Meet the Class of 2025-26: Can’t-Miss New Restaurants and Bars of Montreal

This story originally appeared in a special edition The Main x URBANIA Micromag. Read the full collection here.

While this isn’t a definitive ranking or an exhaustive survey of everything that’s opened, this focused set of places has made an impression. Their binding feature is that each understands what their neighbourhood, and the city at large, needs right about now: Food that is honest and simple yet no less skillful in its execution, and drinking climates that are expertly curated and experiential in equal measure. Enjoy.

Bistro Boisselet

Those who love the institutional types like L’Express and Leméac will find a fast friend in this newcomer to Little Italy, located around the corner from Jean-Talon Market. Then it will become a reliable standard on speed dial: Boisselet is the rare new restaurant that already feels like it's been here for years.

The bistro arrived with the pared-down and focused energy so many restaurateurs and diners are craving these days: A tight and reasonably priced menu of Eurocentric classics wins the day with the likes of Gougères stuffed with smoked cheddar, a mushroom velouté with a hit of horseradish, boudin with pommes purée, or a steak au poivre with depth in sauce and levity of a perfectly cooked cut.

Then, you’ve got your standard cocktails, a well-stocked cave with over 200 references, and an airy, relaxing interior of terrazzo and Thonet chairs. It all feels so effortless, but that’s no wonder when looking at the team behind this address: Taylor D'Ottavi (Salle Climatisée, Liverpool House), John Hale and Antoine Denis of Le Plongeoir, and chef Darcy Gervais-Wood, who came up through Maison Publique before spending time at Septime in Paris. They know what they’re doing.

Au Coin

The corner of Fairmount and Jeanne-Mance has had a few lives, but none quite like this: Au Coin opened in mid-December 2025 and the city took to it immediately. No wonder, considering the team: Nicolas Urli and Jean-François Gervais, who spent years building BarBara into a Saint-Henri staple; Mathieu Keyser, a DJ and music producer who handles the business side and runs Double's; sommelier Florence Pelland-Goyer, who shaped Buvette Chez Simone and the late Bar à Flot before weekending as an innkeeper in Sutton; and Julien Navarro, a Marseille-born chef with somm-level knowledge of flour who's quietly built a cult following through his 98 Dough pop-ups.

What they've built is a place for all hours: cortados and croissants at 8 a.m., a glass of aligoté at 3 p.m., sourdough pizza and natural wine until midnight. No reservations, prices kept deliberately approachable. Jean-François designed the room himself with warm wood, oversized vintage pieces, and open refrigerators with nothing to hide, all anchored by an Italian pizza oven that throws heat into the dining room all winter.

The pizzas come blistered and restrained, and Pelland-Goyer's wine list leans French and Italian with Quebec producers meaningfully represented. You couldn’t really ask for more.

Grille-Nature

David McMillan made a promise to the West Island decades ago, when he was still cooking breakfast for politicians at Le Caveau and his neighbourhood had nothing worth driving to. Grille-Nature, which opened last November at Marché de l'Ouest in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, is him making good on it alongside Derek Dammann, his longtime friend and the former chef-owner of Maison Publique.

Both men left restaurants that defined their reputations within two years of each other, citing burnout, family, and an industry that had taken more than it gave. McMillan went to Hayfield Farm and a vineyard in St-Armand. Dammann went to Saintweed Acres in Oka, where he raises Kunekune pigs and keeps bees. The farms now supply the kitchen directly, alongside a supplier network the downtown core could never replicate: Air Canada Cargo minutes away for fresh fish, local butchers, organic neighbours in the Townships.

The room McMillan designed himself: harvest tables, mismatched chairs, folk art, dried hydrangeas in galvanized buckets, enamel Québécois pots, red-and-white checkered tablecloths, and space enough between tables that nobody's elbowing a stranger. The menu runs from raw bar and rotisserie chicken to strip steaks, cheeseburgers, baked clams, and whatever's good that week. Prices spread wide enough to seat everyone.

"Feed everyone. All budgets. True hospitality," McMillan texted when they announced the project. That's still true.

Yakitori Hibahihi

Hiroshi Kitano already heads some of the city's best Japanese restaurants including Kitano Shokudo and Ohayo Café, but opening Yakitori Hibahihi on Plaza St-Hubert is a return to something unfinished. He'd done yakitori before, with Otto Yakitori, but left the group years ago. The itch never went away, so consider this the scratch.

This time, he waited until the moment was right, then built it with his friend Hideyuki Imaizumi, who runs the café Osmo x Marusan and Marusan at Time Out Market. Having known each other for a decade, they’ve bonded over hip-hop records and Japanese food long before they ever went into business together, hence the name: Borrowed from a NIPPS alias, a founding member of Buddha Brand, one of Japan's most influential hip-hop groups. Hibahihi roughly translates to "flying leaf, flying fire." The leaf’s a reference to marijuana that’s hard to come by in Japan. The fire is the binchotan.