If you’re an avid reader of Notable, you will have heard us mention Joe Beef in many of our ‘favourites’ postings. Naturally, it is only fair that we focus an entire article on this internationally acclaimed spot, famous for, well, obviously it’s meat, but more importantly for it’s commitment to the love of food and local French cuisine.
Whether you are inside, or out in their garden where Fred Morin, one of the owners, grows his own produce that they use in the dishes prepared at the restaurant, the experience is always “next level.” Whether it be their famous Lobster Spaghetti (which is so popular it is one of the dishes that hasn’t moved from their weekly changing chalkboard menu), their various takes on game meat, or their famous smoked ribs (smoked right in their own homemade smoker in the backyard), you will at all times be taken on a culinary adventure that will have you asking for more and more and more. (Try their superb Beer Cheese. Trust us!)
Coming up this October, Joe Beef will be coming out with their own cookbook, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef. Montreal’s Joe Beef is, simply, David Chang’s “favorite restaurant in the world” akin to “the male version of Prune” as he writes in the foreword to the book. In December, Bon Appetit called it “cheeky and rambunctious in atmosphere; dead serious about food.” The authors call it “a cross between a food temple and Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”
The Art of Living According to Joe Beef is the debut cookbook from one of the most popular restaurants in Canada, featuring inventive French cuisine, spirited anecdotes, and lush photography. The original “Joe Beef” was a notorious barkeep and union organizer who ruled the Montreal waterfront in the late 1800s. Today’s Joe Beef – along with its sister restaurant, Liverpool House – is as colourful and popular as its namesake. Earning rave reviews for their unforgettable, freestyle approach to classical French cooking, the authors push the limits of L’Art Culinaire Francais with over 125 recipes infused with irreverent personality and a cutting-edge approach. Featuring anecdotes on the relationship between gangsters and oysters, the Canadian railroad dining car tradition, and instructions for welding a backyard smoker, this nostalgic yet utterly modern cookbook is a groundbreaking guide to living an outstanding culinary life.
What’s the moral of this story? If you haven’t already done so, go eat at Joe Beef. And come mid-October when the book drops, buy it. 2491 Notre Dame West, 514-935-6504.