Chefs We Love
February 23, 2023
Get Chef J-C Poirier’s Recipe For His Famous Onion Soup And More!
What is a Montreal-trained chef doing in B.C. anyway? Serving Quebec classics and luxurious French fare to appreciative Vancouverites? Exactly. J-C Poirier’s beloved Michelin star restaurant, St. Lawrence, showcases French cuisine at its best. Now, you can make some of his most popular dishes that are featured in his first cookbook, Where the River Narrows: Classic French & Nostalgic Québécois Recipes From St. Lawrence Restaurant, co-authored with Joie Alvaro Kent. “I don’t want people to be scared of French cuisine, and I want them to be able to cook the dishes at home,” says J-C. “I also hope chefs will read it and be excited to learn a few new tricks.”
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J-C’s restaurant hearkens back to his roots in Quebec. “I wanted to create the soul that you find on the East Coast, and I wanted people who come in to feel like they weren’t in Vancouver, but more like they were in Quebec or France,” he says. St. Lawrence restaurant is located in Vancouver’s Railtown neighborhood. “It’s small and cozy. When you enter, there’s French music playing and most of the staff speaks French, so you’re transported to another place,” says J-C.
St. Lawrence has been named one of Canada’s 100 Best restaurants four times. The menu is an homage to Quebec, with lots of rich, hearty dishes. Most of the things J-C makes aren’t found elsewhere in B.C., but he acknowledges the province has had an impact on his cuisine. His sauces are often more acidic, portions are slightly smaller and vegetables are more plentiful than in traditional Quebec dishes so, overall, everything feels lighter. J-C takes a hands-on approach and likes to spend as much time as possible cooking in his restaurant kitchen.
In the cookbook, you’ll find four sections: Quebec, Classic French, St. Lawrence and Home Cooking. In Quebec, you’ll see the classics, from Baked Oysters to Onion Soup and plenty of dishes with maple syrup, while Classic French features Pheasant Terrine and Braised Leeks with Brown Butter and Egg Vinaigrette. For fans of the restaurant, the St. Lawrence section has the recipe for the ever-popular Duck Liver Mousse Eclairs, and Home Cooking features Sunday Roasted Chicken, which the chef loves to make for his wife and two daughters.
Keep reading for the recipes!
“Everyone has a different way of doing tourtière based on the region they’re from or how their grandmother did it. I put this one together the way my mom did.”
Get the recipe for Tourtière Du Lac Saint-Jean here.
“On the West Coast, everyone swears by Dungeness crab but, for me, coming from Quebec and New Brunswick, it’s all about lobster. I wanted to add an East Coast feel to the book and a nostalgia for my youth.”
Get the recipe for Lobster Bisque Thermidor here.
“My mom used to buy these from the grocery store, but you can’t get them anymore, so I reproduced the flavor from memory to create a canapé for the restaurant and at home.”
Get the recipe for Parmesan Cheese Croquettes here.
“I created my own version of my childhood soup by making a caramelized onion broth rather than beef stock, then adding another batch of more-intact onions to that.”
Get the recipe for Onion Soup here.
“This tastes better than any sugar pie. It’s more refined and less sweet, especially if you use quality maple syrup.”
Get the recipe for Maple Syrup Tart here.
J-C’s cookbook features 125 mouthwatering recipes. The cookbook title Where the River Narrows is a direct translation of the Algonquin word for J-C’s home province, Kebec. “I feel like ‘where the river narrows’ was exactly what I did,” he says. “I became more focused on one thing, a passion project that is this restaurant, and the cookbook is an extension of that.”
Brit Gill
House & Home