La Porte Arrière, enter through the front door!

Rédaction

Marc Larouche, he shares with us his tourist discoveries of his adopted region with passion!

They are young, dynamic and offer a new cuisine that they concoct and invent according to their imagination, much to the delight of their guests. Rivière-du-Loup’s La Porte Arrière restaurant has become a must for tourists and a popular meeting place for locals.

It couldn’t be any other way, since La Porte Arrière is owned by two couples of friends united by their passion for fine dining: Philippe Lafrenière, Martin Matte, Patricia Charest and Mynessa Lapointe-Ouellet. Together, they have developed a festive, spontaneous cuisine.

“The idea of having our own restaurant was a shared dream. At a party, we started bouncing ideas around, talking about our options, and we initially wanted to do small pop-up-style events. We decided that if we were going to go for it, we might as well go for the full package, which meant a restaurant,” notes Martin.

We wanted to do things in our own image, work for us and bring something new to downtown.

More than a new restaurant, La Porte Arrière is something unique, a complete and truly different experience. As soon as you enter, you feel a little something, a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere that augurs well for the evening ahead. The restaurant is open-plan, so you can see the cooks at work, creating and having fun. You can even chat with them!

The Ardoise menu is evolving, different every week, and local and seasonal products are featured from A to Z. “We work with the flavors available from regional products, seaside herbs, wild fruits, market gardeners and others, which we adapt according to our imagination,” Philippe continues.

On our visit, we couldn’t make up our minds with such an inviting menu, so we opted for… three starters: charcuterie and oysters so succulent we kept asking for more. We also couldn’t resist the offer of foie gras au torchon that we were eyeing at the next table.

For the main course, we opted for the duo of home-made black pudding and scallops. A rather unusual pairing, but one that produced perfect taste and a unique complement of flavors. That’s what creation and love of cooking are all about. If it’s on the menu, you’ll never have tasted a better sweetbread. For dessert, our taste buds are still dreaming of homemade cheesecake served in a jar… Add to this a wine list featuring natural and organic products imported privately.

Mynessa and Patricia handle the service brilliantly. In fact, it was because (thanks to) their inviting presentation of the menu that we tasted … three starters. We could have sworn they’d tried and loved everything. They weren’t presenting us with a menu, they were offering us flavors with sparkle in their eyes.

What will you choose? No one knows. “The boys are always perfecting their skills to keep up with the trends,” conclude the girls. One thing’s for sure: you’ll remember it, and you’ll come back through the back door!