Francis Blais: From Toronto to the French Alps to a new Montréal dining room, a partnership built around origin finally comes to the table.
Sooner or later, every serious cook asks where things come from: the carrot, the butter, the salt. Few ask it about water, even though it’s in every stock, every dough and every glass poured before the bread arrives. Chef Francis Blais has been asking that question for a while. This fall it gets a formal answer: the Montréal chef is now evian® Brand Ambassador in Canada.
The appointment confirms a relationship more than it starts one. It formalizes a connection that grew dinner by dinner across two countries, and it comes in a big year for both sides. evian® is marking its 200th anniversary. Blais, who won Top Chef Canada in 2020 and co-founded the culinary studio Menu Extra, opened Bistrot à Franky, his first restaurant, in Montréal on October 12. Bistrot à Franky is already among Tastet’s selected addresses, and evian® is its exclusive water partner.
Toronto, Évian-les-Bains, Montréal
The story starts in Toronto in 2025 with Reflections of Terroir, the evening that marked Menu Extra’s Toronto debut. Its subject was origin, terroir and the role water plays in a meal. That can sound abstract until you taste a broth that depends on it.
In 2026 the conversation went back to the source. Blais travelled to Évian-les-Bains, on the French shore of Lake Geneva, to represent Canada at evian®’s global 200 Years Young celebrations. He was one of only two guest chefs chosen worldwide for the milestone fine-dining experience. There he saw for himself what the label only describes: rain and snow from the French Alps filtering through layers of glacial rock for more than 15 years and picking up minerals on the way.
“There is a sense of place and respect for origin behind evian® that really resonates with me as a chef,” Blais says. His cooking is built on seasonality, provenance and craftsmanship, so for him that isn’t marketing language. It describes the job.
Then the story came back to Montréal for Éloge de l’ombre, an immersive Menu Extra dinner inspired by water, time and nature. The title is the same as the French translation of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s 1933 essay on the beauty of shadow and patina, and the evening lived up to it. It brought together cooking, art, fragrance, sound, light and set design. Water was the theme rather than the product: slow, shaped by time and mostly unseen.
Why it makes sense here
Montréal has long understood that a meal is more than what’s on the plate. Diners judge the city’s best rooms as much on rhythm, light and how the glasses get refilled as on the cooking. Menu Extra built its reputation where food, art, design and culture meet. Bistrot à Franky now brings that sensibility to an everyday dining room.
“Our relationship with Francis has grown through a genuine, shared appreciation for provenance, creativity and hospitality,” says Alexandra Latendresse, Head of Beverages & Plant-Powered. “From Toronto to Évian-les-Bains and Montréal, we have seen that connection evolve naturally.”
A chapter still being written
Partnerships between chefs and brands often look finished on the day they’re announced, but this one doesn’t. On one side is a source that has been shaped by Alpine rock for two hundred years. On the other is a chef who treats every dinner as a chance to make something new. Over three cities and two years, they have learned to work together. What they still have to try is the most open part: a dish built around water, a dinner set somewhere unexpected, an idea of terroir neither would have reached alone.
As ambassador, Blais will carry that conversation across Canada through culinary moments throughout the year. Its permanent home is in Montréal, in the glasses at Bistrot à Franky. We’re excited to see what this partnership builds, and we’ll be at the table when it does.
Written by Élise Tastet
Photography by Alison Slattery
