First off we had an absolutely amazing time and can’t wait to return to Montreal. The restaurant people are amongst the most friendly, welcoming and talented of any city in the world.
When we realized July 4th was only a week away we decided to go somewhere closer to NYC than our usual Europe trip and Montreal was perfect.
With the help of friends in just three days we had an amazing schedule assembled with all of the top places reserved. We only missed a couple of small tasting menu spots that just don’t have any flexibility due to size to add on short notice, two to note that are on our list for next time are Mastard and Sabayon.
I will first cover the restaurants we ate at and then add the others we did not make it to in a separate post but were highly recommended by Chefs and serious food people.
Rôtisserie La Lune - I quickly realized that Montreal loves Chicken. LOVES CHICKEN!!! And so do we! La Lune is from the husband and wife team behind, Canada’s most lauded restaurant Mon Lapin. Our short flight was delayed so we went straight from the airport to the restaurant. You learn a lot about a city from the airport cab drivers and we had the most lovely driver! Then legendary sommelier / restauranteur Vanya Filipovice was waiting at the door to greet us! WOW! The trip was off to an incredible start right from the jump. We loved everything about La Lune. The chicken was of course excellent. But all the sides and non Chicken dishes were equally excellent.The vegan Maitake mushroom dish might have been the dish of the trip. It has a hard shell like top with the mushroom underneath in a bed of the most incredible pepper sauce. The wine list was excellent and the hospitality off the charts. Can’t wait to return and we might order two Maitake dishes…
We started the next day at Cafe Even. Extremely serious coffee spot recommended by my Canadian coffee guru. Excellent all around. Serious coffee people.
Up next lunch at Le Petit Alep, a Armanian and Syrian restaurant with a major wine cellar! A dream!! Le Petit Alep is the more casual sister restaurant of Restaurant Alep. From what I understand they have been building the wine cellar for over 20 years. I think Vanya might have sent word ahead or they just noticed we were serious about food and wine. We were immediately offered a tour of the cellar. Incroyable! It was put together underground like a lego village - easily over 10,000 bottles. Mostly natural wines but the classic / clean type. Lots of older vintages going back to the 90s. The owner asked if she could prepare a menu for us and the sommelier recommended a wine based on a recent bottle that he had selected for a friend’s bottle that showed incredibly well. The wine selected was a 2014 Michel Gahier Melon La Faquette. Montreal wine lists are extremely deep in Jura wines. Our meal and experience was just lovely.
We followed the meal with a visit to the Jean Talon Market which is right across the street from Alep (behind the buildings). An absolutely wonderful market that made us wish we had an extra day or two to cook. You can easily spend a couple of hours here and have a nice lunch.
Dinner was at Le Violin, a Chef Friend made our reservation and we were greeted warmly, sat right in front of the partially open kitchen next to the pass and the kitchen requested to cook for us. Wine list was very good, Heavy on natural and natural leaning Burgundy and strong in Jura - a consistent theme. The meal was executed perfectly. Montreal can cook pasta! Another theme throughout the trip! The meal leaned into the abundance of fresh seasonal vegetables and greens. The fish dishes were excellent. Overall it fell very much like a Parisian restaurant.
The following morning we hit Foil Gallery for Coffee another recommendation from my coffee guru. As its name suggests it is literally in a gallery. The space is cool. The pastries are vegan. They have a different approach to coffee than Cafe Even which I liked more than Foil. It is definitely worth trying.
We followed coffee with a 90 minute tour of Habitat 67 the minimalist gem built by Moshe Safdie for the Expo 67. If you are into architecture I highly recommend this tour.
The tour did cause us to miss a proper lunch but fear not I heard through the wine grapevine the restaurant in our hotel (M33) is known for having an impressive wine list AND you can order from the list at the terrace bar on the 9th floor! So we had a snack and a white burgundy reset. I will not get into detail about one of the funniest exchanges with a somm about a corked bottle, in short the somm insisted on smelling the wine through the opening on the bottle instead of in a glass to detect if it was corked and it was!
JOE BEEF!!! I have heard so much about Joe Beef over the years. We are not big meat eaters and definitely stay away from offal. And I am always leery of places that have been around so long having seen better days. I was hesitant to make a reservations at Joe Beef for all of these reasons. I have many friends who speak so highly of Joe Beef included my friends at Paul Bert so we had to do it. Well within about 10 minutes I was elated that I did make that reservation. Somehow we just clicked! Maybe it was because we ordered two bottles of wine from the start! The GM came over and said I think you need more room for your wine and gave us a second table during peak time on Friday night! We were quickly given a tour of the entire place and the somm, GM and our excellent waiter all shared wine poured from our second wine table. It became an instant party!!! The Oeuf en Gelée lived up to its lofty reservation and really delivered for me. The Chicken was wonderful, Montreal really knows how to do Chicken, BUT the fries were the stars!!! A fish dish with seasonal tomatoes was decadent. Overall we just had a wonderful, heart warming time. I now get it!!!
Unbeknownst to us when we decided on the trip it was the last week of the Montreal Jazz fest. Luckily for us a friend, Isaiah Collier was performing that night. He is an incredibly gifted young player that he heroically tackled John Coltrane - A Love Supreme. A beyond skillful, soulful and deeply moving performance.
Sidenote we were shocked at how big the Jazz fest is and how many people are in Montreal for the festival. It was beyond crowded. A little too crowded for us but they have an amazingly diverse lineup and it brings an incredible energy to the city.
The following morning we went a very unique spa called Bota Bota. I highlight this only because it is just so unique! It is an entire spa village built on / around an old Boat. It is a little odd at first but I would highly recommend a visit. Plan on staying for 2-3 hours if you can.
Pasta Pooks was on many lists of Chefs I had asked for recommendations. It is a relatively new restaurant that opened in 2025 in an old diner. This might be the quintessential Montreal type of restaurant. Old diner, strong hipster vibe, natural wine list BUT the best Pasta I have eaten in North America. This blows Rezdora or anything else in NY away!!! We can’t wait to go back. Montreal sure does do Pasta well!!!
Post Pasta Pooks we hit up a very nice wine bar Cave Mamie for a bottle. As I mentioned Montreal is very deep in Natural leaning Burdundy and Jura. We enjoyed a wonderful bottle of 20 Prieure Roch Clos des Corvées VV while others drank beer and Red Bull, luckily not together, and watched the world cup!
And now for the final dinner!!! THE FINALE - Mon Lapin!!! Not only the number one restaurant in Canada but the number one restaurant on every list I received from friends all over the world. And once again we arrived and were magically greeted by Vanya at the door - how does she do this! Chef Marc-Olivier Frappier and Vanya are both partners in life and the restaurant. Chef Jessica Noël is also a partner in Mon Lapin. Chef Marco also quickly greeted us at the door and we had a very touching exchange around Chef Bertrand Grébaut of Septime as his passing had just been announced that morning. Someone who means a lot to all of us. Chef let us know he put a dish on the menu involving Chamomile and fresh beans in tribute to Chef Grénaut and ingredient and style of cooking from him that inspired Chef Marco. What an emotional start to the evening!!! I was extremely eager to see Vanya’s wine list and it did not disappoint! What a list!!! First off it was much larger / deeper than I could have ever imagined. The only problem was how could I possible make any decisions. Luckily Vanya helped and also brought a few extra tastes over the evening. For those that don’t know Vanya and Chef Marco both worked at Joe Beef and are wonderfully carrying its legacy forward. You can see why both Joe Beef and now Mon Lapin are so important / influential to Montreal and frankly the rest of the world. We did the tasting menu and regaled in a menu that is the perfect illustration of what Montreal does best. Some skillful, ingenious dishes like the Croque-pétoncle (basically a take on a grill cheese which highlights scallop not cheese as the main ingredient) which was stunning. The Pastas were perfect, did I mention Montreal can cook Pasta! Similar to other places we visited was a confidence to not overdue a dish, to just let the fresh ingredients shine! This is hard to do when you are the #1 restaurant in Canada and many diners want to be wowed! But much like the aforementioned Septime, Mon Lapin nails its unique combination of simple cooking with flashes of brilliance in a high energy environment with unparalleled hospitality paired with great wine - which basically describes Montreal.
Ok we still have to try these damn bagels! So the next morning we did and honestly I don’t get it maybe I went to the wrong spot : ) I will not even entertain the NY vs Montreal debate…
We had one more slot a Sunday lunch. There is not a lot open on Sunday so we decided to try the classic L’Express. It was lovey and exactly what we were expecting. We enjoyed a wonderful bottle of Philippe Pacalet Chambolle-Musigny Les Sentieres which was so fitting because I enjoyed a mind-blowing bottle of Pacalet on my first trip to Montreal in the early 2000s and Monique and Philippe have become dear friends.
Needless to say we really, really click with Montreal. I have always joked to Renée who had never been to Montreal that if our home town of Buffalo and our favorite city in the world Paris had a baby it would be Montreal…she now gets what I was saying and actually agrees…..!!!
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), le St-Urbain is worth checking out.