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Best Dining Bets
Nuances (1 av. du Casino, in the Casino de Montréal; tel. 514/392-2708): This gourmet resto at the top of the city's casino got an impressive face-lift in early 2007 that made the decor as contemporary and elegant as the food -- all creamy walls, white linen, and pale-green leather banquettes. A room with real star power.
Toqué! (900 Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle; tel. 514/499-2084): Superstar chef/owner Norman Laprise has been thrilling Montréal gourmands for years. In dishes of startling innovation, he brings together diverse ingredients that have rarely appeared before on restaurant plates. There's little point in describing individual dishes, for he moves on before any of his food achieves signature status.
Best Budget Restaurant: The tapas phenomenon gave rise to the rampant small plates fashion, and Pintxo, in Plateau Mont-Royal at 256 rue Roy est, 2 blocks west of rue St-Denis (tel. 514/844-0222), does its own variations on the Spanish Basque originals. It has a second, smaller resto at 2 rue Sherbrooke est, at the corner of boulevard St-Laurent.
Best Expensive Restaurant: Among several candidates, this vote goes to Vieux-Montréal's Version Laurent Godbout, 295 rue St-Paul est (at rue St-Claude; tel. 514/871-9135). This chef-entrepreneur has an astonishingly sure hand with the innovations he brings to the Mediterranean canon.
Best Restaurant, Period: Ever-questing Normand Laprise and partner Christine Lamarche keep Vieux-Montréal's Toqué!, 900 Place Jean-Paul Riopelle, near rue St-Antoine (tel. 514/499-2084), in a league of its own. Postmodern and dazzling.
Best Classic French Bistro: Plateau Mont-Royal's most Parisian bistro, L'Express, 3927 rue St-Denis (at rue Roy; tel. 514/845-5333), is where you come to see what the Francophone part of this city is all about. From the black-and-white checked floor to the grand, high ceilings, this is where Old France meets New France.
Best for a Low-Key Date Night: The charming bistro La Montée de Lait, tucked in on a nondescript side street in Plateau Mont-Royal at 371 rue Villeneuve est (at the corner of rue Drolet; tel. 514/289-9921), keeps you close to your honey -- and puts you elbow-to-elbow with neighbors.
Best for a Celebration: Nuances, 1 av. du Casino (tel. 514/392-2708), got a dazzling face-lift in 2007 and now looks as contemporary as the food on its plates. A gracious, multi-starred temple de cuisine atop the Montréal casino on Ile Ste-Hélène.
Best Value: Even the most expensive four-course table d'hôte dinner at Le Bourlingueur, in Vieux-Montréal at 363 St-François-Xavier (near rue St-Paul; tel. 514/845-3646), comes in under C$17 (US$15/£7.30).
Best Guilty Treat: Poutine is a plate of french fries -- frites -- drenched with gravy afloat with cheese curds, a bedrock Québec comfort food that's better than it sounds. Many say it should stay unadorned, but at Au Pied de Cochon, 536 rue Duluth, near rue St-Hubert in Plateau Mont-Royal (tel. 514/281-1114), the dish is elevated to mid-haute levels with the addition of foie gras.
Best Smoked Meat: There are other contenders, but Chez Schwartz Charcuterie Hébraïque de Montréal, known simply as Schwartz's, at 3895 bd. St-Laurent, north of rue Prince-Arthur in Plateau Mont-Royal (tel. 514/842-4813), serves up the definitive version of regional brisket.
Best Seafood: Few Montréal restos focus on fish, but Ferreira Café, 1446 rue Peel near boulevard Maisonnueve downtown (tel. 514/848-0988), does extremely well by its repertoire of marine-focused Portuguese cuisine.
Best Burgers: Local conviction is that the biggest, juiciest burgers are assembled at the Latin Quarter's La Paryse, 302 rue Ontario est, at rue Sanguinet (tel. 514/842-2040). Nipping at its heels, though, is the young MeatMarket, 4415 bd. St-Laurent just south of avenue du Mont-Royal (tel. 514/223-2292), a gourmet burger joint in Mile End.
Best Vegan: A standard-bearer since 1997, Plateau Mont-Royal's Aux Vivres moved to new digs at 4631 bd. St-Laurent, near avenue du Mont-Royal (tel. 514/842-3479) in 2006 and has been packing in vegans, vegetarians, and the meat-eaters who love them ever since.
Best Pizza: The name says it all: Pizzédélic, 39 rue Notre-Dame ouest (near bd. St-Laurent; tel. 514/286-1200), where they do anything from same-old tomato and cheese to designer concoctions with "shrimp satay ginger."
Best Bagels: Even native New Yorkers have to give it up for Montréal's bagels, which are clearly superior to versions produced south of the border. Both St-Viateur Bagel & Café, at 1127 av. Mont-Royal est, near avenue Christophe-Colomb in Plateau Mont-Royal (tel. 514/528-6361), and Fairmont Bagel, at 74 av. Fairmont ouest, near rue St-Urbain in Mile End (tel. 514/272-0667), are the places to assess that claim.
Best Outdoor Terrace: Serious food isn't the lure at Le Jardin Nelson, 407 Place Jacques-Cartier (tel. 514/861-5731). Music -- classical or jazz -- is what draws the crowds to this central Vieux-Montréal locale to partake of crepes and pizzas under the crabapple tree in the garden.
Best Late-Night Eats: If the bagels from Fairmont Bagel won't do the trick (the hole-in-the-wall shop is open 24 hr.), our heart is still with L'Express. It's in the center of the Plateau neighborhood and serves until 3am.
Best Wine Bar: Aszú, in Vieux-Montréal at 212 rue Notre Dame ouest near rue St-François-Xavier (tel. 514/845-5436), features between 60 and 70 wines by the glass every night.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before
planning your trip.
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