When It’s Cold Out, What You Need Is This Winter Feast

As soon as the temperature drops, we seek out a vacation that can help us escape the cold spell: Think bathing suits, not long johns. But for the team behind Montreal’s extremely hip “coffee, pizza, wine” restaurant Elena, nothing says winter break like a cozy weekend away in a snow-covered town beneath Mont Tremblant, two hours north of the city. So we followed a crew of Elena staffers to a quintessential Quebecois cabin to learn how they like to eat, drink, and be merry during their time off. Turns out it’s more or less how they do it on the job: with uncomplicated food driven by Italian traditions and Quebecois provisions. Plop chef Janice Tiefenbach in a log cabin with a bunch of coworkers and the only difference is a few extra cooks in the kitchen and the chance to take an appetite-inducing snowshoeing trek before dinner. There were glasses of soul-warming amaro hot toddies, platters abundant with house-made charcuterie brought in from the restaurant, and hand-cut squares of charred-onion-and-provolone pizza. Time to rethink our winter getaway. Those Canadians are onto something.