One of Montreal’s Most Sought-after Restaurants Has a Debut Cookbook
A seat at Mon Lapin, Montreal’s hottest dinner reservation, is one of the most coveted in the country — the wine bar and restaurant gets fully booked for a month in a matter of seconds
Eight years ago, chefs Jessica Noël and Marc-Olivier Frappier and sommelier Vanya Filipovic came together to create the small dining room that’s made an indelible mark on the Canadian culinary scene.
Individually, the trio has an impressive pedigree. Marc-Olivier got his start at acclaimed kitchens across Europe, the U.K., and the U.S., and eventually landed as executive chef of Quebec restaurant group Joe Beef. It was there, in 2009, that he met his now wife Vanya, a world-renowned sommelier who grew up in her parents’ restaurants in Quebec’s Laurentians and southern Vermont. Jessica was previously sous-chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York and is an alum of Paul Bocuse’s two Michelin–starred L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges in France.
Sommelier Vanya Filipovic and chef Marc-Olivier Frappier at the restaurant.
Chef Jessica Noël.
Mon Lapin is heavily inspired by French bistros: small restaurants with an unpretentious vibe and high-quality food. Marc-Olivier and Jessica execute fresh, inventive takes on classic dishes with curiosity at the forefront. You’ll find a wide range of plates, from Mille-Fleurs de Courgette — a vibrant dessert with zucchini blossoms that returns to the menu every summer — to Marc-Olivier’s famed Croque-Pétoncle, a buttery, pressed scallop sandwich that falls somewhere between croque monsieur and a dim sum–style seafood toast.
The Mon Lapin Cookbook: From Montreal, With Love. Phaidon, 2026, $65.
When the team was approached to develop a cookbook in 2023, they pinched themselves. Three years later, it’s finally here. The Mon Lapin Cookbook: From Montreal, With Love is a collection of more than 100 recipes alongside essays on everything from hospitality to natural wine. Throughout the book, humble ingredients are elevated and specialty ingredients are used with intention and respect, the same concept guests experience at the restaurant. In its pages, you’ll find flavours inspired by Montreal — think smoked proteins, butter-based sauces and sharp cheeses — and Canada as a whole. Many recipes star Canadian-grown produce including root vegetables and stone fruit.
When guests arrive at Mon Lapin, they never quite know what to expect; the menu isn’t online and it changes constantly. “That’s why we want people to use the cookbook as inspiration and a guideline,” says Marc-Olivier. “Apart from the pastry recipes, which you should follow to a T, you don’t have to recreate a whole dish — you can just make the sauce or even experiment with substitutions.”
Confident home cooks will rush to make the cookbook’s recipes. Kitchen-ade, Mon Lapin’s take on a homemade Gatorade to keep the staff hydrated during service, comes together easily, and you can swap in rhubarb or peach instead of the melon called for in the recipe. “It’s become a joke at the restaurant; we even have a still life painting of a Gatorade bottle inside,” says Marc-Olivier. “At one point, we were spending so much money on Gatorade that we had to figure out how to make our own.”
The Sourdough Chicken is one of Mon Lapin’s most popular dishes. You can make your own sourdough starter or “ask for a bit from your bread-baking friend,” says Jessica with a laugh. Marinating chicken in active sourdough results in an extremely crispy-crunchy exterior that keeps the meat tender inside.
Pommes Domino, an elevated potato creation, delivers showstopping results, and another standout for sharing is Haricots Jaunes, BBQ Chanterelles and Blue Cheese, an umami-rich salad featuring smoked cider vinegar and beef fat–coated mushrooms.
It wouldn’t be a Mon Lapin cookbook without recipes for a few heaping bowls of pasta, and Strozzapreti with Salt Cod and Zucchini doesn’t disappoint. For a fresh take on French cooking, try Duck Leg Like a Duck Breast, Plums and Peppers, which blends two classic duck dishes: magret de canard and canard confit.
Marc-Olivier, Jessica and Vanya own Mon Lapin alongside front-of-house manager Marc-Antoine Gélinas and co-sommelier Alex Landry. Despite the restaurant’s success, the team isn’t focused on being the best. Even after years in business, a growing list of accolades and launching their first cookbook, they’re still modest enough not to consider Mon Lapin a cornerstone of Canadian cuisine. “There are so many restaurants I look forward to visiting that I don’t put us in that category yet,” says Marc-Olivier. “We’re just trying to make sure the restaurant stays busy, the broken equipment gets fixed and everybody shows up on time.”
The dining room has classic bistro elements.
Though they may be too humble to admit it, in our opinion, Marc-Olivier, Jessica and Vanya are three Montreal restaurateurs setting the standard for Canada’s food scene from Mon Lapin, and now coming to home kitchens everywhere through their incredible cookbook.