La Poutine Week

Held each year over the first week of February, La Poutine Week has grown since its 2013 launch in Montréal into the world's largest poutine festival, with more than 700 restaurants across Canada taking part and over 325,000 customers sampling their creations. Founded by marketing entrepreneur Na'eem Adam and lawyer Thierry Rassam, who had previously launched the successful Le Burger Week, the festival invites participating restaurants in cities including Montréal, Québec City, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Calgary to create their own inventive take on Canada's most iconic comfort food.

Poutine itself, a combination of french fries, cheese curds and brown gravy, first emerged in rural Quebec in the late 1950s, most commonly traced to the town of Warwick, where dairy farmers already produced the squeaky cheese curds essential to an authentic version. During La Poutine Week, restaurants push well beyond the classic combination, offering everything from foie gras and truffle versions to butter chicken and Sugar Shack maple-whisky interpretations, with a dedicated app letting visitors track down and rate every poutine they try.

For a dish that Canadians themselves voted their favourite iconic national food — ahead of both maple syrup and lobster — La Poutine Week offers the single most comprehensive way to explore just how far the country's chefs have pushed a dish that began as a simple, unglamorous diner order.