The Mon Lapin Cookbook: De Toute Beauté: From Montreal, With Love

This is restaurant cooking with real presence: confidently urban Québécois, alert to the wider world, and full of the smart, passionate ideas professionals look for. It comes from Mon Lapin, a hip and popular Montreal spot, and collects more than 100 of its recipes. 

The worldliness is an earthy one. A shallot strudel arrives with onion jus. Snow crab lands on bone marrow toast. Buttermilk biscuits come loaded with blitzed radish tops and, if you’re so inclined, schmaltz. A raw lamb salad turns out to be 60 percent greens, sharpened with Dijon and anchovies.

Behind the cooking is a talented team with roots in two of the city’s standout establishments of an earlier generation, Au Pied de Cochon and Joe Beef. Chef Marc-Olivier Frappier ran the Joe Beef restaurants for a decade. Chef Jessica Noel staged at Bocuse and went on to become sous chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Then there’s the wine. Each chapter is paired with an essay on matching wine and food, covering the appeal of volcanic-soil wines for certain dishes and a fondness for the Jura. Dessert wines get the warmest celebration of all. The team loves them so much that diners at Mon Lapin are often tempted with several samples.

Jazzy, exciting, and full of ideas.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.