Customers blast French poutine restaurant after confusing dish with support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A French restaurant attempted to clear the foul odor of contempt last week after receiving numerous calls and threats over its namesake dish, which it said some in France mistook for support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Business Insider reports. La Maison de la Poutine, or The House of Poutine, specializes in the French Quebecois comfort dish that consists of fries decadently drenched in gravy and cheese curds. It “seems necessary for us to recall that La Maison de la Poutine is unrelated to the Russian regime and its leader,” the restaurant tweeted Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn criticism and outrage since launching attacks against neighboring Ukraine two weeks ago. In response, some businesses and industries in the West have moved to cut ties with Russia, with reports of U.S. liquor stores and restaurants pulling items like Russian vodka off their shelves. In Quebec, where the dish was invented in the 1950s, a restaurant called Le Roy Jucep said it would go as far as to remove the word “poutine” from its menus in protest. There, the dish has been rebranded; it’s now known simply as “fries cheese gravy.” —Safiya Charles