Duo De Chef: Celebrating Montreal’s Cultural Diversity Through Food
Rick-Andy Jean Baptiste, aka Chef Ray, one of the founders of L’Atelier Duo De Chef, experienced a childhood filled with food. His father owned restaurants and catering businesses in the Old Port of Montreal and would wake him and his brother up to help with the food prep. “We would shell peas and cut meat and be his sous chef,” he reminisces, “I grew up knowing I was good at it from an early age.”
That knowledge led him to attend Montreal’s Calixa-Lavallée Hotel Management School, where he crossed paths with Donald Joseph (Chef Don), who he had known since childhood. They both grew up in Montreal’s Rivière-des-Prairies neighborhood, often called RDP, a multi-ethnic suburban borough located at the east end of the Island of Montreal. Realizing they had a strong chemistry, the two paired up after graduating in 2008 and began preparing dishes for events, eventually leading them to create a catering business. Teaming up with Chef Ray’s cousin Rémi Jean-Baptiste (Chef Dreezy), they transformed his basement into a commercial kitchen, eventually welcoming Karl-Jude Cétoute (Chef Karlito), a fellow graduate of Calixa-Lavallée, to their group and L’Atelier Duo de Chef, a duet of chefs which is, in fact, a quartet, was born.
L’Atelier Duo De Chef opened in August 2019, months before COVID hit, and the team had to pivot quickly. “When we first opened, we wanted a restaurant where people could sit down and have an experience,” says Chef Ray. There were concerns when they had to close in March and move to take-out, but it worked for the group, and now they only do take-out. “Now we can focus mainly on giving people the food they want,” he says.
L’Atelier Duo De Chef opened in August 2019, months before COVID hit, and the team had to pivot quickly. “When we first opened, we wanted a restaurant where people could sit down and have an experience,” says Chef Ray. There were concerns when they had to close in March and move to take-out, but it worked for the group, and now they only do take-out. “Now we can focus mainly on giving people the food they want,” he says.
Growing up in what they call Montreal’s cultural diversity, L’Atelier Duo de Chef’s cuisine is inspired by Caribbean flavors with a Haitian twist and a mission to popularize the Urban Gastronomic style of Montreal. “We were all born in Montreal but grew up Haitian at home,” explains Chef Ray. “Since none of us were born in Haiti, our vision of food is not the same as some who grew up in Haiti. Our food is a mixture of what a little Haitian girl or boy growing up in Montreal would love to eat.”
That mixture includes traditional Haitian foods such as Griot: pork shoulder cubes slowly braised in a sweet, spicy, and tangy marinade of chile peppers, onions, and orange, lime, or lemon juice until tender, then fried in a skillet and often served with red beans and rice. L’Atelier Duo de Chef offers a version called Griot Lakay; Lakay translates to “homemade” in Haitian Créole and even puts Griot on their poutine. The menu also features traditional Southern American fare like BBQ ribs, grilled shrimp, mac and cheese, and Caribbean-inspired dishes such as banana plantain and jerk chicken. “Montreal has its own flavour,” says Chef Ray. “Duo De Chef is the closest to what Montreal flavour is because we are a mixture of everything that Montreal culture is about.”
Expanding past the food, L’Atelier Duo De Chef focuses on offering customers an experience. “The food is about Caribbean Montreal, the music you listen to when you pick up your food is Afro and Hip Hop and Jazz, and that’s in everything that you taste in the food,” says Chef Ray. They have evolved their concept beyond the take-out counter, teaming up with local artists to showcase their food at music events and preparing meal trays at low prices for the students of Jean-Grou High School. “It’s the lifestyle that we have in Montreal and the mixed ethnicity which allows our customers to connect with us beyond the food,” says Chef Ray, “we grew up here, and for us, it’s important to give back to the community.”
While Chef Ray appreciates the awareness Black History Month brings to black-owned businesses in Canada, he feels “that we should not wait until February to give awareness to what black people are doing – for us, we’re black all year long.” Inspired by Chef Jae-Anthony Dougan, the founder of Seasoned Dreams, a Caribbean restaurant in Montreal with a significant online presence, Chef Ray feels it is important for L’Atelier Duo De Chef to leverage social media as a platform and means to communicate and educate about their food and culture.
As for the future of L’Atelier Duo De Chef, the focus is on building ties within the neighbourhood: “We are in a good position to say we’re going to open more locations and are always looking at opportunities, but for now, we’re focusing on events and trying to build something for our community that reflects who we are,” says Chef Ray. “At Duo De Chef, we became business managers, but we’re really just great friends. Our relationship with each other and our customers is bigger than anything else.”
