Brace for Agrikol, Arcade Fire's New Montreal Restaurant

In a year rife with blockbuster restaurant announcements, this may trump all. Arcade Fire's Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, and Jen Agg and Roland Jean of Toronto's The Black Hoof and Rhum Corner, are slated to open a restaurant in Montreal. In Agrikol, on Amherst in the Village, the partners will riff on Rhum Corner's Haitian street food, rum bar vibe. The Globe and Mail offered some more details yesterday: "Featuring Haitian cuisine, music and visual arts, the space will build on the cultural advocacy work that Chassagne and Butler have demonstrated since Montreal-based Arcade Fire started raising funds for Haiti in 2005. For Agg and the Haitian-born Jean (who is also a painter), it will be a chance to take their signature, convivial restaurant style beyond Toronto’s Dundas Street West."

Butler calls Agrikol "an art project." "The idea is that it’s a cultural space. The thing that we were really impressed with at Rhum Corner is that it’s this space for Haitian and Caribbean culture and it’s really cool and contemporary." As for the food at Agrikol, Agg describes it as "slightly differently, but the food and flavours are really authentic." "It’s going to be fun because there is just a much larger [Haitian] community [in Montreal], so we have access to ingredients that we don’t have in Toronto." Watch for Agrikol this summer.