The place has been open only a few weeks and already, there are lineups out the door for a weekend lunch — despite the fact it’s rather snowy and brisk. Even the optimistic Anthony Gentile, the mastermind behind Café Gentile West Island on Sources Blvd., is taken aback by the crowd.

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This is Gentile’s fourth, most elaborate and largest restaurant, but this is the operation he has been looking forward to since coming into the business.

“This has been my dream for years,” Gentile says in his much quieter downstairs office at the resto. “We’ve done well at our city restaurants, the original Café Gentile on Chabanel and the Café Gentile and Gentile Pizza Parlour on Ste-Catherine St., but I’m a West Islander and my goal has always been to open up a place where I live, where my family and friends live. My dream has been realized.

“City people may not yet be aware, but the West Island has a lot to offer on the food front and city restaurateurs have taken notice and have been quick to set up operations here. West Island residents couldn’t be happier both with the food choices available and the fact they no longer have to drive downtown and look for parking that is always hard to find. That stress is gone.”

David McMillan, the fabled chef/co-founder/former co-owner of the Joe Beef group, couldn’t agree more. McMillan and equally fabled chef Derek Dammann (Maison Publique, McKiernan, Le 9e) just opened their Grille-Nature dining space — formerly Jukebox Burgers — in Marché de l’Ouest, and it is already a hit. Both McMillan and Dammann are also West Islanders and had long sought a commercial return home.

“It’s been absolutely nuts,” McMillan says. “I’ve never experienced a warm welcome like this. They’ve made me feel like I drove a water truck into the desert. Customers have........

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