Welcome to Biscuit Notes

Biscuit Notes will start publishing reviews in July 2025.

I’ve been keeping restaurant notes for years. Scribbled on receipts, typed into my Notes app between courses, sometimes just a few words to trigger a memory: “asparagus/white wine!!” or “that duck confit with apricot”

Growing up in Europe, in a family where recipes passed through generations like heirlooms, I thought I understood food. But Montreal cracked open my palate in ways I never expected. This city, with its mix of old-world technique and new-world audacity, its stubborn bistros and restless innovators, taught me that tradition and evolution could share the same plate.

Recently, I noticed something about my notes. The ones that mattered weren’t from first visits. They were from the third time, the fifth time, when a restaurant had become part of my rhythm.

The name came to me while thinking about biscotti—those Italian cookies that go into the oven twice. The first baking creates something fine. But it’s that second pass through the heat that transforms them into what they’re meant to be: deeper, more complex, built to last. That’s what happens when you return to a restaurant. The second visit reveals what the first only hinted at.

We all know this intuitively. Nobody decides their favorite restaurant after one meal. We fall in love through repetition, through bringing different friends, through trusting a kitchen with our celebrations and our ordinary Tuesdays alike. Yet most restaurant writing pretends otherwise, offering definitive judgments based on single encounters.

So Biscuit Notes is my attempt at something different. These are notes on restaurants worth the second baking. Every review requires at least two visits, at least six months apart. I remain anonymous and pay my own way. And since I’m only writing about places that deserve your time, there’s no need for negativity. Like leaving crumbs to find your way back, these notes mark the places worth returning to.

This six-month gap matters. First impressions can deceive. Opening week energy fades. Chefs leave. Menus evolve. But a restaurant that maintains its standards over time, or better yet improves? That’s worth documenting. That’s worth your Saturday night.

The approach naturally filters for what matters. You discover which dishes become signatures, which servers remember your preferences, how a kitchen handles both December’s chaos and February’s quiet. You see evolution—how sauces deepen and become more refined, how plating grows more confident, how teams find their rhythm.

Think of these as notes from a friend who’s already been back. Who knows not just what to order, but when the light hits the dining room just right, which server gives the best wine advice, why Tuesday’s menu often surprises more than Saturday’s. The kind of knowledge that only comes from being a regular.

In a world of hot takes, countless Instagram stories, and opening week coverage, I choose the slow path. Because good restaurants deserve recognition, great ones deserve advocacy, and you deserve reviews from someone who’s been there more than once.

Welcome to Biscuit Notes, where the highest compliment is returning. Where six months means something. Where every review is a small promise: this place is worth going back.

We’re starting in Montreal, a city where restaurants earn loyalty through long winters and construction seasons, where your favorite spot becomes part of your story. A city that rewards those who look past the hype to find the places worth returning to, season after season.

Because I already have. At least twice.