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An Italian restaurant in Montreal has found itself in the disapproving crosshairs of Quebec’s language police for using Italian names for dishes on its menu — despite the fact that French names for some of the dishes do not even exist.

“They told me ‘polpette’ [Italian meatball] should be ‘boulettes de viande,’ so I asked them what to call ‘insalata caprese,’” said Massimo Lecas, owner of the Buonanotte restaurant, referring to a southern Italian tomato and mozzarella salad.

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“We’ve asked them what they would recommend, and they don’t even have answers,” he added.

On Tuesday, Mr. Lecas received a detailed letter from the Office québécois de la langue française citing him in violation of the Charter of the French Language for peppering his menu with words such as “pasta,” “pesce,” “antipasti,” “calamari” and, on the wine list, the Italian word for “bottle.”

“My menu is completely French, what I have in Italian are the names of my dishes,” said Mr. Lecas.