Food Festival YUL EAT Will Pivot Towards Barbecue This Year

Food festival YUL EAT is in the process of announcing its programming for the 2019 festival (which runs September 9 to 15), and there’s going to be somewhat of a focus on barbecue for this year.

One of the main installations for the festival will be the Smokehouse Ford, located at the Quartier des Spectacles Parterre (the square on de Maisonneuve at St-Urbain, right near Place-des-Arts).

The festival has released the first batch of chefs exclusively to Eater — they’ll pair up and work the barbecue at the Smokehouse. They’ll offer free workshops on the barbecue (sign-up will be required), and cook up their own summery menus, which will be served on a self-serve basis.

Most notable are visiting chefs Quetzalcóatl Zurita et Shalxaly Macías of renowned Mexican restaurant Almoraduz Cocina de Autor, in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, which serves modern Oaxacan food with plenty of meat and seafood. Then there’s a number of locals from a diverse set of restaurants, most notably grill-happy Griffintown icon Foxy.

Here’s the full list; their exact schedules are still to be determined (sign-ups for workshops will open later).

• Baker Marc-André Cyr (of baking conference Le Goût du Grain, also Olive & Gourmando)
• Éric Dupuis (executive chef for Taverne Square Dominion, Balsam Inn, Bar Henrietta)
• Sam Fortier-Auclair (of wine-oriented Outremont French spot Les Fillettes)
• Martin Lampron (of renowned Trois-Rivières bistro La Maison de Débauche, formerly Le Carlito)
• Vincent Russell (chef at Foxy)
• Sebastien Harrison-Cloutier (chef at St-Henri taco go-to Grumman’78)
• Quetzalcóatl Zurita et Shalxaly Macías (visiting chefs from Almoraduz Cocina de Autor in Oaxaca)
• Mélanie Gervais (pastry chef at Old Montreal’s Un Po Di Piu)
• Dominic Labelle (of Magog-based organic farming organization Projet Cantouque)

The Smokehouse should be one of the more accessible events at YUL EAT — among the more expensive tasting menu events, with the free workshops and self-serve food, it won’t require a big buy-in.

• Schedule 2019 [YUL EAT]