Les Jardins Sauvages, Saint-Roch de L’Achigan, Quebec

One of the neatest restaurants in Quebec, Les Jardins Sauvages, is owned and operated by Chef Nancy Hinton and forager/farmer François Brouillard. Aside from being a country eatery, they create and sell a line of products derived from wild plants and mushrooms at a farmer’s market stall at Marché Jean Talon in Montreal.

One of the 2010 winners of the University of Guelph Innovation Award, Chef Nancy Hinton hails from Newfoundland and trained under the tutelage of Quebec’s star Chef Anne Desjardins.  She writes: I first set foot into his ‘table champêtre’ in ’93 as a guest chef, when it was a casual meeting place for friends, foodies and chefs, a laboratory of sorts. For the following years, I would take my autumn vacation time to stage our wild mushroom event, which has since become a wild success. At the end of 2005, I took the reins of his kitchen, readily realizing that there was no better place to cook. Low key, but real, with quality at my fingertips. This was slow food, terroir, locavore and ecolo - before and beyond all the buzz words. I was embracing the philosophy, while for François, it was just the way you did things. As a team, we now showcase these local and unique ingredients in tasting menus on the weekends. The menu changes weekly and is a set prix fixe, five to seven courses, bring your own wine.”

Taught by his grandmother, Brouillard has been picking weeds as long as he has been walking and talking. He began selling them using the slightly more attractive term “wild edibles”, as a sideline for his organic farming business. When Normand Laprise of Toqué discovered him at the market in the early 90’s, he encouraged François to focus on the wild stuff and collaborate with chefs. With the help of Normand, Anne Desjardins of L’Eau à la Bouche and Daniel Vézina of Laurie Raphael, the pioneers of Quebec Regional cuisine as we know it, he was the first to put wild edibles from fiddleheads to spruce tips to milkweed pods onto the market and menus of Montreal’s top restaurants. He has now been in business for 25 years.

 

Food Day Canada (from 2011)

Foie gras torchon with wild mushroom salt,

elderberry jelly, homemade duck sausage and duck proscuito with day lily and nasturtium

~

Fava bean soup with stinging nettle

and smoked venison, lovage and bee balm

~

Lobster and Nordic shrimp with chickpeas

and lobster mushrooms on a cattail pollen

dosa with sea asparagus and

sumac crème fraiche, cattail spear

~

Roasted baby lamb and rabbit confit

(from L’Agno et le Lapin in Ste-Julienne),

sea parsley-garlic mustard gremolata,

crinkleroot smashed new potatoes,

sea peas and sea spinach

~

Option : Québec cheese plate

Selections from La Suisse Normande

(100g for two; 7.50$ supplement per person)

~

Fresh goat quark and  sweet-clover cake with wild blueberries, saskatoons and sweetgrass,

wild ginger caramel, wild flower granité

(rosehip petals, elderflower & milkweed flower)

~

Tea, coffee

Wild leaf tisane, 3$ supplement

~

Bring your own wine

75.00$, taxes included, service extra

~

Your host and forager :

François Brouillard

Your chef : Nancy Hinton

~~~~~~~~

Menu

*Canada Food day*

23 au 31 Juillet, 2011

~

Foie gras torchon au sel de champignons,

gelée de sureau, saucisse maison et proscuito de canard, hémérocalle et capucine

~

Soupe aux gourganes avec cerf fumé et ortie, livèche et monarde

~

Homard et crevettes nordiques avec pois chiches et champignons Lobster, dosa à la farine de quenouille, crème fraîche au sumac,

épis de quenouille

~

Agneau rôti et Lapin confit

(L’Agno et le Lapin de Ste-Julienne),

gremolata d’alliaire et persil de mer,

grelots écrasés au carcajou, arroche de mer

~

Option : Assiette de fromages Québécois,

chutney et pain maison (100g pour deux personnes, supplément de 7.50$ par personne)

~

Gâteau de fromage de chèvre frais et fleurs de mélilot avec bleuets, amélanches et foin d’odeur, caramel au gingembre sauvage, granité aux fleurs sauvages (églantier, asclépiade et sureau)

~

Thé, café

Tisane maison (supplément de 3$)

~

Apportez votre vin

75.00$ taxes incluses, service en sus

~~

Votre hôte et spécialiste de plantes sauvages: François Brouillard

Votre chef : Nancy Hinton

 

 

Les Jardins Sauvages is one of about 300 restaurants that celebrate Food Day across Canada. Contact them at the number below to reserve a table.

Les Jardins Sauvages est l’un des 300 restaurants à travers tout le Canada qui participent au Journée des terroirs . Contactez Les Jardins Sauvages directement, au numéro ci-dessous, afin de faire votre réservation.

17 Chemin Martin,
Saint-Roch de L’Achigan,
Quebec H4A 2G8
T: 450 588 5125

http://www.jardinssauvages.com