Twenty years ago, the name Pourcel was front-row centre on every foodie’s top-chef list. There was not one but two Pourcels, brothers Jacques and Laurent, both chefs and identical twins at that.

A chef’s career can have many twists and turns, yet you’d be hard pressed to find one that has as many as Jonathan Gushue’s.

Her restaurant Chez St-Pierre and her championing of local products have placed her hometown of Le Bic, Quebec on the food lover’s map.

Marc Bourg is pacing around my kitchen like an expectant father. “Is the cast iron skillet ready? Is the oven preheated?”

Scan the shelves of any gourmet shop and you’ll find a plethora of honeys. Ranging in colour from pale yellow to a deep amber hue, they often hail from exotic locations like Corsica or Provence not our own backyard. Miels d’Anicet is liquid Canadian gold.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: Don’t be surprised to find pig’s ears, partridge, and/or duck testicles in this, the epitome of French comfort food.

In the three years since it opened, Crête’s restaurant, Montréal Plaza, has become the city’s most enchanting culinary spot.

Christine Ferber is one of the greatest pastry chefs in France and considered by many to be the top jam maker on the planet.

Acclaimed food blogger and author David Lebovitz serves up French cuisine, one recipe and one story at a time.

Being so labour intensive, it’s no surprise that vanilla beans are expensive, but today you’ll pay a lot more for them—if you can find them at all.

For this Montreal group’s growing restaurant empire, family comes first.

Chef Alain Ducasse’s empire is impressive. Few are aware, however, that this famed French chef also owns two Provençal country-style hotels.

Though chocolate cakes have been old hat in 19th-century Vienna, many legal battles have transpired as to who owns the Sachetorte cake.

François Nadon is identified on the Montreal cooking scene as a chef who produces some of its most exquisite food.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: When you enter the shop on rue de la Roquette, you’re hit with the most luxurious of aromas: chocolate. And not just any chocolate but chocolate made in the open manufacture (workshop) on-site. This chocolate is so pure, all that’s missing is the cocoa plantation out back.

We asked judges in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto to select their respective cities’ finest ice creams. Here are Montreal’s results.

In the hands of this chef, a humble chicken is given star treatment worthy of a grande table in Europe.

Apparently it is the women who choose the colour of the houses in Bermuda. And when wandering around the city in a taxi, on a bike, on the back of a scooter, you get the feeling the Bermudian ladies love their pastels.

At first glance, the crowd at Park restaurant would seem the envy of any restaurateur.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: It’s your typical Saturday night at Joe Beef, where the foie gras is served “en terrine”, the selection of Loire whites is impressive, and the Glidden Point, Island Creek and Stanley Bridge oysters are shucked at a rapid pace.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:  It’s just after 2 p.m. at Spring, the sharp-and-chic restaurant a few blocks from the Louvre in Paris. Chef/owner Daniel Rose, 35, is leaning on the counter of the open kitchen, discussing the daily deliveries with two colleagues.

Located in the southwest of France some 30 kilometres south of Lyon, Vienne is a city famous for its cuisine. Yet when driving through its narrow streets, all the bistros, cafés, patisseries, and boucheries whiz past in a blur. For the diehard foodie there is but one destination in Vienne: La Pyramide.

The man sitting next to me is holding a coffee cup in one hand and is wildly pointing with the other. “There he is!” he whispers loudly to his wife, who looks around wildly and says, “Where? Where?” The “he” in question is chef Masaharu Morimoto, who has nonchalantly entered the amphitheatre at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa, California, to perform a cooking demonstration.

In today’s era of star chefs, David Tanis is definitely under the radar. The author of three cookbooks and the “City Kitchen” column for The New York Times, Tanis made his name working alongside Alice Waters as chef de cuisine at the California restaurant Chez Panisse.

Food and wine lovers are familiar with the bounty of California’s Napa Valley. From its bakeries, to its stylish pizza places, to its Michelin-starred restaurants, to its hundreds of vineyard tasting rooms filled with expert sippers, Napa is nothing short of a gastronome’s paradise.

Although Montreal’s most successful chefs may have popular restaurants and bestselling cookbooks, they may soon have to make way for the dozens of young Québécois cuistots slowly but surely working their way to the top. The talent pool is deep in the province, and the number of successful chef-restaurateurs continues to grow. One of the chefs widely marked for stardom is Martin Juneau.

Everything you hear about Las Vegas is true. It’s wonderfully tacky, deliciously sleazy, and as irreverent as the late Amy Winehouse on a bender.