Restaurant in Plateau Mont-Royal, Montreal

Au Pied de Cochon

The Whole Pig and Then Some

4 of 5

Martin Picard opened Au Pied de Cochon on Duluth in November 2001, and the place still cooks as though a Quebec winter is coming for every one of us. It takes the French peasant idea that every part of the pig can be cooked and follows it all the way to the end. The foie gras gets its own section of the menu.

Start with the offal. Andouillette, calf sweetbreads, the dishes that separate eaters from diners. Then go to the foie gras page, because you did not come here to be sensible. The kitchen is not a one trick show, though. Trout from the lakes of La Mauricie with wild mushrooms has real restraint, and the scallop quenelle with chicken sauce and mussels is the kind of dish a cook makes only when he respects his ingredients. Finish with pouding chômeur, the poor man's pudding, which tastes like Quebec's grandmothers won an argument. The open kitchen roars all night, and the cooks work it like a ship's crew in heavy weather.

I make a hobby of eating things I cannot pronounce. This menu I can pronounce, and I still barely survive it. Reserve, show up hungry and wear trousers with forgiveness built in. Picard also runs a sugar shack out in Mirabel for the truly committed, which tells you everything about the man's sense of proportion.

Order this

Andouillette or calf sweetbreads, Anything from the foie gras section, Mauricie trout with wild mushrooms, Pouding chômeur

The damage

$$$

Go

Wednesday or Thursday at five, booked well ahead, having skipped lunch

Find it

536 Avenue Duluth E, Montréal, QC H2L 1A9

Website

aupieddecochon.ca