Look at his smile and his swag and you will never forget it again. Share a meal with him and you will want to become his friend. For those who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him in one of his restaurants, I am talking to you about chef Paul Toussaint.
I have been to Kamuy several times, which I love for its menu as much as for its festive atmosphere. This time I came to have lunch with chef Paul to discover the Cajun menu (all you can eat please!) that he created for the show New Orleans Blues directed by Normand Brathwaite at the Studio-Cabaret de l’Espace St-Denis, which opened this week.
The main dish that is served during the “New Orleans Blues” show.
Courtesy, ALEXANDRA DIAZ
Paul welcomes me with his legendary energy. He welcomes everyone like that. Customers call to see if he will be there so they can spend time with him. He exudes as much calm as joy. He tells me that this is his primary goal: to have fun even while working hard. He doesn’t like anything square. He looks for the grain of madness, creates it. It’s his culture and his personality, sharing his good humor. “I want happiness, I want to live first,” he told me quite naturally. It’s one of the things he remembers about his years at Toqué after graduating at the top of his culinary cohort at LaSalle College. He worked under the direction of chef Charles-Antoine Crête at Toqué. “It seemed like we came from the same family bursting with joy despite the absolute rigor of the house,” he recalls with a big smile. It was also a regular customer, René, who had also become a friend who advised him to leave the institution and return to gain experience in Haiti so as not to go unnoticed by repeating what others were already doing.
Caribbean Flavors
He returned 3 years later, officially invited as chef of the former restaurant of the Arcade Fire group, Agrikol. Precisely, all this experience and this renewal in Haiti made him want to go further and sell the flavors of the Caribbean, to stand on his own two feet and open his own restaurant. Whether it was the French-speaking, English-speaking or Spanish-speaking Caribbean, he learned that this cuisine drew from the same base with variations for each community. Let her call him jerk, “spices” or sofrito, it is the same base of onions, peppers, celery and garlic to which the Anglos add, for example, cloves, the Haitians thyme, the Dominicans coriander. It is the basis of marinades for fish, for meat, for rice, for everything! I listen to it while simultaneously tasting these layers and layers of flavors. Happiness! It’s Haiti and all the Caribbean countries at Kamuy.
Unmissable, the fried donuts.
Courtesy, ALEXANDRA DIAZ
The show menu New Orleans Blues warms the heart with the same madness for the taste buds: thick gumbo soup with sausages and shrimp, buccaneer chicken smoked for over 4 hours, the famous jambalaya rice, red beans and stewed vegetables, bread pudding and fried donuts. Paul goes to New Orleans every February for its carnival. He could live there, we live so fully there. I tasted everything for 5 hours, in addition to some Kamuy specialties. The baskets of fritay (cod acras) and chicken jerk Haitian still makes me salivate.
He did not become a lawyer as his father would have liked, even after three years in law in Ottawa. He is no less proud today when his son has three restaurants: the most extravagant baby, the one that represents him the most, the Kamuy, which benefits from the most exceptional showcase in the front row of the Place des Festivals. And then two counters at Time Out Market, the Eaton Center food fair: Chef Paul Toussaint and Americas BBQ. Each project supports the other according to the season’s traffic by tourists, locals and Paul’s eternal faithful. In addition to the pat on the shoulder that the Canada’s 100 Best site has just awarded him with the community leadership award.
