Seal meat is banned in Europe, but in Montreal it is served at restaurants like Les Iles en Ville.

By MICHELINE MAYNARD


MONTREAL - One recent evening, almost every seat was occupied at Au Cinquieme Peche, a bistro in the bustling neighborhood here called the Plateau. And almost every table was sampling an appetizer plate that included a specialty of the restaurant’s French-born chef, Benoit Lenglet: a seared, rare loin, dark red in color, with a texture and taste akin to beef tenderloin. But the meat was not beef. It was seal.

Across town, at Les Iles en Ville, Andree Garcia, an owner and chef, has elevated seal from an occasional specialty to a regular feature. She has noticed a pattern among the customers who order it: many are tourists from France. “The French are against seal hunting,” Ms.Garcia said, “but when they come here, they want to eat it.”

The handful of restaurants in Canada that serve seal received an unexpected boost last month, when the European Union banned imports of commercially caught Canadian seal products.

Just days after the ban, Canada’s governor general, Michaelle Jean, who as a representative of Queen Elizabeth II acts as the ceremonial head of state, nibbled on a piece of raw seal heart during a visit to an Inuit community feast in Rankin Inlet, in the far northern territory of Nunavut. Governor General Jean’s widely publicized snack seemed a direct retort to the European Union.

“Take from that what you will,” she said, when asked if she was sending a message to Europe.

The episode also cast a spotlight on seal-serving chefs like Mr.Lenglet.

With the attention has come an increase in orders for Mr.Lenglet’s seal dishes, but also death threats, in the form of e-mail messages from Europe, where seal hunting protests have been most intense. Mr.Lenglet said he was not surprised. “In the polemic, there are always people who are for and against something,” he said.

Other Canadian chefs and merchants appear divided over whether seal deserves a place on the table.

Martin Picard, the chef at Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, who is known for featuring audacious dishes like bison tongue croquettes, has so far stayed away from seal.

“It is a little controversial,” said Gaelle Cerf, the restaurant’s manager. But if enough customers request it, “perhaps we will have to offer it,” Ms.Cerf said.

Canada allows two distinct hunts each year: a small one by Inuits in the Arctic, mainly a subsistence hunt for food, and the much larger Gulf of St.Lawrence hunt on the Atlantic coast, driven primarily by the fur trade.

In the latter hunt, which has been the focus of protests by animal rights groups, fishermen are allowed to kill 280,000 seals out of a herd that Canadian officials estimate at 5.6 million. About 15,800 Canadians hold seal hunting licenses.

“This activity is part of the way of life of thousands of people in our country,” Governor General Jean said after her visit to northern Canada.

Besides Canada, the only countries still conducting commercial hunts are Norway, Greenland and Namibia, according to the Humane Society International, Canada.

The Canadian humane society does not oppose the small hunt in the far north. Its main objection to seal dishes in restaurants, it says, is that the cuisine deflects attention from the bigger hunt, which the society has been working to end.

The big gulf hunt is the supply source for restaurants like Au Cinquieme Peche. Mr.Lenglet, the chef, began experimenting with seal after a sous-chef applicant brought him a piece of meat from his native Magdalen Islands in far eastern Quebec, a major center of the commercial seal hunt.

He has since taken a deep interest in the way seal reaches his restaurant, traveling to the islands to meet the hunters, and visiting the abattoir where the meat is butchered.

“I could eat a steak of seal,” Mr.Lenglet said. “Anyone who likes red meat or game will like it.”