Page 47 - Sharp September 2023

A MATTER OF TASTE
CHEF LAURENT DAGENAIS SERVES UP A GASTRONOMIC GUIDE TO HIS HOMETOWN, MONTREAL
By Marc Basque
L AURENT DAGENAIS’S NEW COOKBOOK IS CALLED ALWAYS
Hungry — and you might be, too, if you ate as well as he does. Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Dagenais was immersed in the world of fine dining from a very young age. His father studied cooking in France when Dagenais was growing up, so he visited the country almost every year, a budding gourmand rubbing elbows with the bon vivant.
When asked about his formative food experiences, Dagenais always comes back to one memory: he’s 12-years-old, eating with his father and brother at a restaurant near Pont d’Avignon in southern France. The dish? Cassoulet de lapin, cooked with mustard, in a pot with french fries. The entire sensory experience — the presentation, the smell, and the taste alongside the elegant French cart service and the incredible view of the bridge — lit up his brain and remains seared into his memory.
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SEPTEMBER 2023 • GUIDE 47
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“It might be out-of-date to say, but a well-made French classic is hard to beat,” says Dagenais. “And I love the whole French manner of serving, with tableside service and all the old traditions and etiquette. It’s very close to my heart.”
An up-and-coming star in the Canadian culinary world, Dagenais became a social media sensation during the early days of the pandemic thanks to his fast-paced and visually dynamic videos on TikTok. In fact, one of his first viral TikToks was inspired by this earlier childhood memory — and saw him cooking a dish called Lapin à la moutarde.
“We filmed it at a cottage in the woods where there was this beautiful wood oven,” he says. “It was two whole radishes, mustard, and some wild mushrooms that we picked in the forest just before.” The scene is illustrative of why Laurent’s videos have been so popular; the settings are ever-changing and always gorgeous, whether rustic cottages or rooftops in Paris, and he invites you along for the entire prep and cooking process (sometimes even the harvest), condensing the whole experience into highly digestible bites.
Dagenais says that his main objectives as a chef are to share what he has learned in the kitchen and to incentivize others to cook more for themselves. With almost two million followers on Instagram alone, he’s accomplishing just that. And the new cookbook, which is called Toujours Faim in French, looks set to inspire even more ravenous fans. But where does Chef Dagenais eat when he’s not jet-setting around the globe? Here, we ask for his top hometown recommendations; the best mouth-watering, must-visit spots in Montreal.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RENAUD ROBERT AND WILLIAM LANGLAIS