You can’t throw a stone from St. George’s Anglican Church in downtown Montreal without hitting one of the city’s landmarks. The Bell Centre (home ice for the Montreal Canadiens), the Queen Elizabeth and Marriott Chateau Champlain hotels, and the Sun Life Building are among the heritage attractions that tower around the neo-Gothic, gray-stone building. Neighbors like these make the parish a prime location for Canada’s first Refettorio.

Slated to open next fall, Montreal’s Refettorio joins an ensemble of dining halls around the world that feed the hungry with unsold food from supermarkets, restaurants, and producers. The concept was developed by Italian chef Massimo Bottura, of Osteria Francescana renown, and his partner Lara Gilmore, for the 2015 Milan Expo. The following year, backed by their new nonprofit, Food for Soul, the duo brought the Refettorio and 50 world-class chefs to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in an effort to transform Village leftovers into gourmet cuisine for those in need.

While initially tied to events, these Refettorios evolved into full-time community kitchens, spurring another two to open in London’s St. Cuthbert’s Centre and the crypt of L’église de la Madeleine in Paris. Three more are set to open in New York, San Francisco, and Mérida, Mexico. Plans for Montreal were as eventful as they were spontaneous. In May 2016, Bottura had come to promote the Theater of Life documentary about Refettorio Ambrosiano in Milan, and wanted to organize a mini-Refettorio and charity dinner alongside the screening. He quickly learned that when it comes to rallying chefs and salvaging food in Quebec, there’s one name you need to know: Jean-François Archambault.

Since 2002, Archambault’s organization La Tablée des Chefs has recovered more than 900 tons of surplus food and rerouted the equivalent of 3 million portions to people facing food insecurity. When he heard Bottura’s request, he sprang into action. “It was like Christmas, a top chef in the world coming to town,” he says. In a short time he set up a kitchen, sourced excess produce from IGA supermarkets, and recruited Mexico’s Enrique Olvera to join acclaimed local chefs in donning aprons that read “no more excuses.”

The meal, which was served to members of the Old Mission Brewery’s homeless community, was so successful that when Bottura was later asked at the event’s talk about establishing a permanent Refettorio in Montreal, he simply put the question to Archambault. “I looked at him, and I said: ‘Of course, let’s do it,’” Archambault recalls. Bottura gave him a chef’s vest with the inscription “Cooking is an act of love,” and later a copy of his cookbook Bread Is Gold, with a dedication to Montreal’s then new mayor, Valérie Plante. To deliver the book and get the green light, Archambault waited in line for three hours at City Hall’s Christmas open house.