Bar Dominion & keeping spirits up in downtown Montreal

Now, no one's saying that downtown Montreal is lacking in places to eat, drink, and soak up the high energies of the city, but the last few years—remember those?—haven't been exceptionally kind to anyone.

It's been a hard spell and many institutions have been lost as unpredictable closures, but things appear to be on an upswing now: First, there was the announced reopening of Eaton Centre's Le 9e, followed by Place Ville Marie's observatory being reconfigured as the dining destination Hiatus—and now (chalk one up for the little guys!) Dominion Square Tavern's been revived as Bar Dominion.

Restarted by chefs Pablo Rojas and Hakim Rahal of Provisions Bar à Vin and Andrew Whibley of the Cloakroom cocktail bar, the new name's less of a reinvention and more of a revisit, drawing inspiration from both its last form and the one from when it first opened in 1927 as a hotel restaurant.