Since its December 2016 debut, on an unassuming corner of Montreal’s relaxed yet hip Mile-Ex district, Marconi has accomplished what few local restaurants could. It married the casual, breezy feel of a neighbourhood drop-in culinary spot with food that discerning Montrealers can’t get enough of. The menu — modest but pleasingly diverse, with French and Mediterranean influences, and presented in a vintage-chic setting — succeeds in being innovative, yet approachable.

Marconi is the brainchild of Montreal native Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly and Miami-born Molly Superfine-Rivera, now husband and wife, who met while working at restaurants in New York’s chic West Village. “She was tending bar at Minetta Tavern, a neighbourhood spot I loved,” says Brunet-Benkritly, who had moved to Manhattan to work the stoves at Fedora.

It was when his visa was coming to an end that the moment of truth arrived for Brunet-Benkritly. He had already put in time as head chef at Chez Sardine, which was owned by the restaurant group that owned Fedora, and Superfine-Rivera had moved on to the highly lauded M.Wells in Queens. “We just started throwing ideas about opening something together. We wanted something very à la Minetta Tavern and Fedora, that felt like it has a history and it’s real,” says Superfine-Rivera. They knew, however, that opening a restaurant in New York would cost a fortune. “You have to sell your soul just a little bit, whether that’s to an investor or a larger group,” says Brunet-Benkritly. “We wanted to avoid that, because we had such a strong vision of what we wanted and we wanted to control it.”

That ultimately meant a move back to Brunet-Benkritly’s hometown, where they spent almost a year searching for the right location for the restaurant. “A lot of the spaces we saw had either been completely renovated — everything brand-new, no character, no history — or they had been completely ignored for years and there was just too much to get done,” recalls Superfine-Rivera.

And then they hit the jackpot. The owner of a general store that had been abandoned for nearly half a century agreed to bankroll structural upgrades while maintaining the interior’s aesthetics. “Everything was original — the tiles on the wall, the old icebox in the back corner that, when we opened its doors for the first time, was still chilly. We got so lucky,” notes Superfine-Rivera. “It’s been sitting untouched for 45 years.”

Those beautiful patterned wall tiles are now in full view this sunny May afternoon, their worn-away layers of paint revealing white, navy and bronze tones. That handsome icebox, repositioned smack-dab in the middle of the dining room, now serves as Marconi’s walk-in wine cellar and a bona fide conversation piece. As Brunet-Benkritly and Superfine-Rivera chat in a corner banquette, the staff in the open kitchen prepare salmon, fiddlehead ferns and other provisions that Brunet-Benkritly carried in, mere minutes earlier, from a local farmers’ market. Amid the low-key bustle, Ivy, the couple’s dog, is content to pass out on the hardwood floors.

In keeping with their preference for places with a sense of history, the eatery’s name honours the past of Mile-Ex, a part of town once known as Marconi-Alexandra. “It comes from the inventor of the radio,” Superfine-Rivera explains. After his experiments with transatlantic radio-wave transmissions brought him to Newfoundland, Guglielmo Marconi wound up in Montreal. “He had a factory in Mile-Ex,” she says. “He brought a lot of employment to the area, so the neighbourhood is named after him. The factory no longer exists, but it wasn’t far from here. And voilà, Marconi.”

Before his stint in New York, Brunet-Benkritly worked at Au Pied du Cochon — one of Montreal’s many special-occasion restaurants legendary for, as he describes it, “all foie gras and butter” menus. For Marconi, he wanted something different. “[The neighbourhood] is popular and already a destination, but that’s not the motivation,” he says. Adds Superfine-Rivera, “We want people to come in for a snack and a drink, with their whole family and have a full dinner. We just want everyone to be able to do what they want.”

So far, customers are wanting popular plates like dashi-marinated Gaspesian arctic char accented with fish roe and surprising bites of crunchy puffed rice; mushrooms sautéed with chicken stock and brown butter, then topped with a poached egg; a toast dish that showcases whelks, bone marrow, aged cheddar and flat parsley atop thick slices of crispy bread; and ricotta gnocchi, cooked with amontillado sherry and tossed with morels, blanketed in shaved pecorino that melts to create the dish’s own splendid sauce. Marconi’s menu expertly balances seasonal fare with reliable standbys. One of their best and most crowd-pleasing items, in fact, is a simple snack-sized portion of cod fritters served with a tangy aïoli.“

It’s important to us that this be a place that people will always want to come back to,” Superfine-Rivera reiterates. Funny enough, that credo doesn’t strictly apply to patrons, considering the couple moved into the upstairs apartment last summer. “When we opened, there was a month when we came in here every day,” Superfine-Rivera admits with a laugh. “Even on days the restaurant is closed, we’d wake up and just roll downstairs to make some coffee. [Now] we’ve forced ourselves to create a little separation and have days where we do not come into the restaurant at all.

“It’s good though, because it’s made us venture out and discover other parts of the neighbourhood. We’re already thinking about where our next neighbourhood spot might be.”

 

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By Rose Maura Lorre – *This article originally appeared in INSIGHT: The Art of Living | Fall 2017

View Real Estate listings in Montréal| Photos: Jake Kivanc, Claudine Sauvé, Rick O’Brien