BART: Today, we're making our signature dish, poutine.

SETH: All right.

Love poutine.

Pretty simple dish though, right?

BART: Extremely simple.

It's just potatoes, cheese curds, and gravy.

SETH: But I'm guessing you're gonna sorta gussy it up a little bit here.

BART: Just a little bit.

We put a lot of work into each of those three ingredients to make it the best we can.

Today, we're going to pump it up a little bit with chanterelle mushrooms.

SETH: Oh, nice.

And are these just regular old russet potatoes that you use?

BART: No, not at all.

These are Chipperbecs.

They're from Canada.

They have a really low sugar content to keep from getting really dark and brown and a low moisture content, so they never get mushy.

SETH: So you need the right kind of potatoes to be frying up with.

BART: Yeah.

Before we opened, we actually we tried nine different types of potatoes, and this is the one we settled on.

SETH: And this stock, what kind of gravy you guys putting on top of this thing?

BART: So our gravy is made with duck and chicken, 24 ducks, 24 chickens.

We make a stock with that for 24 hours, which we call our two-bird gravy.

SETH: Of course, I know it wouldn't be poutine without cheese curds as well.

Do these have the famous cheese curd squeak?

BART: Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

So let's find out.

SETH: Let's find out.

BART: No, not much of a squeak.

SETH: Not even a little bit.

Certainly delicious.

BART: Yeah, they're really good.

We try to find the best ones we can.

A lot of them come from Vermont.

A lot of them come from Wisconsin.

SETH: So how did the mushrooms become part of this dish?

BART: Right, so, really simple dish, so one of the things we do to elevate it is we have a whole list of add-ons, right?

You can add truffle.

You can add duck confit, uh, foie gras in.

Today, we're doing one of my personal favorites, which is chanterelle mushrooms.

SETH: Looks like these mushrooms have already been seasoned up a little bit.

BART: No, no.

Because it's summertime, we're using lobster mushrooms, which have this red hint to them, I guess why they're called lobster mushrooms.

SETH: They're beauties, and they're kind in the chanterelle family?

BART: They are, yeah.

So we're going to turn this burner on.

While we get our pan hot, we're just going to dice these up.

We want to give you, like, a giant portion.

We want you to actually taste these ingredients.

SETH: This is rustic food.

So you want a nice hearty portion size as well.

BART: Hearty portion.

Big, big, big portion.

Now that our burner's, uh, really ripping hot, we're going to start with a little bit of butter.

And then we're going to bring our mushrooms in.

So when you're caramelizing mushrooms, you don't want to add salt too early in the process because the salt will pull water out of it, and that actually keeps them from caramelizing because what you want is a dry surface.

And those sugars that rest on the surface of the mushrooms will cook and caramelize.

SETH: That's a good little tip of the home cooks as well.

BART: Yeah, absolutely.

You're going to salt them at the end after you've sort of got that nice browning on them.

SETH: Got it.

BART: So now that we've got some color on these mushrooms, we're going to bring in our garlic and shallots.

We're going to let those sauté together.

Now we're going to start with our salt and pepper.

And then, as you can see, we're starting to get really dark around the edges.

So we're going to stop that process with a little bit of white wine.

(sizzling) SETH: Oh-ho.

BART: Now we've got those sautéed up together, nice and seasoned.

We're going to bring some of our gravy in and heat that up together.

So I'm going to let this continue to sauté for another 30 seconds to a minute.

And while we're waiting on that, we're going to put our Chipperbec potatoes into the fryer until they're nice and golden brown.

So once those are nice and crispy, we're going to pull them out of the fryer.

We're going to pile on cheese curds and then smother it with our two-bird gravy.

And to finish the dish, we're going to pile on a large heaping of our mushrooms.

SETH: Chef, this looks great.

Hearty and delicious.

What are we drinking with it?

BART: We are drinking a Quebecois Old-Fashioned, so rye whiskey and maple bitters that we make in-house.

SETH: Maple Bitters.

Well, cheers to our friends from the North.

BART: Cheers.

SETH: Delicious.

BART: That'll do it.

SETH: Knife and fork food?

BART: Most people are drunk by the time we get to this point.

So fork maybe, but you cut it if you want.

SETH: Fork.

All right.

I'm going to start with one of these lobster mushrooms.

That just hits the spot.

BART: Yeah.

SETH: Oh, man.

Those mushrooms, that nice earthy flavor to complement that really rich gravy on top.

BART: We're not messing around.

SETH: I like how the potatoes have stayed nice and crunchy down here on the bottom.

BART: That was the biggest challenge.

The first time I went to Montreal and had poutine, I didn't even really like it because the fries got mushy underneath the gravy.

So we spent a lot of time and effort into finding fries that would hold up to the gravy and not fall apart over the course of eating it.

SETH: I see what you mean about a simple dish.

But with the right ingredients, it just takes it to the next level.

And, I am an oyster fanatic, so I am more than happy to see these on the table as well.

Uh, what kind of oysters are these?

BART: Yeah, this is sort of the second most important part of our food program is Canadian oysters.

We focus on Canadian oysters because we're a Canadian restaurant and because I think they're better.

These are called Fortune oysters.

They're from New Brunswick, really briny and kind of sweet.

SETH: All right.

Give this a shot.

Sometimes I like to have the first oyster, no toppings needed.

BART: I don't think these need any.

SETH: Well, cheers.

BART: Cheers.

SETH: Wonderful.

BART: That's really good.