“Our cuisine takes risks. In the beginning, people would freak out about how we present things, or include other cuisines, and the risk-taking is what sets us apart,” chef Mike Lafaille told us when we caught with him at his location for Kwizinn in Old Montreal.

At this address, Lafaille's trying out new avenues in his cooking. Apart from keeping bangers like his plantain burger, it’s a far cry from his old platters with rice, salad, and pikliz: Here, the new chapter’s aspiring to experiments that explore Caribbean cuisines further with things like oysters served with a calamansi sabayon, empanadas with scotch bonnet jam, short rib bao buns with a hoisin-mango sauce, or plantain hummus with a lemon confit.