Our good friends Dyan Solomon and Éric Girard own Olive + Gourmando, a perfect luncheonette on Saint Paul West in Montreal’s Old Port. Their little shop is what we expect the coffee shop in the afterlife to be like: they’re detail fanatics and it’s no contest the best place for lunch in the city. When they first opened, they were bakers, and the place was a bakery with a few seats. They still make bread, but mostly to use in delicious sandwiches. The front counter is displayed with brioches, croissants, brownies, and fruit pastries, and they’re all killer. We thought they were insane when they decided to open in Old Port a decade ago. It was a barren ghost town of bombed-out buildings, seedy bars, and grow-ops. There were no people, much less hotels and tourist shops selling maple-sugar products and “raccoon” Daniel Boone hats actually made from Chinese skunks. Like us, Éric and Dyan don’t take anything too seriously (Dyan can tell you many stories of Fred’s practical jokes when they used to work together: her showing up at 6:00 A.M. to a fake “dead man” at the bottom of the stairs; Fred putting a scraped lamb shank in his shirt, saying he may have hurt his hand. . . .) They’re Montreal classics and were kind enough to hand over one of their most beloved recipes.
This flexible recipe is all you need to bring this iconic Provençal seafood stew to your table.
A savory-hot salsa made with mixed nuts (like the kind dubbed cocktail nuts meant for snacking) gives roast salmon a kaleidoscope of textures and flavors.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
Make this versatile caramel at home with our slow-simmered method using milk and sugar—or take one of two sweetened condensed milk shortcuts.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
Round out these autumn greens with tart pomegranate seeds, crunchy pepitas, and a shower of Parmesan.
This classic 15-minute sauce is your secret weapon for homemade mac and cheese, chowder, lasagna, and more.
This one-pot dinner cooks chicken thighs directly on top of a bed of flavorful cilantro rice studded with black beans for a complete dinner.