CABANE À SUCRE AU PIED DE COCHON - 2013

Having visited Cabane À Sucre Au Pied de Cochon a half-dozen times and written about it almost as many, we're no strangers to chef Martin Picard's maple-drenched circus in St Benoit de Mirabel. We've witnessed and enjoyed multiple incarnations of the menu. We've sat, just the two of us at the bar, and considered getting a hotel so we didn't have to endure the drive home under the spell of food induced lethargy. We've shouted across a table of 14 friends and family members for someone to quit hogging the tourtière and we've experienced the meal with just about every other amount of people in between. We've come not only to look forward to maple season each year, but we've somehow been perennially bestowed the daunting expectation of obtaining the reservation for our group - thanks guys. With each visit we've acquired a little more knowledge concerning the ins-and-outs of the journey. We've learned to negotiate the nuances of the chaotic parking lot, to pace ourselves throughout the marathon of a meal and to always request a table during second service so we don't have eager diners stepping on our heels. We've become desensitized to the portions, the excess, and to peoples dumbfounded reactions on their first visit. We've been made the bad guy when there simply wasn't enough room for all the people that had expected to join us.

RIB 'N REEF X TORRES WINE TASTING

Last week we were contacted via email by Mr. Peter Katsoudas, owner of one of Montreal's premiere steakhouses, the Rib 'N Reef. The nature of his email was to extend a generous invitation, requesting that we join him in the restaurant's wine cellar and private dining room for a special event where two renowned veterans in the food and beverage industry would be collaborating to produce what was sure to be a lavish evening. On this night the Rib 'N Reef, offering some of the city's highest quality steak and seafood for over 50 years would be executing a 6 course menu to compliment a selection of wines from the Torres family, operating vineyards, estates and wineries since 1870.

HOTEL HERMAN

Hotel Herman opened in the summer of 2012 in the same space that was previously home to La Montée de Lait. In the increasingly restaurant-friendly neighborhood that surrounds the corner of Fairmount and St Laurent, Hotel Herman joins other popular spots like Lawrence, Fabergé & Cafe Sardine, breaking up a seemingly endless stream of expensive furniture stores and contributing to a burgeoning food scene on the border where the Plateau meets Mile End.

LOLA

Lola Bistro is chef Michael Symon's flagship restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. Situated on a popular pedestrian-only street surrounded by bars and retail boutiques, the restaurant sits within 15 minutes walking distance of two of the city's biggest attractions, Progressive Field where the Cleveland Indians play baseball and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Having been named "Best New Chef" by Food & Wine magazine in 1999 and "Best Chef - Great Lakes Region" by the James Beard Foundation in 2009, chef Symon has parlayed his talent and notariety into a culinary empire that includes regular appearances on the Food Network both in capacity of judge and as an Iron Chef, a handful of restaurants, and a couple of cookbooks including his latest release, Carnivore.

MAISON PUBLIQUE

You've heard all the hype and read all the articles about Maison Publique, chef Derek Dammann's new neighborhood restaurant with high-profile investor, celebrity-chef Jamie Oliver behind the scenes. But it's precisely that relationship with chef Dammann's former boss when he held position as chef de cuisine at Oliver's London restaurant, Fifteen that unfortunately continues to usurp the lion's share of attention away from Dammann who is 100% responsible for concept, menu, and operation. We've long since been fans of chef Dammann's cusine at his previous (now defunct) restaurant, DNA. But there was always a palpable amount of disconnect between the flashy old Montreal dining room full of glass walls, modern furniture and all-together odd, bordering on extraterrestrial (though surely expensive) light fixtures versus the down-to-earth, delicious food that came out of a kitchen that cut no corners. Can you name another restaurant, at least in Montreal, that brines their own capers, makes their own mustard, cures their own charcuterie and bakes their own bread - and does it well? The answer is likely, no. And if you can, please send us an email because we'd like to know what we're missing. This type of attention to detail is chef Dammann's fundamental approach to cooking and that's what deserves the attention and credit. It's that passion that will be the focus of this post; not Mr. Oliver, as good a bloke as he may or may not be.

BEST OF 2012

This past year Montreal's food scene has seen it's share of triumphs and controversies with openings that went from heavily anticipated to much debated. We've seen a community band together and make leaps and bounds in the direction of hopefully ending an outdated moratorium on street food, and an increase in international recognition from filmed and printed food media. We've witnessed hard working restauranteurs, cooks, chefs and staff see their congratulations marginalized as they were caught in the crossfire of a heated dialogue that stirred up over the validity of a list aggregated by a certain national food writer with a suspicious personal agenda to omit some of our provinces biggest culinary ambassadors. As a city, we partook in our first official restaurant week and saw Montreal rise to become the true culinary destination native Montrealers always knew it has been. Perhaps most notably though, the magnificent bounty of our beautiful province has never before seen such a well deserved position in the pantries and minds of some of the worlds best chefs; to which much credit is due to an innovative homegrown distribution company Quebecers have a lot of reason to be proud of: Societe Orignal. 

PARK

Since it's opening this year, praise has been extraordinarily high for chef Antonio Park's new restaurant - Park. The way people talk about it, you'd think he's reinvented the wheel. On the heels of the notorious Au Pied de Cochon and Joe Beef omissions from Maclean's 50 Best Restaurants in Canada list we've heard people go as far as to boldly express disapproval over Park's omission from enRoute's coveted Canada's Best New Restaurants 2012 list. Recently, Park was named "Most Awe-Inspiring" in the Montreal Gazette's Top Restaurants of 2012 by fine dining critic Lesley Chesterman and chef Antonio Park was the second place winner in the Montreal leg of the annual, country-wide Gold Medal Plates cooking competition, which raises money for our national olympic team. We've read chef Park's Twitter feed as he shares positive feedback from fellow chefs, food writers, bloggers and celebrities who've endorsed his food, telling their legions of friends and followers that no trip to Montreal is complete without a visit to this little restaurant and sushi counter on Victoria just south of Sherbrooke. The hype machine appeared to be in full effect.