Lucie

Dinner at Lucie starts with a decision, and it is not what to order — it is how much of the evening to hand over. The contemporary French dining room in Toronto's Financial District runs two menus at once: a detailed à la carte for diners who treat choosing as part of the pleasure, and a five-course Carte Blanche for those who would rather follow partner and executive chef Michael Angeloni through a seasonal sequence he composes himself. Both are full-service, unhurried, and built for a night that unfolds in courses rather than a quick plate before the next thing.

The cooking is contemporary French laid over Canadian ingredients, and the à la carte opens light before it deepens. The raw bar sets the tone — Scallop Crudo brightened with green apple, tarragon, and shallot, and lobster claws served plainly under Hollandaise. From there the entrées turn more composed: a venison carpaccio with juniper, Tête de Moine, and hazelnut vinaigrette; a beef tartare built up with anchovy, black truffle, potato, and egg yolk; a courgette tarte Tatin layered with tomato, eggplant caviar, Mimolette, and mint for the table that wants to take vegetables seriously. The menu keeps its French names — Risotto au Homard, Tartare de Bœuf, Filet de Canard — while the larder leans Canadian.

The mains hold a line between richness and restraint. Lobster Risotto folds escargot and Vadouvan butter through the rice; Brome Lake duck arrives with sunchoke purée, crispy parsnips, and cassis jus; a roasted trout stays bright under tomato butter, olives, and capers. The centrepiece is the Bison Wellington — tenderloin, mushroom duxelles, a spinach crêpe, and pomme purée — French pastry technique wrapped around a Canadian animal, and the plate most tables end up building the evening around. Cheese and dessert wait for anyone willing to see the meal all the way through.

The two formats are the clearest tell of what the kitchen is after. The à la carte rewards diners who want to steer their own progression; the Carte Blanche rewards those content to be led, moving through five seasonal courses in an order Angeloni sets. Between them, the same dining room can host a leisurely tasting at one table and a decisive à la carte dinner at the next. Season is not a slogan here — it is legible on the plate, in a Suprême de Volaille that pairs truffle and mushroom with whatever vegetables the month is giving. The kitchen is candid about its limits, too: dietary needs want forty-eight hours' notice for the tasting, and an allergen-free plate is never promised outright.

The personal note holds because the people behind it stay close to the food. Yannick Bigourdan and Adam Teolis are the partners, and Angeloni is a partner as much as a chef, so the story on the menu and the cooking on the plate come from the same hands. Lucie was Bigourdan's grandmother, and the restaurant treats her name less as decoration than as instruction — a belief that feeding people well is the whole point, and the standard it holds each night against. It is an unusually intimate premise for a fine-dining address wedged among bank towers and lunch-hour boardrooms.

Dinner runs Tuesday through Saturday, which makes Lucie both a planned occasion and an after-work table, depending on the night; a Carte Blanche reservation and a walk-up à la carte seat are equally correct answers. Reserve ahead for the tasting; the à la carte still welcomes a table decided late in the day. What ties them together is the cooking — Hollandaise, duxelles, and a proper risotto on one side, Brome Lake duck and Canadian bison on the other. It is a French restaurant that keeps answering to where it actually is.