Sabayon

Pastry precision at a small pass

Québec produce turns through modern form at Sabayon in Pointe-Saint-Charles, Montréal, a micro-restaurant opened on 1 August 2023 by chef Patrice Demers and sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin. Demers came to savoury fine dining from pâtisserie, having previously led Patrice Pâtissier, and Michelin inspectors named that atypical trajectory as a strength when the room took its star in 2025.

The pastry formation is not a biographical footnote here. It explains the plates. Precision, texture and flavour balance learned at the bench now run through vegetable-forward cooking, and the desserts remain a stated strength rather than an afterthought at the end of a sequence. Sabayon is not built for scale. It is a 14-seat room with a surprise six-course menu, where the distance between the pass and the guest is short and there is little room for error. Demers works in partnership with the province’s top producers, letting Québec terroir carry vivid, unpretentious dishes.

A menu held by produce and pastry logic

Sabayon’s kitchen works around a tasting menu rather than à la carte choice, and the structure gives the bench a narrow field in which to be exact. The house is associated with a six-course surprise format, with fruits, vegetables, and Québec products doing much of the work, and the menu shifts constantly with the season and with whatever the kitchen is currently chasing. In summer, it has been described as almost entirely meat-free, a decision that puts the pressure on texture, acidity, smoke, and sauce rather than on the easy weight of protein.

The dish most closely tied to the place is wood fire-grilled blanc de gris mushrooms with a crisp arlette, cauliflower, and a bay leaf-juniper sabayon. The construction tells you something about the method: fire for depth, pastry for shatter, vegetable for body, emulsion for lift. It is a savoury plate built with pâtisserie logic, each element carrying a job. Nothing on it is there to fill the plate, which is the discipline a six-course menu demands when every course is compared with the last.

The room keeps the work close

The room at Sabayon asks the kitchen to be personal without becoming performative. In a 14-seat space, the pass cannot hide behind volume, and service cannot blur into choreography. The atmosphere is quiet, intimate, and convivial, closer to a private room than to a dining room built on turnover. The counter, the table, and the bench all feel near enough for the guest to register the sequence of the meal as it is being made, and Beaudoin’s work on the glass is part of that closeness rather than a separate act.

That proximity changes the craft. A sauce arrives with its temperature intact. Smoke from the mushrooms does not have far to travel. The arlette keeps its crackle because the plate is not waiting on a long rail. Sabayon’s recognition includes a Michelin star in 2025 and a place at 34 on The World’s 50 Best list, and blanc de gris mushrooms, cauliflower, and bay leaf-juniper sabayon leave the pass in a room built for 14.