This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
As Easter approached, Plaisirs met with Quebec chefs from diverse backgrounds to learn about their Easter culinary traditions. This week, chef Julien Masia, from the Arvi restaurant in Quebec, opens the door to the garden of his childhood and makes us salivate with a typical Lyonnaise recipe. First text of a three-part series.
In 2019, a tiny restaurant in the Limoilou district of Quebec suddenly becomes the darling of gourmets. Chef Julien Masia and his team win the award for best Canadian restaurant in the magazine’s prestigious competition On the way from Air Canada. On the menu, dishes composed, for the most part, of three ingredients. Executing these, however, is not straightforward; it is the perfection in their preparation that makes them so incredibly tasty. This is one of the secrets of the success of the Arvi restaurant, whose chef is from France.
Can we say that Julien Masia’s cuisine is of French inspiration for all that? The chef refuses to be confined there: “At Arvi, we cook freely, where we free ourselves from all shackles. The menu changes according to our inspiration. The dishes are based on local products. We try not to distort them too much, rather to highlight them, ”he explains. At the restaurant, the roles of the employees, unlike the European brigades, are not fixed, but changing. Despite this daring concept, which the chef describes as “cuisine without borders”, Julien does not deny his origins, which have contributed to forging his culinary heritage.
A native of Lyon, Julien Masia traveled a lot during his childhood, in many countries (Algeria, Iraq, Chile, Mauritius) where his father went for his work. At the age of 12, his parents separated, and he went to live with his mother in the house she had just bought in the Loire.
“My mother liked to cook simple things, often slightly greasy dishes, with fresh cream”, remembers Julien. Native, too, of Lyon, her cuisine was similar to the typical dishes of this region.
Easter in the mother’s house
The chef remembers Easter family meals: “We celebrated Easter all over the world because of my father’s travels, but my most memorable memories are in the house in the Loire with my mother, my little brother and my elder. mother, where we hunted eggs in her huge garden.
Lyon’s food culture is striking. My two grandmothers were natives of Lyon. They bought a lot of deli meats and incorporated potatoes into their cooking.
It was a happy family reunion for Julien and his brother, who were eager for their grandmother to give them their chocolates brought back from Lyon.
But first, there was the meal. Julien evokes a comforting dish that his mother traditionally made at Easter: “Crique lyonnaise; we loved it, my brother and I! It is a potato pancake with added butter and eggs, which is baked. It is served as a side dish with meat. We carve it out, we sauce it in the cooking juices of the lamb shank and we enjoy it! »
Is this dish, simple and good, totally different from what Julien offers as cuisine at Arvi? “Technically it is, but this sharing dish defines everything I love at the table. It is a friendly, comforting dish that values the human side. At Arvi, we make accessible cuisine, humanly speaking, but also for the wallet. A cuisine that, like this dish, brings us closer to the people we love. »
For this man who arrived in Quebec at the age of 24, graduated from the Haute-Savoie hotel school and rich in experience in the starred restaurants of Geneva, the concept of cooking has evolved. One day, he meets chef Stéphane Modat, who tells him: “Gastronomy is good, but the pleasure of eating is much more important”. Julien retains the principle, which sticks to what he wants to do when he opens his own restaurant.
“Arvi means goodbye in Savoyard patois. Welcoming people as if they were guests at our house, looking forward to them coming back to share a good time and a good dish. This is the very essence of restoration, but it is also that of Easter. »