MONTREAL -- An unlikely combination of two of Quebec’s most beloved dishes is selling like hotcakes and on track to become an instant holiday classic in the province.

Tourtière is a meat pie dish that has been a Christmas staple in Quebec since the 1600s. It’s usually made with minced pork, veal or beef and potatoes. Poutine, on the other hand, is a more recent favourite that emerged in rural Quebec in the late 1950s. It’s prepared by mixing crispy french fries with gooey cheese curds and topping them with a warm brown gravy.

Together, these two beloved dishes have been combined to create the tourtine.

At first it might seem like an unusual blend, but the tourtine has popped up in the past –but never as it has at Barron BBQ in the Saguenay-Lac St. Jean region of Quebec.

The grand opening of the restaurant was set for the spring, just as COVID-19 locked down much of the world. For musician Jean Sebastien Gauthier, Barron BBQ was to be a dream come true.

“A place where you see a live country band, dance, have fun, that is what I wanted to do, but COVID don’t want that,” Gauthier told CTV News.

Gauthier began to offer a standard takeout menu of burgers, chicken and fries, until he and his partner began to muse about the tourtine.

“We have a big BBQ like Texas, so we smoke the brisket, the pork shoulder,” Gauthier explained. “The sauce is foie gras, with cheese curd. Seems weird but everything works well together.”

At first the tourtine was just one of the items on the menu, but within a few weeks its popularity began to spread by word of mouth. Soon Barron BBQ had turned into a tourtine factory.

“It is like 200 every day, for us it is a lot, we have a big big big BBQ and it is not enough,” Gauthier says.

The tourtine has become a bit of a Christmas miracle for Barron BBQ and for the new staff who were hired after losing their jobs from nearby restaurants due to COVID-19 closures.

Now they plan to keep baking tourtine long after the holiday rush.