We Came, We Saw, We Crossed the Line
There is a restaurant in Montreal, Quebec that has earned a reputation for itself. It needs no sign to draw people in, and the food it serves has stunned and inspired a generation of chefs by breaking all the rules of discretion, embracing extreme culinary excess, and creating a menu full of unique signature dishes that amount to a veritable orgy of pork, game, seafood, and foie gras. The name of this restaurant is Au Pied de Cochon.
Au Pied de Cochon itself is like a cross-section into the brain of the rugged, enormously generous, slightly eccentric chef: Martin Picard. The food he and his staff heartily serve here represents the food that they love; the people of Montreal and far beyond love it, too.
Chef Martin Picard is a hunter, and in the spirit of hunting, he also enjoys preparing and serving the entirety of the bounty. Here, there is a thrill to be had for the adventurous eater as well as for the hunter in the consumption of unique delicacies that sometimes include pickled venison tongue, venison tartare, and duck-in-a-can.
This restaurant prides itself on using ingredients that are localsuch as maple syrup and maple sugar, which are used in many of the desserts. One application is spun into Maple Cotton Candy, which is a fun way to highlight this indigenous ingredient. They also serve great local cheeses, beers, breads, and produce. Early during our meal here, we saw the delicious, crusty, warm-from-the-oven sourdough bread being delivered from the neighborhood bakery.
Serving foie gras is another passion of Au Pied de Cochon. Our menu included one of the restaurant’s many signature foie gras dishes–the Foie Gras Tart. The base of the tart is a tea-saucer sized circle of buttery, flaky dough, crisped on the bottom from the heat of the wood burning oven. This tender tart dough is then adorned with cheesy mashed potatoes and slices of salted foie gras which gently melt onto the warm tart lending its smooth, silky and rich texture, with a slightly bitter tinge of iron. This triple-stack of richness is tastily tempered by a thick, sweet, and tart balsamic glaze and a few tender greens.
The chef combines his love for liver with a passion for re-interpreting traditional Quebecois recipes in the famous “foie gras poutine.” This dish is a dressed-up adaptation of the greasy roadside Quebec dish called “poutine” which consists of french fries covered with melted cheese curds and gravy. The french fries at Au Pied de Cochon are fresh cut and fried in flavorful duck fat, served with fresh local cheese curds, seared foie gras, and a gravy of pureed foie gras, egg yolks, and heavy cream.
On a lighter note, Au Pied de Cochon shepherds in some of Canada’s best seafood from the Maritimes; serving an array of clams, oysters, shrimp, urchins, lobster, and crab as well as other ocean-bound edibles which are arranged to create the grandest all the spectacles here in the form of multi-story seafood towers.
Pork, of course, is a major player here at the restaurant where pig (cochon) is included in the name. More specifically, Au Pied de Cochon means “pig’s trotter” which is exactly what we ate for our main course. They prepare this particular trotter by braising, deboning, and stuffing it with more pork! It is then breaded and sauteed crispy, served with the cheese-curd mashed potatoes, smothered in foie gras sauce, and topped with seared foie gras.
This enormous appendage arrives at the table not to be ignored. It has a dominating presence which will bring any conversation to a dead stop, causing jaws to drop and hang agape at this obviously animal cut of meat sits, steaming–daring someone to dig in.
The experience of consuming this tasty trotter is decadent to say the least. The mustardy breading adorns this tender, fatty, sticky pork foot which itself envelopes hearty chunks of braised pork meat which are napped with rich, brown, gelatinous pork stock. Its crown of foie gras launches this dish way over the line of culinary restraint, sending it hurdling into a realm of richness that borders on absurdity.
It is for this reason that chefs and daring diners worldwide are buzzing about this restaurant and why I already want to return. It takes a while for the initial shock of a meal here to wear off, both for the brain and the coronary system, but having had time to digest this experience, I realized that this is an incredible restaurant that sets its own boundaries and the food is truly delicious.
Foregoing convention, Au Pied de Cochon is an unpretentious restaurant that has created a culture all its own; where culinary excess is the norm, and where enormous generosity is usually served with a great hunk of steaming foie gras!