TOQUÉ!’S SALMON TARTARE: THE MAKING OF A SIGNATURE DISH
Although chef Normand Laprise still serves his gratin de chèvre et pommes de terre, he is equally famous for starting the salmon tartare trend in Montreal. The first time I tasted the now-common timbale of seasoned raw fish cubes was 24 years ago at Toqué!, where Laprise’s salmon tartare was considered a signature dish. Decorated with taro-root chips, his rendition was a simple mélange of cubed salmon, chives and mustard vinaigrette, which he topped with a thin layer of mashed avocado.
Tartare is found on many Montreal menus today, but back then it was unheard of. From where did Laprise draw his inspiration? The classic steak tartare? Sashimi plates at the then new and branché sushi bars?
“I first recall tartare making an impression on me in the early ’90s, when I dined at Bouley, David Bouley’s restaurant in New York City,” Laprise told me in 2008. “I ordered a tasting menu, and one of the courses was a small mound of striped bass tartare with a quail’s egg yolk in the middle. It was so good I wanted to ask for more.”
After that revelation, Laprise started on his own rendition, beginning with the freshest fish available in Montreal at the time: salmon. As for the topping, he told me those many years ago, “I was eating often at a little Mexican restaurant back then, and I remember eating guacamole and thinking it would marry well with the salmon tartare.”
Laprise debuted his salmon tartare at Citrus and it was such a big hit that when he opened Toqué! in 1993, he put it on the menu because customers kept requesting it.
Though considered cutting edge then, tartare has come a long way. You’ll still find a tartare at Toqué! on occasion as well as in the vast majority of Montreal’s other high-end restaurants, ranging from the trout, apple and celery root tartare at La Récolte, to the salmon tartare with puffed rice, nori, purple perilla leaves, chives and dill at Montréal Plaza.