A French restaurant says it received insults and threats from customers who thought its poutine, an iconic Quebec dish, was called Poutine

A restaurant in France is seeking to clear its name after it caused confusion over poutine, its signature fries doused in cheese curds and gravy, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the leader who announced an invasion of Ukraine a year ago. little over a week.

La Maison de la Poutine, or The House of Poutine, tweeted on Friday that it had received “insulting calls and even threats” about its eponymous dish.

“It therefore seems necessary to us to recall that La Maison de la Poutine has no connection with the Russian regime and its leader,” reads the tweet. It featured the restaurant’s logo, a heart emoji, and the Ukrainian flag.

“Our dish was born in Quebec in the 1950s. And the stories to tell its origin are numerous. But one thing is certain: poutine was created by passionate cooks who are committed to bringing joy and comfort to their customers. which operates two sites in Paris and one in Toulouse, wrote.

The restaurant then offered its support to the “Ukrainian people who bravely fight for their freedom against the tyrannical Russian regime”.

Entire businesses and industries have been cut ties with the Russian economy and its elite, as Western governments impose heavy sanctions on Moscow in response to Putin’s attack on Ukraine.

Last week, Quebec restaurant Le Roy Jucep joined the fray, saying it was removing the word “poutine” from its branding to protest the invasion, according to Canadian daily The Ottawa Citizen.

The restaurant, which claims to have invented poutine, said in a now-deleted Facebook post that the dish will temporarily be called “cheese sauce fries”, according to the Citizen.

A previous version of this article reported that the flag in the tweet was the Russian flag, when it is actually the Ukrainian flag. We apologize for the error.