Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants, Bars and Chefs. - No. 21: Cabane à Sucre au Pied de Cochon

Chef Martin Picard believes that maple syrup is the greatest of all Canadian culinary treasures. And his conviction that not enough attention is paid to it—nor enough care devoted to its preparation, or imagination applied to its use in the kitchen—prompted him to open his own Sugar Shack in 2009. Now at Cabane à Sucre PDC, Picard taps surrounding maples to make his own syrup, and cooks with it with the same wild creativity that he earlier applied to foie gras at his cult Montreal restaurant Au Pied de Cochon. The Cabane is open only for sugaring off (spring) and the apple harvest (fall), and each season brings an entirely new menu. Still, expect dishes like crazy-rich pea soup with foie gras, a salad of “oreille de crisse” (pork crackling) with Boston lettuce, maple-glazed duck, maple millefeuilles and maple-sugar cotton candy. Portions are huge. What you don’t finish or take home will be fed to the PDC hogs, which Picard raises on site for use at the restaurant. Recycling, à la PDC.