LOCAL
FL AVOR
CREATING INNOVATIVE CUISINE by EMBRACING OUR ROOTS
The latest global food trends are farm-to-table and nose-to-tail, both of which make
perfect sense in Montréal—our chefs have
been preparing food from ingredients grown
and raised on local soil, with an eye towards
tradition and imagination, for as long as
there have been restaurants. “Locavore” is
a new word for an old idea that cooks and
eaters here have been riffing on for decades.
Professional chefs and dedicated home
cooks have known that our terroir is worth
sharing: Home cooks in Montréal have been
filling pots with the local bounty bought at
Jean-Talon and Atwater Markets, and eating
out at restaurants that celebrate our sense
of place, frequently and enthusiastically,
for decades and even centuries.
So what makes it so great to eat here,
right now? As the “local” trend goes global,
it enhances our connection to our roots and
heightens our sense of culinary identity while
putting us on the world map. What makes
the city unique in terms of gastronomy and
so many other things is that everything and
nothing is new here.
This worldliness goes both ways: Our
favorite chefs, like Normand Laprise of
Toqué!, Martin Picard of Au Pied de Cochon,
Cooking Channel superstar Chuck Hughes
of Garde Manger and Le Bremner, and the
Joe Beef guys Dave McMillan and Fred
Morin, are now known internationally. It also
