The Best thing I Ate This Month – August 2026

Every time I go to Montreal, I make a promise to myself: this time, I am going to try somewhere new.

Montreal has an almost embarrassing number of great restaurants. I have a list. I have recommendations. I have friends who send me messages that begin with, “You have to try this place.” There is no shortage of places to eat.

And yet, sooner or later, I find myself at Ma Poule Mouillée eating chicken.

At this point, it is less a restaurant visit than a failure of character.

Ma Poule Mouillée has been serving Portuguese charcoal grilled chicken in the Plateau Mont Royal since 2013. It is famous, there is almost always a lineup, and nobody seems particularly concerned about keeping it a secret. You stand outside with everyone else, watching people walk out carrying enough food to feed a small wedding, and think, yes, this is probably where I belong.

The chicken is the reason.

Charcoal does a lot of heavy lifting here, in the best possible way. The skin gets smoky and deeply seasoned while the meat stays juicy, and then there is the sauce. The restaurant makes a big deal about its house spicy sauce, and for once the promotional copy is not lying. Chef Tony Alves has said that anyone can grill a chicken, but it is the sauce that makes the difference.

He is right.

The chicken is good on its own, but the sauce is what makes you start applying it to things that were never supposed to have sauce on them.

I usually order the chicken with fries and salad, because I like to pretend I am a person who makes sensible decisions. The fries are crisp, salty and perfectly suited to becoming a vehicle for the sauce. The salad is green, which is useful because it allows you to look at the plate and convince yourself that there is a nutritional argument happening here.

This time, I abandoned the pretence and ordered the chicken poutine.

Montreal is, in my opinion, the best place in the world to eat poutine. This is not a position I am prepared to defend academically, but I have eaten enough poutine to feel comfortable issuing the ruling.

Ma Poule Mouillée does a very good one.

The usual poutine already has everything going for it: fries, cheese curds and gravy. Adding Portuguese charcoal chicken is what happens when someone looks at a perfectly successful dish and says, “Yes, but what if we made it even less reasonable?”

The result is glorious.

It is salty, rich, saucy and completely incapable of being eaten delicately. By the end, you are no longer having dinner. You are negotiating with gravity.

The portions at Ma Poule Mouillée are generous in the way that only restaurants that have completely lost interest in portion control can be generous. Nobody leaves wondering whether they got their money’s worth. The more likely question is whether they will ever be able to bend over again.

And then, because apparently I have learned nothing, I finish with a pastel de nata.

These Portuguese custard tarts are small, flaky and beautifully blistered on top, which makes them seem almost innocent after the mountain of chicken and fries you have just consumed. They are not innocent. They are dessert. There is a difference.

I have never had anything quite like Ma Poule Mouillée. The food is straightforward, but the flavours are anything but. Charcoal, spice, chicken, sauce, fries, cheese curds and custard tarts should not necessarily add up to a meal this memorable, but somehow they do.

The restaurant is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is closed Monday, presumably to give the staff, the chickens and the customers a chance to recover.

I still intend to explore more of Montreal’s restaurants. I really do.

But then I remember the chicken.

And there I am again, standing in line.

Some restaurants have to convince you to come back.

Ma Poule Mouillée doesn’t have that problem. Apparently, neither do I.