The entrance to Poincaré is easy to miss. It’s right next to the family-owned Vietnamese sandwich shop Hoang Oanh Sandwich on the east side of St-Laurent, just south of René-Levesque. But walk up that staircase and you’ll emerge into an eden of plants, gravity-pulled microbrews, meads and kombucha on tap to go with a menu of natural wines, non-alcoholic cocktails and Chef Jeremiah Bullied’s shareable menu.
Disclaimer: Jeremiah and I are friends. We once drove to a permaculture weekend in the Northeastern United States with a buddy, because we’re into pawpaws and Arctic kiwi and all that. And we’ve gone organic sour cherry picking with friends in Frelighsburg. He’s originally from Chatham, Ont. and his parents ran a commune and street kid school called Twin Valleys School. There’s an NFB documentary about it called Listen, Listen, Listen. Generally, we see eye-to-eye on zero-waste, eco-friendly, fermentation-related things in general.
Gluten free, dairy free.
Menu standouts of the former chef of Sparrow and La Sala Rosa include fried summer squash noodles (their fryer is 100% gluten free, so safe for Celiacs!) with a fermented radish dressing (gluten free, diary free, and the summer squash strands are coated in corn or rice flour) as well as his house-fermented pickles. He’s got a homemade ferment cupboard in the back of the kitchen (he let me snoop) with giant food-grade plastic containers filled with safely bubbling turnips, cabbage and half-sour dills. It made me feel very jealous.
Jeremiah’s a fermentation expert. He ran an eco-lodge’s kitchen in Costa Rica and has attended a workshop with the famous Sandor Katz. And I once took a fermentation workshop from him at La Centrale Culinaire. My pickles aren’t bad, but boy I wish they were as tasty as his. There’s something about the right temperature and the right size and thickness and keeping them completely submerged and probably just being a better ferment mama, papa or non-binary ferment parent that makes them that much better.
He’s also got a commercial pressure canner and pressure steamer back there in the kitchen, where his team stuffs things like shiitakes, chestnuts and shallots and Spanish octopus into aluminium tins for homemade canned dishes that’ll be available all winter long. When I peeked in, they had a seasonal succotash on the stove ready to be canned.
Have you heard of negative carbon beef? I hadn’t. One of the farms Jeremiah works with uses a way of grazing their cattle that stimulates pasture growth and diversity and eats up more C02 than the cows produce, apparently. I don’t fully understand the grazing system, but it’s an interesting certification.
Jeremiah and I also see eye to eye on ceviche, it turns out. Because his halibut special with crunchy, freshly fried taro chips was freshly marinated in just enough leche de tigre with just enough red chili pepper and gently pickled corn to make me happy.
But what made me happiest of all were the giant chicken drumsticks. No need for the mildly sweet, bright yellow Bombay mayo that comes with these behemoth drumsticks since the crispy, meaty pieces are any carnivore’s dream come true. I love that I can trust the sourcing of the meat because it’s Jeremiah doing the choosing, and I love that I can have gluten free chicken drumsticks. Not wings, drumsticks. Yours might not be this huge, because Jeremiah said they’d be getting smaller ones next week and that week’s order was an anomaly, but I loved how giant they were. Please keep accidentally getting giant ones. I don’t care if they’re less shareable. I would not share these…
Next, homemade duck breast prosciutto with a fruity, sweet-spiced (think cloves and Christmas) mostarda. Jeremiah ferments plums, pears and maybe peaches in a heavy syrup until they’re almost boozy and serves it with mustard greens for a perfectly bitter counterpoint.
Then there are the fermented fries. They’re getting a lot of buzz, because nowhere else in Montreal is brining them like sauerkraut and then cooking them in a Combi (Rational) oven until they’re not quite crispy, but no longer soggy and serving them with a fermented black garlic mayo. It’s a weird texture because they’re starchy, not crispy and sweet like triple-fried frîtes can be, but that’s not what Jeremiah’s going for.
There’s also a simple dish of fermented gai lan before, a bit of a shout-out to the restaurant’s location in Chinatown. There’s a sort of spicy chili pepper sauce on top and the greens stay plenty crunchy.
About the drinks on tap. I don’t drink beer because of the gluten (and only drink gluten free beer out of occasional desperation – I don’t care what you tell me, it’s not good beer), but there was a mead on tap, which tasted a whole lot like beer. I was actually half convinced it was beer and the server had messed up, except that server was wine and beer sommelier Hugo Jacques of Isle de Garde, who doesn’t mess up. He’s also wonderfully endearing and passionate about the new business he runs with Jeremiah, Francis Melançon (of Pit Caribou) and Sam Boivin Provost (of Dieu du Ciel).
But that mead. It was bone dry, not yeasty or honey-like at all. So much better than that mead you get in the brown clay-like bottle at the SAQ, which is all well and good, but has no place on an artisanal beer menu. This mead fits right in with the regularly changing list of funky microbrews.
And the best part is that by next spring, the rooftop greenhouse, terrasse and gravity-fed ferment and beer fridges should be operational. You can already see the beer lines coming down from above the bar.
Eco for the win.
Poincaré
(Note: The website seems like a repair service, e.g. “get quote,” but it’s not)
1071 St Laurent Blvd, 2nd floor
Montreal, QC
(438) 393-6682
Hours: Wed 11:30am-1am, Thurs-Fri 11:30am-3am, Sat 1pm-3am, Sun 1pm-1am.
Leave a Reply