A restaurant chain in Canada that specializes in a local delicacy of fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds has dropped the variety named after Russia’s leader over the conflict in Ukraine, the chain said Thursday. Frites Alors! It used to call its signature dish ‘The Vladimir’, playing off the fact that the French translation of President Vladimir Putin’s last name also applies to the nosh, poutine.
In response to customer complaints, the restaurant chain changed it to ‘The Volodymyr’ in honor of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, its manager Yannick de Groote told AFP. ‘We’re also denigrating Putin a bit by changing the name to that of Ukraine’s president,’ he added.
‘Founders of Frites Alors!, which has more than a dozen outlets in Quebec province and a few in France, are apolitical and jokesters’, he says. Most of Frites Alors!’s other dishes poke fun at famous people or make fun of their ingredients, such as Kimchi, Picashew, or L’eau a la Bush, a mix of mouthwatering French and George W. Bush.
In 2012, Putin was re-elected as president and the Vladimir cocktail was added to its menu. ‘When people realized that Putin was dropping bombs (on Ukraine), at that point we decided to make the menu change,’ de Groote said. The restaurant called La Maison de la Poutine in France said in a statement that it had received insults and threats from people who mistakenly associated its main dish with the Russian president.
It stated that Maison de la Poutine is not connected with the Russian government and its leader. Meanwhile the Roy Jucep restaurant in Drummondville, Quebec, which claims to be the inventor of poutine, in a rebuke to Russia, has re-branded itself on social media as ‘the inventor of fries-cheese-gravy’.
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