In France, the Maison de la Poutine receives insults and threats

If you had to empty your heart about the Russian president, what would you do? In response to this question, very confused cranks have seen fit to telephone the branches of the Maison de la Poutine, restaurants located in France, to insult and threaten these ambassadors of the emblematic Quebec dish. A tragicomic situation that exasperates the staff.

Sylvain Sarrazin
The Press

Some individuals would benefit from learning about Quebec and its gastronomy: it would prevent them from confusing a belligerent president with a plate of fries, cheese curds and gravy. For the past week, the various brands of the Maison de la Poutine have regularly received aggressive and threatening telephone calls from interlocutors who seem to establish a link between the invasion in Ukraine and the pouring of a three-pepper garnish.

The three branches – there are two in Paris, founded in 2017, and one in Toulouse, established in 2019 – are concerned, indicates to The Press Erwan Caradec, co-founder of the restaurants. “We receive four or five calls a day from people who come at us with threats and insults, saying that we must stop killing in Ukraine. Well, no one is saying that he is going to come and plant a bomb, but that puts a lot of stress on our teams, ”he confides, reached by telephone in Toulouse.

“We try to explain to them that we are a restaurant, and that poutine is a Quebec dish that has no connection with the Russian president, laments an employee of the Maison de la Poutine on rue Mandar, in Paris. But no matter how much we explain it to them, they don’t want to understand…”

Make a big deal out of it

Faced with this rather Kafkaesque situation, thank you, the owners of the institution published a press release on Thursday to remind us that Putin and Putin are not at all the same fight. “We felt the need to protect our teams by issuing this press release. That said, there isn’t much else to do. We have to take customer calls for orders,” resigns Mr. Caradec. In case the employees find themselves with one of these fanatics on the other end of the handset, they limit themselves to patiently serving them the same mantra: here, we serve poutine, a Quebec dish and, no, that’s not has nothing, but then nothing to do with Vladimir Putin…

Many Internet users reacted with a mixture of dismay and amusement when they discovered the press release posted on social networks. Some suggest putting a lowercase letter “poutine” in the name of the restaurants, to reduce confusion. But something tells us that, whatever the sauce in which they are served explanations, the stupid will always come back to the charge.

In the meantime, the Maison de la Poutine will not let go of the potato. “We definitely won’t be changing the name of the dish, so it would be nice if he changed his name, that f* * * * *dictator! concludes the co-founder in a bittersweet tone.