The facts
What the award rewards
Aliments du Québec au menu is a recognition programme that certifies the share of Québec food on a restaurant’s menu. Each year it presents a Prix restaurateur. Its purpose, in the organization’s own words: to recognize restaurateurs in the programme who stand out for their initiatives and their commitment to sourcing, using and showcasing Québec food.
So it is not a cooking award. It is a sourcing award — the one that judges what happens before the plate.
November 16, 2021
Maison Boire was named grand winner of the 4th edition, at the ARQ’s annual congress.
The jury cited a complete and innovative approach with the environment at the centre of the culinary practice: a creative menu built on Québec ingredients — organic, minimally processed, bought straight from the farm — with the rest coming from the house gardens or made on site.
Made on site, then as now: flour milled in-house, vinegars, spice blends, and the tableware thrown in the studio upstairs.
"Only the coffee isn’t local"
That is the line La Presse took from Brian Proulx two days after the ceremony, in a piece headlined "Maison Boire : 100 % local… sauf le café".
It states the ambition and its limit in the same breath, which is rare in a restaurant quote. Coffee does not grow in Québec. Neither, strictly speaking, does salt — which is why the only one of our seventeen producers past 120 km is a saltworks on the St. Lawrence, at Grandes-Bergeronnes.
We have never claimed 100 %. We publish the distances and let the numbers speak.
→ Our 17 producers, with their distance from GranbyWhat we have done with it since
The 2021 award changed nothing about the method; it changed the number of people watching it.
Since then the menu has kept following the farms rather than the other way round. Vertical growing towers were added. The rooftop garden reclaims heat from the grill to stretch the season at both ends. Maison Boire has remained an active member of Aliments du Québec au menu, and an accredited partner restaurant of the Créateurs de saveurs des Cantons-de-l’Est.
In 2025, and again in 2026, the MICHELIN Guide kept the house in its selection.
→ The MICHELIN Guide selection, 2025 and 2026Press coverage
- Maison Boire: 100% local… except the coffee — La Presse, November 18, 2021 (French)
- Aliments du Québec au menu 2021 Restaurateur Award — Tastet
- La Maison Boire désignée comme restaurateur de l’année au Québec — Le Granby Express, (French)
- Le gros laboratoire de la Maison Boire — Le Soleil, November 7, 2021 (French)
- Maison Boire, gagnant du Prix restaurateur 2021 — Aliments du Québec au menu, official announcement (French)