The Joe Beef guide to beating the winter blues through wood-fired open-air feasting with friends.
In the Little Burgundy neighborhood of Montreal, there is a sequestered no-name street just off Rue Charlevoix that happens to be one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a narrow conduit behind restaurants and shops where deliveries are made and cooks tread busily between kitchens. There is an outdoor smoker, a wood burning oven, and a huge grill with a spit, some boxed gardens, multiple terraces, a trout pond, a tool shed, and across the street, Parc Vinet, where you can see kids whizzing by on the ice rink in winter, or hitting line drives under the lights of the baseball diamond on long summer evenings.
Eleven years ago, Frédéric Morin and David McMillan opened Joe Beef, a French market-fare restaurant with a back door out onto that no-name street. I was there the first night as a server and still feel a deep sense of belonging at the restaurant, even though years have now passed. I think this is the allure of Joe Beef, really, that diners who will spend only a few evening hours there over dinner also feel that sense of belonging, or at least discovery of a certain Secret Garden utopia that has no affectation (and a whole, whole lot of rib steak).
This story is from the February - March 2017 edition of Saveur.
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This story is from the February - March 2017 edition of Saveur.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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