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Drogheria Fine’s $5 gnocchi is Montreal’s street food loophole

A unique workaround for the city's outdated street food laws.

Gabriel Charles Aimé Matichard

March 12, 2025- Read time: 5 min
Drogheria Fine’s $5 gnocchi is Montreal’s street food loopholePhotograph: Drogheria Fine / Facebook

I had heard of Drogheria Fine and its $5 gnocchi long before I moved into the Mile End, and when I arrived, it was one of the first places I visited.

Always served to-go, it’s not uncommon to spot line-ups huddled around Drogheria Fine’s window to eat their gnocchi with chopsticks out of oyster pails. The menu couldn’t be simpler: gnocchi, spicy or not, with the option of extra cheese, all served from a large bubbling cauldron of the shop’s original export of homemade tomato sauce.

The verdict: It’s perfectly fine gnocchi, but it makes an absolute killing, so much so that public trash cans in a three-block radius are often filled to overflowing with Drogheria’s takeout containers.

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