Maison Jofei: Comforting Asian Cooking in Hochelaga

It all started with a craving for Hainanese chicken that nobody in Montreal seemed to be making. Joseph and Faye, two cooks who became a duo at the stove, eventually landed on the obvious question: why not make it themselves? That craving turned into Maison Jofei, a neighbourhood restaurant on Sainte-Catherine Est in Hochelaga that blends the cuisines of Southeast Asia with disarming confidence.

Joseph Plus Faye

Before opening their first address, the two cooks stacked up years behind the line. Joseph spent close to a decade in Montreal kitchens, including a stint as sous-chef at Bottega, and Faye has put in several years of her own in the trade. Both also trained in Italian and French cooking, and they have no intention of shelving that background. “It would be a shame to set aside what we learned,” Joseph says. The name itself came together under pressure. “We really struggled to find a name, so we just stuck ours together,” he says with a laugh. Joseph plus Faye: Maison Jofei.

Your Aunt’s Antique-Filled Living Room

How does Joseph describe the feel of the place? “Like walking into your aunt’s house, the one who’s a bit of a hoarder and really into antiques.” That is exactly the vibe. Vintage pieces everywhere, plenty of character, around thirty seats, and the cosy hush of a living room. The menu is deliberately all over the map, and when anyone points out the lack of focus, Joseph counters that your grandmother doesn’t follow a strict concept either. “She just cooks what she feels like eating. We try to recreate that.”

From Hainanese Chicken to Hakka Gnocchi

At the centre of it all sits the founding dish: Hainanese chicken, the meat gently poached and served over rice with a row of sauces and a stock held at temperature for hours. Next to it, a master stock duck, built on a broth that gets reused indefinitely and deepens with every batch. By the team’s own account, Maison Jofei is the only table in the city serving it. The menu also runs to Malaysian nasi lemak, with fried chicken and a house sambal layered with shrimp paste and coconut milk, plus Faye’s mother’s Hakka “gnocchi,” little taro and tapioca balls that carry the full weight of family memory. As members of the Hakka minority, Joseph and Faye are set on preserving traditional recipes that, in their words, fewer and fewer people know how to make.

The rest follows the same logic of pure pleasure: a handful of cocktails, sake, and a touch of house-made gelato in Asian flavours. It’s a kitchen that takes, as Joseph puts it, the road less travelled. Maison Jofei is where you head when a craving hits for comforting, flavour-packed food in a relaxed room. In other words, when you want to feel at home.

Written by Jean-Philippe Tastet
Photography by Alison Slattery

Updated on June 11, 2026

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