Acclaimed Montreal restaurant Mon Lapin’s debut cookbook goes a long way to explaining why it has become one of the most celebrated dining destinations in Northern America. Opened as a 30-seat wine bar in Montreal’s Little Italy neighbourhood in 2018 by chef Marc-Olivier Frappier and sommelier Vanya Filipovic, the husband-and-wife team doubled the size of the restaurant (even those who studied just rudimentary French will understand it translates as ‘my rabbit’) in 2020 such was its popularity but also the restaurant’s personable allure.
In their book the couple along with chef Jessica Noel, co-sommelier Alex Landry, and master of ceremony Marc-Antonie Gelinas, who make up Mon Lapin’s quintet, describe wanting to promote gastronomy as a “lived experience - where eating and drinking are acts of connection and relationship and total refreshment”. They say: “We prefer relaxation to coolness. We value the petite over the grandiose”. That as maybe, and while that description neatly encompasses the cosy restaurant they have built, there’s nothing petite about many of the 100 dishes that are contained within the pages of their book.
The Mon Lapin Cookbook is divided into chapters with homespun titles - Steamy Windows in February; Primi, A Love Affair; Every Vegetable is a Summer Vegetable in Quebec - and in each you’ll find recipes for Mon Lapin’s creative roster of dishes, from whelk arrosticini; chewy carrots, egg yolk and pollen; and shallot strudel; to lamb neck, celery leaf and salsa verde; and a dish called Duck Leg Like a Duck Breast with plums and peppers. Mon Lapin’s cuisine is irreverent while also being rooted in culinary tradition, a combination that leads to some truly exciting dishes.
Also dotted throughout the book are the little asides and vignettes that reveal the true nature of the restaurant as a living, breathing entity. One entry - On Making Ragu in Fancy Restaurants - talks of how the original intention of Mon Lapin as the type of place where a simple plate of pasta would always be available became eroded as the accolades came in and diner expectations grew, but how they eventually pulled it back. Ragu is now back on the menu at the restaurant, forever so they say, and recipes for a pappardelle with ragu bianco and chestnuts and another for tagliatelle with Newfoundland squid ragu can be found within their book.
Some restaurant cookbooks simply make you want to attempt the recipes, others make you want go there and experience it for yourself, as the prelude to the final chapter on desserts does - When Fourteen Bottles Arrive at the Table - describing the front of house team with a glint in their eye approaching a table cradling “seven, ten or fourteen bottles for tasting”, from the classic pairings to the obscure. Montreal is a long way from here. I’d better start saving.
The Mon Lapin Cookbook: De Toute Beaute
Marc-Olivier Frappier, Jessica Noel, Vanya Filipovic, and Mireille Silcoff
Number of pages: 272
Must-try recipe: Maple rice pie
Publisher and price: Phaidon, £34.95