Au Pied de Cochon — Restaurant in Montreal

Our dinner at APDC is one of the most anticipated meals of our short trip. A favourite of the late Anthony Bourdain, this iconic ‘ Temple of Extreme Gourmet ‘ is known amongst foodies worldwide for its glutton and excessive signature dishes ( sins?! ).....incorporating foie gras as a component in almost all of its protein creation.

The menu is a constantly changing one but retains a few of the perennial house specialities such as the ’Duck in a Can’, ‘Foie Gras Poutine’, ‘Stuffed Pork’s feet ‘....etc. as the core.

Due to the size of our party, the circumstances allowed us to order most of the tempting, attractive and exotic sounding offerings on the menu for sharing.

These include:

APPETIZERS AND MAINS

DUCK TEMAKI - Duck tartare, Cantabrie, Anchovies and Nori TOMATO TART - Heirloom tomatoes & Bechamel FOIE GRAS NIGIRI - Foie gras, Peanut, Maple flavoured Rice FOIE GRAS POUTINE - Lobes of Foie Gras, Fries, Cheese Curds, Meat Gravy DUCK IN A CAN - Duck Breast, Foie Gras, Butter Braised Cabbage, Celeriac Puree, Brown Butter STUFFED PIG’S FEET - Foie Gras, Sweetbread, Morel Mushrooms and Meat Jus GUINEA FOWL - Scallop Mousse, Black Truffle, Horseradish Fumet. COD - Black Cod, Corn Sauce, Zucchinis, Wild Mushrooms T-BONE STEAK - Quebec Prime, Pepper Sauce, Fondant Potatoes, Chanterelle.

DESSERTS

GRANITE FRAMBOISE FOUDANT DU DOLCE DE LECHE POUDING CHOMEUR

With so many outstanding dishes, ranging in mode from funky and sophisticated to rustic and homey comfort. Every dish is perfectly executed ( except one!! ) and all possessing its own unique characteristic and delicious taste profile. As such, it would be hard-pressed to select specific stand-out star dishes. However, the heavenly, umami packed single-bites taste bomb - Duck Temaki and Foie Gras Nigiri are definitely high on the list. Other note-worthy dishes included the gorgeous piece of perfectly cooked Cod rested on a generous pool of ultra-delicious creamy sweet sauce, the Guinea Fowl, which IMO, was executed and tasted better than the one I had at London’s 1* St John’s, last year, the gimmicky presented but surprisingly enjoyable ‘ Duck in a Can ‘ and last but not least, the 2nd rendition of our flavourful and tender T-Bone Steak.

Now, onto an unexpected ‘ Screw-Up ‘ of the evening!

With three beef loving carnivores in our party, it was a no-brainer that we ordered the ‘ Market Price ‘, Char-broiled Quebec Beef T-Bone in Pepper Sauce. Cut to order, we ended up with a gorgeous piece of 16+ oz, well marbled steak costing over $145! We were all swooning in anticipation when the impressive looking, well charred piece of meat, presented on a platter, arrived with fan-fare at our table. Unfortunately, the euphoria only lasted briefly, till we noticed the interior of the meat was way, way overcooked…..to the point of well-done! Dry, void of any pink tint and really sad and unappealing looking. One bite and we left the entire plate untouched.

When the manager made his round amongst the patrons and arrived at our table to inquire how our dining experience has been so far. I simply pointed to the steak and said, ‘ Please take a look ‘! With no question asked, he swooped down quicker than a Bruce Lee punch, picked up the plate and simply said, ‘ I’ll take it back to the chef and get you another one….this time making sure it’ll be perfect. Please allow about a 15 minute wait ‘. When the replacement arrived, brought by our server, it was indeed perfectly charred on the outside and gloriously rare inside…….ABSOLUTE PERFECTION! The manager then came by to our table twice, checking to make sure the steak was to our satisfaction from end-to-end and apologising profusely each time!

Such warm, attentive and caring service and hospitality! Bravo!

So far on this food crawl, 3 hits out of 3……Not bad! Not...

Reservations-only restaurant - reso at 9:30.

9:44 - We ordered the Sea Urchin Pasta ($21) to start, Duck in a Can ($61), and Aged Pork Chop ($49) for our mains with the Oranjeanne ($16) and Gin Guay ($18) for drinks.

10:04 - Pasta arrived and our appetizer was delicious! Served with the Uni and egg yolk in the shell, was nice and creamy, and was just the right amount of cook on the pasta.

10:10 - Drinks arrived - Oranjeanne was also amazing and was probably the best drink of the night. The Gin Guay was also good - I recommend giving it a stir as the maple syrup sinks to the bottom. The bartender who ran our drinks apologized for the wait, which our opinion didn't actually take that long LOL.

After the above, it kind of went downhill from there. We finished our drinks and appetizer pretty quickly and ordered our second round of drinks while waiting for our mains.

10:50 - Martini Au Pied ($19) is your typical espresso martini but wasn't the best, and Matante Rhubarbe ($18) was also an average cocktail

10:59 - Our main courses finally arrived. A huge thing to note - it took basically an hour between our appetizer arriving and the mains to arrive. If we knew it was going to take an hour, we probably would have either ordered more apps or just ordered something else entirely. We aren't expecting fast service but we also weren't expecting an hour wait.

When it hit our table, the runner explained our dishes and mentioned that it takes 25 mins for the Duck in a Can to be heated as he opened it and poured it in front of us - kind of weird for them to mention how long the dish took to be warmed when it took double that time to arrive lol. The dish itself was good, but if you're not too much into fat, DO NOT ORDER THIS DISH. I didn't mind it since I regularly enjoy heavy flavours. Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but the bread it sat on was burnt. The Duck itself was cooked well-ish - it wasn't evenly cooked as at some point the meat was a bit of the tougher side. The fois gras and the celeriac puree was good, but with the wait time it really put a damper on our excitement for this place.

My S/O ordered Aged Pork Chop - it's to be expected that pork would be on the salty side, but it really was super salty! The meat was very tender which was nice but he said the cabbage heart was the better part of the dish taste-wise.

Atmosphere was on the louder side (not a bad thing) but interestingly enough the table beside us started talking about chinese people, got shushed by their friend, and kept staring at my boyfriend for the remainder of the service. Not in any way a fault of the restaurant, but as tourists, it felt uncomfortable. I'd also like to note that our server Theo didn't have much of an impact in general. Other than when we first ordered, and once when he asked us if our appetizer was okay, it was other staff serving us and helping us out throughout the night. After waiting a while after our meal, we were trying to get our bill. We had to ask a runner for it. The runner came back after ten minutes and apologized and said, "Sorry, he's coming."

All in all, we left slightly before 12 for a reso at 9:30.

TLDR; Would love to have the Oranjeanne and the Uni Pasta again, but that's about it. Probably...

As professionals in the wine and hospitality industry, we know how hard this business is. We’re usually the first to give the benefit of the doubt—especially on a late service, or a busy night. But our experience at Au Pied de Cochon was such a letdown that it’s hard to write it off as anything but a serious failure in hospitality.

We came to Montreal to celebrate my fiancé's 40th birthday. He’s a chef, and this trip was all about food—eating, drinking, and enjoying this city’s culinary scene with friends. We'd never been to Montreal before, but have heard such great things! Of all the places we could have chosen, we’d read so many glowing reviews of Au Pied de Cochon that it felt like a must. Unfortunately, it ended up being the weakest experience of the entire trip.

We were a group of seven, including one chef and two winemakers (myself also a sommelier), and arrived just before our 10pm reservation. The table wasn’t ready—we were asked to wait outside. Once seated, we were tucked in the very back corner of the room, directly beneath a freezing air conditioning unit.

We ordered drinks fairly quickly, but they took 45 minutes to arrive. In the meantime, we watched bar staff take repeated rounds of shots—not exactly reassuring. When our cocktails finally showed up, they were delivered to the wrong guests and were poorly balanced and not very good. Not something we say lightly.

The wine service was equally disappointing. We asked for a recommendation, and someone (presumably the sommelier?) came over. He didn’t ask what styles we liked, who would be drinking, or what our price point might be. Instead, he silently read through the wine list in front of us for a few minutes—something we were perfectly capable of doing ourselves, and a from a list that one would think he'd be pretty familiar with already—and offered one vague recommendation: a $150 Côtes du Rhône. That was the extent of the interaction. We ended up choosing our own bottle of Burgundy, which paired much better with the meal, though it arrived so late that most of us were nearly done our mains.

The food, to be clear, was excellent. Creative, rich, indulgent—exactly what we’d hoped for. The kitchen is doing impressive work. But everything about the front-of-house experience felt careless, cold, and disjointed. No one acknowledged the birthday celebration we had noted on the reservation. There was no warmth, no sense of hospitality, and no real engagement from the team.

We’d hoped this would be the culinary highlight of the trip. Instead, it felt like an afterthought. And sadly, after reading other reviews since, we’ve learned our experience wasn’t unique.

Maybe this was just an off night. I certainly hope so. But based on what we saw, I wouldn’t recommend Au Pied de Cochon for groups, for special occasions, or for anyone looking for a full hospitality experience. There’s too much talent in Montreal to settle for service this...