasidic neighbourhood of Montreal.
Marie Christine Couture, one of the rotisserie’s assistants, explained the restaurant’s clientele had substantially decreased over the years.
“Laurier BBQ once had 1,000 customers a day to currently about 80 people a day.”
It seems the neighbourhood’s distaste for Ramsay’s takeover hasn’t been enough to bring people back to the famous home of their favourite childhood chicken and ribs.
The animosity surrounding Laurier BBQ’s scheduled closure is due in part to Gordon Ramsay himself. A reality TV show tyrant, Ramsay’s takeover is the 44-year-old chef’s 25th restaurant experiment. Despite his fame, Ramsay’s track record is full of restaurant closings, multi-million dollar bankruptcies and bad reviews.
As one of Rôtisserie Portugalia’s staff explained, “None of his restaurants make any money. He makes his money while he is there and then he boats.”
The shutdown of this Montreal landmark may tell us more about the truths of neighbourhood gentrification than of Ramsay’s new flavour of the week.
The area faced a similar loss earlier this year when diner Nouveau Palais was bought out, leading to an arguably detrimental change in both management and atmosphere.
Over the past three decades, ritzy restaurants and shops have led to an inevitable corporatization of the Montreal family-owned restaurants. “Family-style” has been replaced by “fancy” in these parts as Laurier BBQ has started to compete with funky Asian fusion restaurants and classy cocktail bars.
This trend of corporatization has deepened the meaning of the events at Laurier BBQ for those in the rotisserie business — whether Quebec-style, which Laurier BBQ is famous for, or Portuguese, like Portugalia.
Lopes, speaking for her father, explained some of their struggles.
“The government keeps complaining about pollution. We have been here since 1993 and all of a sudden all of us need new chimneys. Most Plateau people like the smell and the smoke. It’s part of the neighbourhood … and they are going to let this guy come in and open a restaurant?”
Portugalia has further demonstrated their disdain by challenging Ramsay to a cook-off. They have yet to receive a reply.
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