When Antonyme opened on Rue Principale in Aylmer, its owners, Spencer St-Jean and Marc-André Camaraire, were relatively new talents in the National Capital Region’s restaurant scene — just 27 and 26 years old at the time. Ten years later, both are raising young families while running the same neighbourhood restaurant they launched a decade ago — no small feat at any time, but certainly a more challenging one when you consider that a few of those were COVID years. The neighbourhood aspect of their business is one they credit with their survival.

“[The locals have] been supporting us for 10 years,” Camaraire says. “They were there for the whole time through COVID. They’re the best. I don’t think we would have survived without them.”

Camaraire says they make a special effort to please their loyal customers.

“We always give them little surprises,” he adds, noting that some even drop by the kitchen. “There’s one lady we call Meringue Lady because she loves meringue. For the first couple of years, we had meringue on the menu, but now, if we see her in the reservations, we make some just for her. Some people have their favourite tables. There’s one family that comes every three weeks, and they always stop by to say hi in the kitchen. They’re super easy to care for.”

Asked to make a dish that represents himself on a plate, Camaraire makes two because he can’t pick just one. With a wildly creative menu that features multiple ingredients in every dish, it’s not really a surprise. He settles on the pan-fried Spanish mackerel with masala buttermilk sauce, fermented daikon, smoked tempeh, curry oil, grapefruit, trout roe and furikake — which sells for a very reasonable $25. His second dish is sautéed beets with beet-caramel purée, a house-made beet-caramel tile (or cracker), deep-fried Brussels sprouts, a velvety hazelnut-maple purée, apple cider gel and green apples cooked sous vide with hibiscus, priced at $23. Either one would make a reasonable main course for one person.

“These two are my two favourite dishes on the menu,” Camaraire says.

He says the continually changing menu is a challenge, but it’s a group effort.

“We bring in all the staff,” he says. “We’re always thinking ahead. My staff gives me ideas and sometimes they’re perfect, and sometimes, I’ll add my touch. There’s so much variety in food and when you travel the world, every region has its own touch for the same recipe.”

“And one of the plates on our new menu was a plate that was really popular on our discovery menu,” St-Jean says, adding that the discovery menu, which sells for $95 per person, is five surprise courses that aren’t on the menu.

Camaraire’s favourite plates from the ever-changing menu include the pan-fried Spanish mackerel with masala buttermilk sauce, fermented daikon, smoked tempeh, curry oil, grapefruit, trout roe and furikake, top left, and the sautéed beets with beetcaramel purée, a house-made beet-caramel tile (or cracker), deep-fried Brussels sprouts, a velvety hazelnut-maple purée, apple cider gel and green apples, bottom right.

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Foodphilosophy
The idea when they first opened was to make sharing plates for a family-style meal, but each plate is also a self-contained meal. The menu — written on a chalkboard in the main dining room and again in the smaller room beside the tiny upstairs kitchen — changes every two months, but its guiding principles stay the same.

“For example, the way we’ve built the menu is that we have four plates of meat, four fish and seafood and four vegetarian plates,” Camaraire says.

The prices are lower than their Ottawa equivalents, making it possible for families to come by, in true neighbourhood restaurant style. That said, the owners don’t offer a children’s menu and make sure those who are coming with kids know the menu is served as written, though they try to accommodate all allergies.

“My mind is always going,” Camaraire says. “My creativity comes faster with vegetables, fish and seafood. With vegetables, there are a million ways to cook them. The only thing that stops you is your mind. Every time I try something new, I try to learn from it. There’s always someone better than you. I travel a lot with my wife, especially to South America, and it’s so fun to see the culture through food. It’s also the best way to get to know people. And that all comes back to the concept of our restaurant.”

Antonyme owners Spencer St-Jean (R) and Marc-André Camaraire (L), credit their loyal local customers for supporting them through the years, including during the COVID pandemic.

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A long-time partnership
Camaraire and St-Jean met through St-Jean’s brother, Tyler, who was a front-of-house owner of Les Villains Garçons, a now-closed restaurant in Vieux-Hull where Camaraire was sous chef. St-Jean used to go by for a bite after work and “critique” the food. He was appreciated — and maybe a little hated — for his honesty. The business partners later met again when the Les Villains Garçons crew opened a seafood restaurant called Les Villains Pêcheurs in the space where Antonyme is now. St-Jean was working front of house and Camaraire was sous-chef. The two were friends and knew each other’s talents, so when the owners told them they were closing, they contemplated their futures together.

“We looked at each other and said, ‘Do we go out and find jobs working for someone else or do we try this ourselves?’” St-Jean says. “At 26 and 27, it wasn’t the easiest decision, but Marc knew how to run a kitchen and I knew front of house. I always found the kitchen the hardest to deal with, so I thought if I could find a business partner to take care of that, I could take care of the accounting and front of house.”

“He’s not one of those stuck-up chefs who won’t take anyone else’s opinion,” St-Jean says, adding that one of his servers has been working for them for 8.5 years. “It’s really a family kind of atmosphere. We show them that their opinions matter. Kitchen staff have stayed with us, too.”

Camaraire started his culinary career as a sandwich artist at Subway. Then one of his high school friends told him the restaurant he was working at in Chelsea was looking for a dishwasher and he decided to try that out. Soon, he was invited to the line as a cook.

“I was 18 years old and I fell in love with it,” he says, adding that the following year he went to culinary school. From school, he did a stage at The Wakefield Mill and then had a full-time job, eventually as sous-chef. About three years later, he became sous-chef at Les Villains Garçons and then joined the kitchen at Les Villains Pêcheurs.

Then came the opportunity to open Antonyme. Camaraire remembers they had about 12 days to come up with the money to buy the restaurant.

“They put in a good word for us with the landlord and they told [their former] customers to keep coming,” St-Jean says.

The name came from Camaraire’s partner and signifies doing the opposite of the conventional.

“We are doing high-end quality food with a very relaxed atmosphere,” St-Jean says.

Camaraire adds that they’re doing food that people wouldn’t make at home.

The wine list
“It’s all private imports we have on our wine list,” St-Jean says. “Since we’re creating plates for people to discover, we want them to discover the wines as well, so we try to find grape varieties that people aren’t familiar with or, maybe a grape like a Chardonnay, that people might not expect.”

The aforementioned discovery menu changes every three weeks. A full 10 years later, St-Jean says that formula has continued to work for them.

The partners’ approach to designing the discovery menu starts with selecting five new wines — vintages St-Jean has found and is excited about — and then developing dishes that complement them. It’s counterintuitive to how many diners expect restaurants to create a tasting menu, but it’s a novel way to sell the wine pairing that goes with the tasting menu.

“It is an easier way to sell the wine pairing,” St-Jean says. “But after 10 years, it also offers additional creativity. For the discovery menu, I always choose wines that are a little more out there. And for the regular wine list, we try to choose classics, but with a twist, and we try to bring in Quebec wines and Canadian wines.”

To go with the mackerel dish, the lads serve a Quebec-based wine from Pigeon Hill — the northern part of Lac Champlain, near the Vermont border.

“Canada makes great wines, you just have to know where to look because they’re not as popular as the French or Italian wines,” Camaraire says. “But we have several companies that [represent] great wineries in Quebec.”

“We have to know what our clientele is ready to go for, too,” St-Jean says.

For beer, they go very local, providing their neighbours’ beer from 5e Baron on tap. They’re much more committed to wine, but they’re also excited about the launch of the special 10th-anniversary beer they’ve produced in collaboration with 5e Baron. At this rate, it seems likely they’ll hit another milestone in 2035.

Antonyme
150 Principale St., Gatineau
restaurant-antonyme.ca | @restaurantantonyme