Montreal's 23-year Polynesian fantasy and volcano cocktail experiment

A restaurant’s ability to “transport” diners to far-off destinations has become somewhat of a recurring theme in food reviews over time. Today, Ville-Marie plays host to sleek omakase counters that promise a taste of Tokyo through precise knife work, imported fish, and lacquered wood interiors, but in the 1950s and 60s, downtown Montreal directed its culinary compass towards the South Pacific. Or, more accurately, Hollywood’s version of the South Pacific.

Get me outta here!

Drawing inspiration from movies like South Pacific (1949) and Blue Hawaii (1961), inside the Sheraton Mount Royal Hotel (now Les Cours Mont-Royal), Kon Tiki stood as the exotic, luxurious, response to a post-war yearning for escapism. 

Tiki culture emerged in North America in the aftermath of WWII as a lush, romantic response to years of austerity and restraint. After the frugality of the Great Depression and the rations of wartime, the tropical fantasy of Tiki bars offered an indulgent counterpoint with cocktails like the “Zombie" that was priced at $2.25 (about #25 in today’s terms) and fortified with three kinds or rum. 

Having recently become the 50th U.S state at the time, Hawaii had captured the public’s imagination. But with commercial air travel still out of reach for many, Montrealers looking for a taste of the tropics turned to Kon Tiki. 

Sweet escape

When the restaurant opened in 1958, it arrived as part of a broader wave of pop-Polynesian dining that was sweeping North America. The restaurant was a staple of local Quebecois nightlife, but it was also an outpost in a larger network of themed restaurants developed by actor-turned-entrepreneur Stephen Crane.

Backed by Sheraton and managed by Stephen Crane Associates, the rollout included locations in cities like Portland, Dallas, and Beverly Hills, where sister establishments such as Luau and Ports O’ Call offered a similarly stylized version of Hollywood Polynesia.

Through a dramatic wooden archway etched with Polynesian-inspired motifs and guarded by two larger-than-life-size Tiki statues, people celebrating birthdays, graduations, weddings, or Fridays in general could be found at green upholstered booths drinking fruity, flaming cocktails out of whole pineapples and miniature volcanos. Blending mid-century glamour with theatrical kitsch, the restaurant offered a layered fantasy of the South Pacific. 

Furnishings made of wicker and wood sat below a ceiling draped with woven fishing nets and thatched canopies that created the feeling of a secluded island hut, while oil lamps, clam shell lights, and carved Tiki idols added a sense of mystery and ritual to the space. Maori masks and New Guinea spears lined the walls, and an outrigger canoe hung overhead.

Though styled as an escape running on island time, Kon Tiki was grounded firmly in its historical context. Most of the kitchen and service staff were Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and rarely Polynesian—a reflection of postwar immigration patterns rather than any genuine cultural representation. The food also leaned more towards Chinese-American staples. Think boneless chicken breast coated in a sticky sweet-and-sour sauce thickened with cornstarch and labeled as 'Tahitian'.

In a sea of drinks with names that sound vaguely like movie titles from the Indiana Jones franchise, the “Sir Churchill” stands out in the boozy haze of pop-exotica: The description of the rum-based cocktail, garnished with three maraschino cherries and a pineapple frond, reads “three dots and a dash” – the Morse code for the letter V.

Referencing Winston Churchill’s V for Victory campaign, the cocktail was created by Tiki culture’s “founding father” Donn Beach during WWII, and is an ode to the restaurant's colonial roots punctuated with a swizzle stick. 

Spawning another pop-Polynesian destination

As supper clubs (as they were then, anyway) fell out of fashion and the tropical destinations that Crane had once blended into a single “exotic” cocktail became more familiar to North American travellers, Kon Tiki’s concept started to feel outdated. When it finally closed in 1981, the space was turned into a retirement home, housing the very generation whose tastes had fueled the pop-Polynesian craze.

But Kon Tiki’s closing did not mark the end of the city’s flirtation with Tiki culture. Douglas Chan, one of the restaurant’s many staff members who immigrated from China in the 1950s, opened Jardin Tiki in 1985. Located near the Olympic Stadium, this venture blended the nostalgic tropical theme with a sprawling Chinese buffet, creating another local take on the pop-Polynesian trend.

The contents of Kon Tiki were auctioned off for $78,000 when the Mont Royal Hotel closed its doors in 1986, and Chan acquired some of the restaurant’s original décor, giving Jardin Tiki an air of continuity and nostalgia. But like its predecessor, the unapologetically kitschy restaurant had a shelf life that expired in 2015.

The legacy of authenticity 

Today, when a critic describes a restaurant as transporting them somewhere, it’s often a claim of authenticity—an endorsement provided by someone who has recently visited the city conjured by the restaurant. For guests in 1958, who were largely unfamiliar with Polynesia beyond films or postcards, Kon Tiki transported them to a place they had no frame of reference for.

A newspaper article celebrating its launch praised the restaurant’s “scrupulously authentic” décor” and Polynesian recipes “translated with care.” The illusion, complete with the sound of running waterfalls, was immersive and marketed almost as an eclectic living museum. 

True to its name, the restaurant, inspired by Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki expedition and its popular book adaptation, delivered a Western “explorer’s” reproduction of a Polynesian cultural narrative. As entertainment with a kind of anthropological flair, Kon Tiki offered diners a portal to the “South Seas” located at 1455 Peel Street.