Montreal Jour 3: Smoked Meat Pete
One place in Montreal that I’ve heard much about and yet had never previously visited was Smoked Meat Pete’s. I’d heard the name, I’d heard it was far from the center of Montreal, I’d heard the food was supposedly outstanding. I’d even heard the tasty and tasteless motto: “You can’t beat Pete’s meat”
We’ll leave that up to Pete.
Anyway, yesterday night I tossed my buddy Ben Leszcz in the car and we headed off the western tip of the island of Montreal onto Ile Perrot, some 20 plus kilometers out of town. There, behind a vintage Dairy Queen, sat Smoked Meat Pete, the unlikliest place to encounter great deli.
Inside a blues band was plucking away, singing about heart attacks (from women and chopped liver) and heartbreak. The air hung thick with BBQ smoke, and the wagon wheels and worn wooden benches made it feel like a rib joint, which it partly is. After ordering and paying at the cash, we waited for the meat to come and listened to the tunes.
The place had serious promise, likely because Peter Varvaro Jr. is the son of Peter Varvaro, the owner of the Main Deli, directly accross from Schwartz’s on St. Laurent (aka the Main blvd). With decades in the smoked meat business, the younger Pete decided to set off on his own a decade ago, and the result has been tremendous.
The waitress brought out a trio of treats.
First to dissapear was the ultimate Quebec treat: Smoked Meat Poutine.
For those who don’t know, poutine is the ultimate heart attack food, a French Canadian concoction of golden french fries, cheese curds, and a thick beef gravy. It tastes of heaven and slows the body, but the idea of mixing in chopped smoked meat seemed risky and somewhat goyish. The result however was heaven, shrouded in layer upon layer of decadent sin. Salty, meaty, beefy, cheesy, starchy, and just plain old fat. When I get to death row, that’s what I’ll be eating before I go. Watch Ben go to town:
Next was a nice scoop of beef chopped liver, dark and sweet, pasty and flecked with bits of chopped egg. The kicker, and truly the best part was the little mound of crisp fried onion strips, almost hairlike in size, that were infused with gallons of delicious oil which made the perfect topping for the liver atop rye. Chopped liver without fried onions is like a night without stars.
And finally, the piece de resistance: Le smoked meat. Pete’s is dry cured like many of Montreal’s finest, which means that the briskets are rubbed with spices, left to marinate for a week or more, then smoked (usually baked) and finally steamed. There’s no preservatives, no pumping or injecting, just a natural slow cure, some cooking, and lots o’ love. Pete’s famous meat is rightly so; it crumbled nicely upon biting in, was tender, and extremely moist (to the point of being succulent). It came with a beautiful dark carmel crust, which lent a hint of sweetness to the peppery spice, a lot more pronounced than others in town.
Best of all, Smoked Meat Pete is right on the way into or out of Montreal if you’re coming from (or going to) Toronto. It’s about ten minutes from the airport, so really there’s no excuse not to go.
*also, Peter Sr. is having a bit of maintenance this coming week, so send your wishes and prayers to one of Montreal’s first families of smoked meat
Smoked Meat Pete
283 1 AV
ÎLE-PERROT,QC
(514) 425-6068
