Elevating Mexican traditions with the 'fonda fina' Bar Luz

“At night, the light really shines,” says Lindsay Brennan as she surveys the interior of Bar Luz in Outremont, the newest project she and her husband, Chef Juan Lopez Luna, have created.

She’s talking about the glow from fixtures on the wall made of steel barrel-burnt clay plates designed by Atelier Fomenta and ceramicist Ema Leroque. But Brennan is really speaking in metaphors. The entire concept of Bar Luz is light—changing light and direction.

“For us and a lot of people, we’re trying to chase optimism and brightness right now—a contrast with the darkness we see,” says Brennan. “It’s something that’s even more pertinent and coherent as we try to navigate what’s happening in the world.”

The project completes a triumvirate: Alma, Terraza Luz, and now the Bar Luz as it replaces their lauded restaurant Tinc Set. It’s an ambitious undertaking for Brennan and Lopez Luna, predicated on their vision, dreams, and their desire to illuminate what matters to them.

And this project, like all good things, took time.

Seeking light together

Brennan and Lopez Luna have been navigating life together since they met working in a restaurant in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2005. Lopez Luna had left his hometown of Tlaxcala, Mexico on a perilous passage in search of opportunity, ultimately landing in the ski town where Brennan was working.

He was in the States without status, an increasingly precarious situation for the couple as their relationship became a committed one. In 2009, they left the US for a year in Tlaxcala and Oaxaca, where Lopez Luna continued to cook until they were able to make their way to Montreal as a married couple. Once safe in Brennan’s hometown, the pair evolved their restaurant industry careers: Lopez Luna in the world of Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, and Brennan as a wine specialist.  

In the beginning, there was Alma

The couple loved Montreal, but the sun, food, wines, and spirit of Catalonia called to them, and they embarked on numerous journeys to Barcelona and the region to learn more. Brennan established Vin i Vida, a boutique wine agency focused on natural Catalán and Spanish wines. In 2018, the couple founded Alma on Lajoie, celebrating and specializing in Catalán cuisine.

And then the pandemic hit. No strangers to reinvention, Brennan and Lopez Luna looked to the laneway behind the restaurant as their best option for survival. In April 2020, their ruelle became a takeout temple to Catalán-style rôtisserie chicken and octopus.

With the pandemic lockdown, the owner of the dépanneur next door decided it was time to move on. The couple took it over, and by the following January, Tinc Set, a Catalán-inspired bar with a walk-in wine cellar that had previously been a beer fridge was born.

The added bonus to having spent time in the back lane of the two adjacent spaces? A quality of daytime light the pair had never noticed.

Masa as protagonist

While Alma and Tinc Set flourished, Lopez Luna was yearning for something more: after years of displacement even in his newfound community, he was feeling the absence of his Mexican roots from his cooking and his life: Corn and other flavours and ingredients of his childhood, the influences of his mother Rosalba and grandmother, Abuelita Guillermina—but leaving home at a young age meant he missed out on years of their cooking and a precious connection with them.

Lopez Luna and Brennan had been returning to Mexico as much as possible to see family and explore, but one particular visit to Oaxaca at the end of 2022 provided the impetus for the chef to connect, as he says, his “head, heart, and plate” in a direct line.

On that revelatory visit, they went to Alfonsina, a family-run restaurant on the outskirts of Oaxaca. There, Chef Jorge Léon, formerly with the renowned Mexico City restaurant Pujol, had opened a tiny reservations-only lunch and dinner spot with all local ingredients, including corn. Dining at Alfonsina, with chickens roaming the yard and Léon’s family nearby, Lopez Luna had a revelation: This is what he was meant to do.

Returning to Montreal, they wasted no time. He started importing heritage corn of all colours from his hometown, got himself a molino (grinder), and began nixtamalizing—the traditional, ancient method of soaking and steeping corn in a lime solution. Abuelita Guillermina entrusted her precious green tortilla press to her grandson, and it quickly became incorporated into Lopez Luna’s life, and a new, reimagined Alma.

A restaurant is a living thing

“We’ve always felt that the best thing we can do is share what currently drives us and not feel like we have to stay within the confines of what we originally created,” says Brennan.

So by winter 2023, Alma had shifted its menu entirely to “alta cocina Mexicana”—elevated Mexican cuisine—with elegant tasting menus inspired by the mountains and the sea.

The back alley and the light kept beckoning, though, and in summer 2024, the couple opened Terraza Luz, a weekend taco popup run out of the back alley behind Alma with Lopez Luna pressing tortillas individually on his grandmother’s tortilla press. The menu changes weekly: sometimes cochinita pibil, slow-roasted pork which he’d learned to make in Yucatán, other times slow-cooked beef suadero tacos, battered fish, or nopale cactus with red beans. The soundtrack transports, and the light pours into the space while the team hustle up margaritas and hibiscus juice for diners waiting for their tacos.

Alma’s elevated Mexican food was already winning accolades, including the 2025 Best Mexican Restaurant Outside of Mexico award from Culinaria Mexicana. But the couple wanted to showcase more of the cuisine of Lopez Luna’s homeland.

In March 2025, they closed Tinc Set to open Bar Luz later in the spring.

“It’s an elevated experience that celebrates the quality of Mexican cuisine, changing the mentality about what Mexican cuisine is or can be.”

It takes a village

Like with so many renovation projects, there were surprises and setbacks, rewiring and rethinking. “We accepted and sunk into the timing, and it allowed us to dig deeper into curating the space and the project itself,” Brennan says. She and Lopez Luna, with input from local artists including those of Latin heritage, designed the space to fully reflect their vision: tradition, modernity, artisanry, cross-border connections, and light.

An upcycled Expo-67 lamp from Studio Botté greets guests at the entrance, illuminating a photo of the chef’s own Abuelita. There’s a direct view into the open kitchen with a ceramic tile pass, typical of Mexican taquerías. Tucked into the corner pass, there’s another photo, this time of Guillermina’s hands holding a pile of tortillas.

The off-black room is enhanced with textures from fabric, chiles, garlic, flowers, and pops of blue from the tiles. Bar stools from Mexico City’s La Metropolitana create a cozy feeling at the bar; the space overall is compact, with room for twenty diners. All seats have a view to the kitchen and a bigger molino which will start producing heritage corn tortillas in the fall that will be sold to local fine grocers and distributors like Lufa Farms. The handmade, burnished clay plates from Oaxaca’s 1050 cooperative, are an essential, warm part of the design with lighting that changes as day turns to night.

Bringing it all together is the branding, conceived by Farah Khan at Montreal’s House 9, featuring a illustrated cross-section of corn, deepening the connections to Bar Luz’ origins and referencing its dedication to both tradition and modernity.

A bar is born

Seasonally rooted in Mexican heritage staple ingredients and transformed Québécois produce, Bar Luz’s menu features stews, grilled meats and fish, and salsas. Alongside the tortillas (made to order), these more homestyle offerings from the clay comal and stovetop hearken to Lopez Luna’s family’s cooking—informed by his experiences and technique. And while Alma is a choreographed, precise two-hour meal within a tasting menu format, Bar Luz is more earthy, building to sharing plates at the end of the menu. Still, the experience (and cost) of each of the restaurants is definitely a big night out, Brennan acknowledges.

The ever-changing menu is kicking off in a fall mood, featuring a classic sopa with serrano chilis and roasted garlic; a tostada with scallop crudo, salsa macha, and caviar; a taco with Québec duck or local mushrooms; all culminating in more shareable dishes like grilled fish with tortillas and salsa, pork Milanese, or classic beans and rice. All of this will evolve with the seasons, as Lopez Luna continues to work with local growers like Dom Labelle of Parcelles.

On the drinks side, Vin I Vida wine imports are joined by a long-awaited collaboration of wine-making friends at Les Soeurs Racines, providing their wines, piquettes, and vermouth. There are mezcals, tequilas, and sotol from the wild-harvested plant as well as agave-based cocktails. There’s also a Michelada with house-made clamato; a virgin version is available, too. Cocktails and mocktails incorporating in-house morita chili oil are another new idea behind the bar. For those not partaking in alcohol, fresh juices are transformed into grapefruit spritzes, hibiscus juice lemonade, and tepache, a fermented pineapple ancestral beverage from southern Mexico.

“At the end of the day, Bar Luz is a fonda fina,” Brennan says, referencing traditional eateries where comfort food reigns. “It’s an elevated experience that celebrates the quality of Mexican cuisine, changing the mentality about what Mexican cuisine is or can be.”