An Eco-Friendly Craft Pub is Coming to Chinatown This July

The former owner of the Mile End’s La Sala Rossa is bringing craft beer and eco-friendly cuisine to Chinatown.

Cantine Poincaré is set to open by early July, owner and head chef Jeremiah Bullied told Montreal Eater. The pub, which will serve house-made brews and seasonal comfort foods using ingredients from Quebec, will be located on the second floor of 1071 St-Laurent Boulevard, near Rene-Levesque Boulevard. The space includes a rooftop terrasse and greenhouse — though Bullied notes this area likely won’t open until later this summer.

The food menu will consist primarily of small, tapas-style sharing plates of traditional pub dishes, like charcuterie and fried potatoes, all of which “will have a fermented or laco fermented or cured element,” Bullied says.

In addition to a rotating list of house-made beers, Cantine Poincaré will serve a range of natural wines (curated by sommelier Hugo Jacques), and canned local vegetables for customers to take away. Bullied says it’s important to him to operate the restaurant in an ecologically-savvy manner, and preserving local foods is one way to do this.

“The idea is that we can take ingredients when they’re at their freshest, when they’re at their (highest) market availability, when they’re at their highest nutritional value, preserve them usually through fermentation or pickling (or canning), and then when the kitchen’s closed, as of 11 or 12 p.m., we’ll have a full selection of custom cans to sell to people,” Bullied explained.

He also strives to source ingredients produced via regenerative agriculture techniques — which are said to strengthen the health of the soil and increase the biodiversity of the farmed area.

“In the culinary world we need to start taking an ecological approach to our buying and how we’re sourcing our food,” Bullied says. His ultimate goal with the pub is to “use techniques that are less wasteful and can kind of honour those products.”

• All La Sala Rossa coverage [EMTL]