Wanderlusting: Montreal!
A Guide to My Favorite Food City in the World.
If you caught Top Chef last week, you know Montreal was the focus. Although we couldn’t physically travel there, we managed to capture a few of the key elements I love most about the city: its unique depanneurs (aka corner stores/bodegas/convenience stores, with a particular Quebecois twist), it’s under recognized status as a leader of innovation in sustainability and environmental issues, and the incredible talent of its tight-knit chef community. My mother was born and raised in Montreal, I went to McGill University there for four years, then somehow married a Montrealer, whom I met when I moved to New York! This last fact has given me the excuse I needed to return several times a year, eating my way through each visit at the dizzying array of outstanding restaurants, delis, bread bakeries, pastry and ice cream shops, outdoor markets and cocktail bars. I cannot say enough about its unique food culture - a combination of Europe and Canada at its best – at once very French, and also enormously proud of its hyper-locality.
In 2015 I was asked to write the foreword to a cookbook compilation of recipes from over 40 of Montreal’s finest chefs, called Montreal Cooks, by Johnathan Cheung, and I wholeheartedly stand by what I said then about the city’s food culture:
“...[Montreal] has produced, and fiercely protects, what I think is Canada's most distinct and creative cuisine – simple and rustic, layered and robust, intoxicating and playful – calling on the myriad cultures and ethnicities that make up its diverse population and mixing them with its French-Canadian roots. Of course the quality of produce, meat and dairy in Quebec helps make the food so outstanding. But it's the chefs, who cook every day ignoring stereotypes and convention, taking risks while putting their heritage centre stage, making delicious, lustful food the only way they know how. Like Montrealers.”
With that, here’s my current Montreal eating guide. FYI, it’s the perfect escape for a summer holiday weekend (especially if you live in the Northeast)! There’s so much to do, see, taste. Of course this list comes with the usual caveat that it’s by far NOT exhaustive. I couldn’t possibly include every place I’ve eaten and loved over the years, but it’s a good place to start…Bon Appetit!
