As our regular readers know, approximately every two years we do a group trip up to Montreal, rendezvous with friends, and head out to the surprisingly rural outskirts of the Montreal area (St. Benoît de Mirabel) for Au Pied de Cochon annual Cabane à Sucre maple celebration. You can read up on previous visits of ours in 2014, 2017, or 2024, or their similar fall harvest dinner in Fall 2019. The basic formula remains the same: a sumptuous feast featuring maple and seasonal dishes, served up in an unending serious of generously-portioned family-style courses. Over the years, the actual meal varies a bit, but it remains one of the Montreal-area’s more difficult reservations to get (usually setting an alarm for when ticket sales start in December for the winter Cabane). This year’s culinary Olympic feast was for myself and 9 colleagues was in mid-March, during a brief recurrence of winter during the spring thaw.
One of the great things about doing the Cabane is that, while the basic concept is tied to the Canadian Cabane à Sucre tradition of gathering at a maple sugarhouse in the woods and gorging yourself on various maple-related items, Au Pied de Cochon’s version varies more than a little from year to year, and even over the season, so until the dishes start coming out of the kitchen, you never really know what you are going to get this particular season. Some years are more traditional, some more experimental (I’ve long suspected that chef Martin Picard uses the Cabane to try out new ideas for the restaurant), and some have been tightly themed, like 2017’s Japanese theme. The results vary a little bit as well; while I’ve never had anything bad at the Cabane, a few dishes (especially some of the seafood ones, like sturgeon quennelles in 2014) aren’t exactly my jam. But I’ve also had more than a few truly excellent dishes here, and at the end of the day, you’ve had a veritable mountain of food, most of it truly excellent, and usually between 8 and 16 individual dishes served at each meal, all for an implausibly low price (the 2026 Cabane was $95CDN per person, plus gratuities and drinks). Compared to what $95CDN would buy me in Montreal, or down in New England, this is still an incredible bargain. Pro tip: most of the seating is on long tables with benches, with 10 or 12 people optimal for filling out a table; smaller parties can sometimes get an abbreviated experience.
A few minutes after seating, our serving team came around and got our first round of beverages going. While there were a few folks that got beer, wine, or other cocktails, one of the more popular cocktails for the table was the Sous-Bois (“Undergrowth”), with Gin de Mononcle, Chartreuse, lime, cranberry confit, and wintergreen syrup. A nice, refreshing cocktail, and a great start to the meal.
A few minutes later, the first group of dishes started arriving from the kitchen. First up was several platters of duck fat pancakes: crispy, almost donut-like pancakes deep-fried in duck fat, including that really nice crispy ring around the edge. This was a welcome throwback, we’ve seen these at several previous Cabanes (indeed, this were a star of our first Cabane back in 2014), and these were everything I like about a good trip to the Cabane: good execution, nice use of maple, and more than a bit indulgent. (A note on this year’s menu is that most everything was delivered to the table sized for 4 people; with a party of 10, this often meant two full-sized platters and a half-sized platter, although occasionally this also mean either jumbo-sized portions, or the occasional dish that was just served up for 12 instead of 10. So 8 and 12 remain optimal party sizes even with the transition to bench seating).
There’s usually at least one course at the Cabane that’s delivered as a bit of show and flourish; one year it was roast pigs with apples in their mouths, another year a whole pigs head. The second dish to arrive was definitely the showiest of the evening, since this was headcheese, served up as a head. Well, a skull, actually, with a very nicely flavorful headcheese layered onto the skull. Served alongside was also some cretons (a traditional Québécois potted meat much like rillettes, but with a very clove-laden spicing), some perfectly light and fluffy pork cracklings, chicken liver mouse, some smoked meat sticks, and various condiments. Definitely a good dish, and we enjoyed the eye-raising service approach.
Starting the second wave of food was our third dish: was a very light and fluffy Spinach Souffle, served over a bed of potatoes and leeks (with the far end of the table getting one of the half-sized ones which we called the “two-fle”). This really cemented that this was one of the years the Cabane was sticking with tradition; we had a very similar souffle in 2024’s visit, and this one was fully enjoyable as well: light, flavorful, and the potato-leek mixture really complemented the egg nicely.
Served alongside the souffle was our fourth dish. Nominally called a “gravlax salad”, this was an interesting case where getting the full description showed us how elaborate a dish this was: instead of salmon, this was a gravlax-style trout brined in gin and maple syrup, served up as a salad. I only had a bit of this (since I’ve got more than a bit of a seafood allergy, but I can usually tolerate nibbles), and this was extremely good and flavorful, with a nice, slightly sweeter take on a gravlax flavor, with really strong trout notes.
Next up was the fifth dish, another Cabane classic: split pea soup, with the obligatory fois gras. A very, very rich soup with really good pea, pork and smoke notes, this was another great crowd pleaser. The soup has been simmered to the point so the texture is nice and velvety, and the acid level is just right so that the soup tastes tangy more than “greasy” (since this soup is particularly fatty). This was near-perfect, and the only thing this was really missing was something like a good grilled-cheese sandwich to dip into it…
…which takes us to the sixth dish, delivered alongside the split pea soup. This was an interesting take on a Croque Monsieur (a French-style grilled cheese and ham): they took some nicely layered croissant dough, and formed it into a long trough of flaky pastry, filling the trough with sliced ham and grated cheeses. Slicing off a length of the trough for each diner was a little clutzy, but after that, this was the perfect sort of sandwich for dipping into the split pea soup. This was a definitely a unique take on the croque monsieur.
At least one course in every trip to the Cabane has a deliberately odd presentation. This year it was our seventh dish, which was a giant pile of braised beef ribs presented in a giant flower pot. Basically boeuf bourguignon made with large bone-in beef ribs, this was actually quite good, especially the sauce and marrow down in the pot itself. (The flower pot presentation we’ve seen before, like 2024’s “Cassoulard”, a giant lard-heavy cassoulet served in a similar flowerpot). The cheese- and parsley-laden whipped potatoes served alongside this were surprisingly popular. I really enjoyed more than a bit of the beef itself at the cabane, and much of the leftover bits and bourguignon served the basis for the next night of leftovers back home, served over noodles. All-in-all, this was a great dish.
Our eighth dish was served alongside the bourguignon, a large, maple-glazed ham knuckle from the “family farm”. We’ve had a lot of good hams at the Cabane before (particularly well-remembered was a nice hay-smoked one at our 2014 visit), and this didn’t disappoint. This was an extremely flavorful (and not overly salty) ham, the glaze more caramelized than sweet, with plenty of meat for everyone. This was served up over a bed of root vegetables that absorbed a lot of the ham juices, and made for a very pleasant dish that, served on its own, would have held its own as a centerpiece.
The ninth dish was a rolled duck breast, wrapped around fois, served on a red wine and brandy reduction sauce, and after serving topped with more sauce, a pork blood and maple sauce. On the side was some buckwheat pasta, which had a dumpling-like texture. This was flavorful, but this was also a dish where the fois didn’t really seem to add much to me, and this was one of the few dishes that actually tasted “fatty”. A good dish overall, but not one of the table favorites.
Despite the fact that by this point everyone at the table was starting to run out of steam, the dessert course then started in earnest. First up, as our 10th dish, was a nice classic that I would have expected at one of their harvest dinners: an apple pie. But this wasn’t your usual apple pie, landing someplace in the world between pie and tart. The odd shape is because there is an entire, whole apple embedded in the pie. Then, there’s a layer of mincemeat inside the pie, and the overall pie was served on a slab of Brie (and interesting take on the classic “New England” apple pie and cheddar). With a particularly good crust (I suspect more than a little lard was involved), this was a great dessert course.
For the second dessert (our 11th dish overall), there was a large serving of Pain Perdu (“French Toast”) with caramelized bananas, topped with about six different maple products (including syrup, sugar, and cream). This was good (reminding me of the old “hobo pies” made in a hand-clamped iron over a campfire when camping in my childhood), but this was also a leading contender for “sweetest thing I’ve ever been served”. A little bit of this went a long way, but this was perfectly executed with a good caramelized interior, a perfect crispy flake on the toast, and a well-combined overall texture.
Also served up at the same time was the 12th dish: a maple rice pudding. I’m not usually much of a rice pudding fan, but this was a nicely-composed version, not too chalky, and not overly sweet. Since we were running out of steam, this was one that was heartily scooped up into various takeout containers.
Finally, for dish 13, each person was served up with their own little parfait of maple ice cream, served up with some maple taffy and maple sponge. This was, to me, a bit of an odd dish. I really enjoyed the very dark and well-rounded maple ice cream, but the sponge seemed mostly to just stick in my teeth, and the taffy was so temperature sensitive that when delivered it was rock-hard, but soon softened just to the point of potentially pulling out your fillings. I think this would have been better as just the ice cream.
And with that, our heroic, 3 hour long meal of 4 courses and 13 different dishes was concluded. Compared to some years, this one was a little more conservative and traditional, and much of this played like highlights from previous Cabanes, but they chose well: the dishes were all good, and several were phenomenal. Like always, there was a substantial amount of food leftover that was portioned into our various takeout containers (another pro-tip: bring containers. A lot of them. And for Americans, briefly refresh yourself on the rules for what you can bring back, although cooked food generally causes no trouble.) This isn’t the sort of meal you want regularly (heck, we only do this every two years or so, which is probably still far more than a cardiologist might recommend), but it is a thoroughly enjoyable tradition, the food is really interesting, it’s a great chance to hang out with friends, and at the end of the day, this is actually one of the more affordable dining experiences like this you can have. We’ll definitely continue to do this every 18–24 months.
