Cabaret l'Enfer, the Plateau

Black walls, waxed concrete, white-painted brick with two dark canvases on it, a long banquette, warm wood tables and tan leather chairs. Candlelight pools on a black counter that bounces all of it back at you. The menu arrives inside an envelope closed with a wax seal, which is a fun way to start a night.

The music is the thing to know before you book. Rock and skate punk, turned up, and clearly turned up on purpose. It's loud enough that I couldn't hear the dish descriptions, which at this price is a real part of the experience going missing. If that sounds like a good dinner you'll have a good time. If you were picturing candlelight and easy conversation, pick somewhere else.

No dress code worth worrying about. Smart casual covers it.

The name is an homage rather than a description. It borrows from the Cabaret de l'Enfer, the hell-themed room in Montmartre that ran from 1892 until around 1950, and the seven courses are loosely framed around the seven deadly sins. What you can actually taste is the fermentation program. There's a shelf of jars in view from the counter, labelled and dated by hand, one of them a rose starter from July marked to be racked on 22 September. That shelf is the clearest statement of intent in the room, and it's the part of the cooking I'd come back for.

Order the first drink before you open the menu.

I wasn't given a proper presentation of the cocktails, so I can't tell you how broad the list is or whether it rotates.

I could not hear the dish descriptions. I caught three names and lost the rest. What follows is what I can name and what I can see in my photos.

Cappellacci, nordic shrimp, lacto koji

Folded green pasta parcels in a shallow bowl, raw nordic shrimp laid over the top, a pale foam over that. The lacto koji is the fun part and this kitchen is good at that sort of thing.

Ora King salmon, "divorciado"

A block of salmon split down the middle by two sauces, bright green on one side, deep red-orange on the other, one small shellfish alongside. The name winks at huevos divorciados, two sauces that never meet. Best-looking plate of the night.

"Amy Winehouse," rhubarb, citron basilic

A white disc in a wide bowl with a portrait stencilled onto it in dark powder. The rhubarb and citron basilic were part of the same dessert. They do these music tributes, and there's a Leonard Cohen one too.

One pattern worth flagging. A golden disc alone in a bowl. A white disc with a stencil. Barigoule vegetables under a cougar stencil. Round, flat, centred, decorated on top. Three of the seven came out as a version of the same idea. Any one of them looks great; three in a row and I started to clock it. Plenty of people won't notice, but it took a bit of the surprise out of the sequence.

I paid $250 all in for the set menu, one cocktail, tax and tip. The person I was with took the wine pairing, which wasn't part of my total.

The portions were noticeably smaller than at other tasting menus I've tried, and all of us left hungry. A good tasting menu should send you out comfortably full. This one didn't. Line up somewhere to eat after.