Tanière3 named Restaurant of the Year in Quebec

This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook

The Laurels of Gastronomy honored 17 winners during the grand gala last Monday, including the Tanière restaurant from Quebec.3which was named Restaurant of the Year. Some of them present their vision of an industry on the rise.

“We don't work for the awards, but it's a good feeling to be recognized by the industry, especially since the media's attention is usually focused on Montreal,” admits François-Emmanuel Nicol, chef of Tanière3, who accepted the Restaurant of the Year award during the ceremony on the New City Gas stage. “Things are happening everywhere in Quebec!” he exclaims.

For him, Quebec gastronomy is rooted in the terroir and highlights agricultural and wild flavours. “Tanière3 is almost 100% local and for us the luxury is finding a small plant that nobody knows about,” he explains. According to him, there are about a hundred of them in the province, “like the fragrant chamomile that grows in the cracks in the sidewalk and tastes of pineapple and chamomile.” For him, the secret of success lies in forging your own identity rather than doing what is already being done elsewhere.

Fisun Ercan of Bika Ferme & Cuisine in Montérégie, who has just been named Chef of the Year by the Lauriers after being a finalist for four years, is also committed to Quebec products. “I make locavore cuisine inspired by Turkish cuisine, which is a real mosaic between my origins and my roots here,” she says. Rather than paying attention to a recipe or a nationality, she prefers to invent based on what surrounds her. “Since I feed the public, I feel responsible for nature and the environment,” says the 55-year-old chef, who does kitchen duty every day without exception. By keeping only the essentials in her dishes, Fisun Ercan is a player in Quebec gastronomy, which is becoming more and more diverse. “Everyone is taking a step forward and it's happening very quickly. The future has nothing to fear,” she says, full of hope despite the challenges and difficulties of the environment.

My rabbit wins again

“We are privileged to be in an environment where everything is still possible,” says Vanya Filipovic of the Mon Lapin restaurant in Montreal, who received the Sommelier of the Year award. This is the third trophy this year for the restaurant, which was recently named Canada's best restaurant and where Vanya Filipovic and her colleague and partner Alex Landry were named the country's best sommeliers in the Canada's 100 Best list. “In Quebec, there are no dusty traditions or old boxes in which we have to exist. It's really an opportunity,” she stresses.

According to Vanya Filipovic, the industry is so interesting precisely because it is new. “SAQ and UPA, for example, are a hundred years old, but they are still very young. It's great to see all these movements, all these different generations contributing and making gastronomy in Quebec boom,” notes the woman who would not want to practice her profession anywhere else. And she continues enthusiastically: “At a time when consumers are increasingly connected to what they eat, Quebec is an incredible place thanks to the riches of its land and its farmers.”

The daughter of restaurant owners is therefore thriving in an environment that allows her to continue working as a sommelier with pride and humility, offering a unique vision. “Mon Lapin is our point of view, the wines we like, our own way of doing things,” says Vanya Filipovic. In his establishment, the menu is indeed designed with vintages that the team simply believes in. “We now have wines that you can open, drink and share and that people like. No inventory of all our references in the cellar…” For her, the Quebec winemakers are indeed an integral part of the equation. “They too are at the very beginning of their adventure with us,” she says.

Love always

For her part, Élise Tastet, winner of the Outreach of Culinary Culture award thanks to her website Tastet and the app launched a few days ago, notes the development of a very creative industry in Quebec, “which achieves a lot with very little” and which is increasingly multicultural. “Through immigration, people from everywhere bring with them the richness of their gastronomy,” she notes.

In this way, she is convinced, Quebec has found its place on the international stage. Roxan Bourdelais, catering director at Tanière3, rejects the preconceived notion of an elitist and staid Quebec gastronomy. “It's more a synonym for amalgam because we eat it, but it also contains a piece of tradition, culture and a piece of humanity,” he says. For him, the contents of a plate are just the vehicle.

Finally, Élise Tastet describes a generous gastronomy, “a bon vivant with a hospitality that is unique to Quebec and very precious”. The proof, if any, is Janette Bertrand, awarded the Laurier Hommage 2024 by Christian Bégin. And this in particular because, with her book, she freed women from their kitchens Janette's recipeswas published in 1968 and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. “Cooking is love,” Janette Bertrand said several times on stage. And no one contradicted her.

Laurel list 2024

This content was created by the Special Publications Team of Dutyin connection with marketing. Writing the Duty did not participate.

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