La Table Fermière of La Brasserie Dunham: For the Love of Local Products

The Dunham brewery, a prime, beer lovers destination in the region, is now offering its visitors a complete experience with its Table Fermière restaurant, where they can savour the best products of the region, prepared by Chef Luc Pinard.

For Eloi Deit, one of the three owners, the idea behind La Table Fermière was to continue the project they started a few years ago as they established the brewery, the tasting room, the boutique and their third-floor lodging proposal: to revitalize Le Relais de la Diligence, one of the most beautiful historical buildings of Dunham.

Eloi explains, “There used to be a restaurant in the space where we now find La Table Fermière and, when it closed, we immediately saw an opportunity to add a fine quality, gastronomical proposal to the experience we were already offering at our brewery. We were inspired by what we saw in Vermont at Hen of the Wood, a restaurant which adheres to the ‘farm to table’ concept. Our vision was to work as much as possible with organic products and local farms.”

When Your Neighbours Become Your Suppliers

Chef Luc Pinard never goes very far to purchase his organic vegetables with Jardins du Pied de Céleri, located just 750 metres from the brewery. La Table Fermière also collaborates with Jardins de la Grenilette in St-Armand and Ferme des Quatre-Temps in Hemmingford. Capitaine Levain, in Stanbridge-East, provides bread and the Rheinthal farm, Abattoir Campbell and Selby Farm supply all the restaurant’s meat products; the Chef, in fact, takes great pride in being able to use any carcass, from snout to tail.

The word collaboration is quite appropriate here, since the Chef works very closely with local producers in order to plan, for example, the right variety of seeds to plant for the vegetables he hopes to work with during the upcoming year. “I asked Benoit of Pied de Céleri to plant some broccolini, parsnip, Savoy cabbage.” The chef, while slicing Jerusalem Artichokes, is happy to confirm, “We will even have a section of the vegetable garden reserved just for us, to grow all our products! I always start with what is in season to prepare the dishes on our menu, which changes weekly. In fact, the menu clearly indicates where our food comes from. Plus, on a weekly basis, on the restaurant chalk board, we honour a local producer with a text presenting their work philosophy.”

Eloi asserts, “It is essential for us to be able to tell our clients where our products come from. It’s important to highlight the fact that our dishes are made with local, organic products because this explains why they might cost a bit more than elsewhere; They will find high quality in the products we use as well as in the attention invested in transforming them.”

In fact, they hope that by savouring these fine quality dishes inside a “cozy and relaxed” atmosphere, their customers will be totally charmed.

Eloi again explains, “We wanted to offer a high-end food selection within a friendly setting. We will welcome you whether you’re wearing working boots or classic evening attire. We wanted something creative and also to work with seasonal products.”

Of course, beer is always offered at La Table Fermière whether as a sauce base or as the perfect pairing to accompany its menu offerings!