Hanhak Kim and David McMillan's new project brings dry-aged prime cuts, tableside grills, and a nine-course steakhouse omakase to town.
Montreal's City Magazine
A new place to discover the people, places and community that make Montreal unique.
LATEST STORIES
What defined Montreal's dining scene in 2025, and what's coming in 2026
DEC 30
Montreal's most exciting openings and heartbreaking closures of 2025
DEC 29
Where Montreal's food writers and photographers loved to drink in 2025 (and what they ordered)
DEC 26
Montreal's best restaurants of 2025 according to local writers, photographers, and influencers
DEC 25
The Bulletin: A holiday heist, full plates, and a surprisingly busy weekend [Issue #161]
DEC 25![The Bulletin: A holiday heist, full plates, and a surprisingly busy weekend [Issue #161]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthemain.ghost.io%2Fcontent%2Fimages%2F2025%2F12%2Ftavernenoellpd_1765551666_3786044209204759408_69971862890.jpg&w=256&q=75)
The Montreal City Directory
A guide to the very best of Montreal, curated by our editors and the voices we feature in our stories.
Explore the Directory
Everything you need to make the most of Montreal.
Understand the City
Stories, guides, and reporting that make sense of Montreal — its culture, neighbourhoods, and everyday life.
Discover What’s Around You
Explore restaurants, cafés, galleries, and places worth knowing — searchable by neighbourhood, category, and what's around you.
Save What Matters to You
Like articles and places to build your own lists — a personal way to keep track of the city you love.
Featured Guides
The best restaurants in Montreal right now
From boundary-pushing fine dining to heartfelt, locally rooted dishes steeped in history and culture, these are the best restaurants in Montreal.
Yes, there's that many: The 50 best cafés in Montreal
Montreal’s coffee scene, fifty ways: bold, evolving, and never just about the caffeine.
The most romantic restaurants in Montreal that make for date night centrepieces
Experiential, exciting, secluded, intimate, even theatric—this where where you want to nab those reservations.
Montreal's best bookstores: Dig through a city of print
From cozy second-hand shops with rare finds to generalists and specialty stores rich in diverse voices, this is where we go to find our next great read.
Vintage stores, thrift shops, and second-hand gems in Montreal
Garage racks, curated closets, and everything in between: Here’s where Montreal’s most stylish castoffs get a second life (and where you’ll want to give them one).
The most unique boutiques in Montreal
Forget the malls and embrace the city’s independent spirit: Shop local, shop curious, and let these spots surprise you.
Where to find the best listening bars and vinyl cafés in Montreal
Lean back and listen in at these vinyl-heavy addresses in the city with slow, intentional, and mature atmospheres inspired by Japanese jazz kissa.
Arts & Culture
Exploring Montreal's vibrant arts scene
The best things to do this weekend (Jan 1 to 4, 2026)
Here are the best things to do in Montreal this weekend, from live comedy to techno nights, blues shows, and dance floors made for shaking off the holidays.
Where to party and dine during New Year's Eve
It's New Year's Eve in Montreal: A massive guide to the top NYE dinners and parties from dozens of restaurants and clubs.
Two Horses is Plaza St-Hubert's punk rock neighbourhood salon
For hairstylist Izzy Mulder, building a salon can be political—especially when it's rooted in real inclusivity and ethics.
What to watch during the holidays according to Cinema Moderne
Curated by the team behind a tiny-but-mighty Mile End cinema's programming that goes far beyond the usual suspects.
What will happen to 128 years of Chinatown history when Wing Noodles closes?
As Montreal's oldest fortune cookie factory shuts down after 128 years, a secret salvaged archive holds the blueprint for what could keep its memory alive.
Cinéma du Musée has become Montreal's classroom for film
Teejay Bhalla links film history, museum exhibitions, and current events to create a distinctive screening program on the Montreal scene.
Things to do in Montreal this December
The best things to do in Montreal during December fill the calendar with ballet, punk rock, immersive art, and more than enough holiday spirit.
M for Montreal is where the whole world heard it first
The festival has been turning Montreal's restless creative energy into international careers for 20 years, and it's nowhere near slowing down.
Deep in the juice with Zamalek: Blending Egyptian karkadé tea with Mile End culture
How the Mile End scene of the twenty-tens and Egyptian heritage brewed a drink Montreal today couldn't do without.
Beyond Montreal
Discover what lies beyond the city
How cold-climate wine is made at David McMillan's Hayfield Farm vineyard
Following the Joe Beef co-founder through two days of cold-climate viticulture harvests where hospitality takes the form of al fresco meals, crushed grapes underfoot, and relentless labour.
Firing ceramics by hand in the Laurentians with the pottery collective Goregama
Ancient technique, unpredictability, and slow, communal craft: Goregama has gathered twice a year since 2019 to feed wood into an anagama kiln for 40 hours straight.
Baie Saint-Paul might be your best bet for a weekend escape in Quebec
From farm fields to natural wine, Baie-Saint-Paul makes the case for a quick pause away from it all.
In search of happiness in Saint-Eustache
From flea markets to pickleball courts, a reporter retraces his roots to find out why Saint-Eustache is suddenly among Quebec’s happiest cities.
Old Habits fish sauce from Vancouver Island is true Canadian umami
Nathan Gawalko left high-end restaurants across the world to bottle ancient traditions of fish, salt, and time on British Columbia's coast.
Maine's Cutty Sark Motel is just what the doctor ordered
A coastal escape where every room has ocean views.
Meet the new custodians of Aux 2 Clochers, an Eastern Townships institution of 35 years
When Montreal veterans end up with the keys to a local legend of the region they call home.
Our patron saints of diners: Montreal’s next generation of casse-croûte owners
Greenspot. AA. Chez Ma Tante. Chez Nick. Beautys. Café Joe. Wilensky's. Nouveau Système. Paul Patates. Bagel Etc. Saying their names is like casting a spell that’d conjure two steamés all-dressed combo with fries and a fountain liqueur on the side.
Design
Architecture, interiors, and visual culture
Ivy Studio is shaping Montreal's visual identity from the inside out
Always in collaboration with local craftspeople, this nimble design firm creates immersive commercial spaces designed for that ineffable 'wow' factor.
The design behind the REM's 14 new stations, and changing how Montreal moves
The expansion adds 14 stations and 33 kilometres to Montreal's light-rail network, connecting the North Shore to the South Shore through downtown for the first time.
A new city gateway and memorial with the Montreal Irish Monument Park
An incoming commemorative park design makes the Black Rock accessible for the first time with public space honouring 6,000 Irish famine victims and the Montrealers who tried to save them.
Inside the New Chabanel workshop of Montreal designer Finkel'
Daniel Finkelstein's anti-ego approach to design is what makes his work in restaurants, retail, and beyond authentic to their purpose.
Will Crosson's critical approach to Canadiana through fashion
The Montreal designer creating thoughtful garments that critically engage with Canadian landscapes, histories, and identity.
The fairyland fashion brand sewn entirely in its founder's bedroom
Avenir Vert's Olivia Donahue turned thrift store finds and teenage entrepreneurship into British Vogue features—all while refusing to compromise on a sustainable vision.
A fictional designer of very real experiences
André Brown doesn't exist per se, but the branding created under that name shows how hospitality can think differently about storytelling, atmosphere, and emotional design.
The hidden world bustling beneath Montreal’s Olympic Pyramids
Echoes of elegance: Inside a faded “Grand Hotel” that's lost its splendour over time.
Food & Drink
The best of Montreal's culinary scene
What defined Montreal's dining scene in 2025, and what's coming in 2026
From 2025's defining themes to predictions for 2026, here's what Montreal's food insiders are saying about the city's evolving dining culture (and its next Michelin hopefuls).
Montreal's most exciting openings and heartbreaking closures of 2025
The restaurant and bar arrivals that thrilled Montreal writers, photographers, and influencers—and the beloved spots whose closures left lasting gaps.
Where Montreal's food writers and photographers loved to drink in 2025 (and what they ordered)
From cocktails 45 floors above the city streets to neighbourhood wine bars and timeless martinis, here's where the city's insiders raised a glass in 2025.
Montreal's best restaurants of 2025 according to local writers, photographers, and influencers
These are the spots Montreal's food writers, photographers, and bloggers couldn't stop visiting in 2025, from neighbourhood staples to standout pop-ups.
Hana is Korean fine dining for the steakhouse crowd
Hanhak Kim and David McMillan's new project brings dry-aged prime cuts, tableside grills, and a nine-course steakhouse omakase to town.
Bruce brings a fresh take on Scottish tavern culture to Griffintown
Honouring a local legacy with a blend of haggis, Scotch, cans of IRN BRU, and Montreal's brand of hospitality.
The steamie is an ugly and weird hot dog. It's also essential to Montreal food culture
We built this city's culinary history and fuelled its nights out with this soggy, unphotogenic icon.
Numéro's brutalist bar wants to serve your next post-shift martini
Walk-ins and reservations share a warm welcome in this highly customized space, and it's got the menu to match.
History Lesson
Stories from Montreal's past
When Montreal had a steam-powered shortcut to the top of Mount Royal
From 1884 to 1918, a steam-powered cable railway hauled Montrealers to the summit in minutes, despite a park designer's vision of leisurely mountain strolls.
The Gothic mansion where the CIA broke minds with LSD and electroshock
The Ravenscrag manor housed the Allan Memorial Institute, where patients seeking help became victims of Cold War experiments.
Get to the heart of Montreal's Latino communities through a single grocery store
For decades, Sabor Latino's been the gravitational centre for Montreal's Latino communities.
Ruby Foo's was an absolute legend of a Chinese restaurant
From its 1945 opening to a 1984 closure and its present-day hotel, the Décarie Boulevard institution was where Montreal went to see and be seen.
Montreal Pool Room: Serving a city's hot dogs for over a century
How a Bulgarian immigrant's billiard hall became one of Montreal's most enduring institutions, from pimp steaks to late night eats infamy.
NDG's Empress Theatre survived a century of change. Can it survive neglect?
Montreal's last (and Canada's only) Egyptian Revival movie palace reinvented itself for decades. Now it's been empty for 33 years.
When McGill med students went grave-robbing for science
The law demanded they learn anatomy but made dissection illegal, so for nearly a century, stolen corpses were tobogganed down Mount Royal to a folk hero janitor who paid cash, no questions asked.
How Little Portugal carved out its place in the Plateau
From postwar migration to piri piri chicken, Azorean immigrants transformed an iconic Montreal neighbourhood with enduring community.
MONTREAL CITY GUIDES
Eat and drink on New Year's Day: Restaurants and bars open January 1 in Montreal
The city's mostly closed on January 1st, but these spots are open and ready to feed and ply you with a drink or two.
Where To Eat on December 25: Christmas dinner, no dishes
From Syrian comfort food to French fine dining, a handful of Montreal restaurants are open on Christmas Day. Here's where to go when you'd rather someone else do the cooking.
![The Best New Bars in Montreal [December 2025]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2F2edxk5v7%2Fproduction%2F9998d0d49ad2241b904a82de846ae3c068a5ffd1-4000x2667.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
The Best New Bars in Montreal [December 2025]
A summer speakeasy, a student bar becomes a whole new hangout, Japanese inspirations at a hotel bar, and one big German beer hall.
All of the best smoked meat in Montreal, mapped
From legendary old-school delis to new-guard smokers working at full tilt, here's where to find the city's best brisket.
The best Spanish restaurants in Montreal
Cava and croquetas, pinxtos, tapas, paella, jamón—here’s where Montreal gets its Spanish fix.
Where to drink during RAW WINE in Montreal
Where growers, makers, and drinkers of low-intervention, organic, biodynamic, and natural wines will want to drop in for a bottle (or two).
The best Montreal café terrasses to slow down and savour
Sip coffee and soak up the sun at these cozy café terrasses, from hidden gardens to lively sidewalks.
Escape to the best beaches in and around Montreal
Summer getaways, easy day trips, and urban retreats—these are the top spots on and near the island for swimming and sunbathing this summer
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