The borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal (oftentimes referred to simply as 'the Plateau' unless you want to sound like a tourist) is easier to feel than to explain, which is maybe why the descriptions of it tend to pile up without ever quite landing.

Ask ten people who live there what it's like and you'll get ten versions that are all true simultaneously: it's a neighbourhood of families and students and artists and people who've been there for forty years and people who arrived last month. It's expensive now and it used to be cheap. It's changed enormously and somehow feels the same.

What grounds it physically is the mountain to the west—the Plateau sits on the elevated terrain that slopes away from its eastern face, hence the name—and a set of streets that each have a distinct character. Saint-Laurent Boulevard, the Main (and this magazine's namesake!), runs north through the neighbourhood's centre with a mix of restaurants, bars, and storefronts that leans eclectic and a little scruffy. This is a good thing. Saint-Denis, which has always had a more literary and French-language identity, has mellowed into bistros and boutiques over the decades. Mont-Royal, the main east-west artery, is where you run errands, get coffee, and somehow lose two hours (probably from walking and window browsing).

The residential streets between those corridors are where the neighbourhood's reputation actually lives. The exterior staircases—a design particular to Montreal, originally a workaround for interior staircase tax rules—cascade down the fronts of duplexes and triplexes, and have become the neighbourhood's most-reproduced image alongside the colours of the Victorian-style and Second Empire-inspired architecture of row houses facing Square Saint-Louis.

The back alleys, many of them converted into planted green corridors by residents over the years, offer a quieter counterpoint, while parks are genuinely excellent: La Fontaine, nearly 100 acres with a pond that freezes into a skating rink each winter, is one of the better urban parks in the country. Parc Sir-Wilfrid-Laurier and Parc Jeanne-Mance fill out the western edge. More on those later.

The borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal (oftentimes referred to simply as 'the Plateau' unless you want to sound like a tourist) is easier to feel than to explain, which is maybe why the descriptions of it tend to pile up without ever quite landing.

Ask ten people who live there what it's like and you'll get ten versions that are all true simultaneously: it's a neighbourhood of families and students and artists and people who've been there for forty years and people who arrived last month. It's expensive now and it used to be cheap. It's changed enormously and somehow feels the same.

What grounds it physically is the mountain to the west—the Plateau sits on the elevated terrain that slopes away from its eastern face, hence the name—and a set of streets that each have a distinct character. Saint-Laurent Boulevard, the Main (and this magazine's namesake!), runs north through the neighbourhood's centre with a mix of restaurants, bars, and storefronts that leans eclectic and a little scruffy. This is a good thing. Saint-Denis, which has always had a more literary and French-language identity, has mellowed into bistros and boutiques over the decades. Mont-Royal, the main east-west artery, is where you run errands, get coffee, and somehow lose two hours (probably from walking and window browsing).

The residential streets between those corridors are where the neighbourhood's reputation actually lives. The exterior staircases—a design particular to Montreal, originally a workaround for interior staircase tax rules—cascade down the fronts of duplexes and triplexes, and have become the neighbourhood's most-reproduced image alongside the colours of the Victorian-style and Second Empire-inspired architecture of row houses facing Square Saint-Louis.

The back alleys, many of them converted into planted green corridors by residents over the years, offer a quieter counterpoint, while parks are genuinely excellent: La Fontaine, nearly 100 acres with a pond that freezes into a skating rink each winter, is one of the better urban parks in the country. Parc Sir-Wilfrid-Laurier and Parc Jeanne-Mance fill out the western edge. More on those later.

The borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal (oftentimes referred to simply as 'the Plateau' unless you want to sound like a tourist) is easier to feel than to explain, which is maybe why the descriptions of it tend to pile up without ever quite landing.

Ask ten people who live there what it's like and you'll get ten versions that are all true simultaneously: it's a neighbourhood of families and students and artists and people who've been there for forty years and people who arrived last month. It's expensive now and it used to be cheap. It's changed enormously and somehow feels the same.

What grounds it physically is the mountain to the west—the Plateau sits on the elevated terrain that slopes away from its eastern face, hence the name—and a set of streets that each have a distinct character. Saint-Laurent Boulevard, the Main (and this magazine's namesake!), runs north through the neighbourhood's centre with a mix of restaurants, bars, and storefronts that leans eclectic and a little scruffy. This is a good thing. Saint-Denis, which has always had a more literary and French-language identity, has mellowed into bistros and boutiques over the decades. Mont-Royal, the main east-west artery, is where you run errands, get coffee, and somehow lose two hours (probably from walking and window browsing).

The borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal (oftentimes referred to simply as 'the Plateau' unless you want to sound like a tourist) is easier to feel than to explain, which is maybe why the descriptions of it tend to pile up without ever quite landing.

Ask ten people who live there what it's like and you'll get ten versions that are all true simultaneously: it's a neighbourhood of families and students and artists and people who've been there for forty years and people who arrived last month. It's expensive now and it used to be cheap. It's changed enormously and somehow feels the same.

What grounds it physically is the mountain to the west—the Plateau sits on the elevated terrain that slopes away from its eastern face, hence the name—and a set of streets that each have a distinct character. Saint-Laurent Boulevard, the Main (and this magazine's namesake!), runs north through the neighbourhood's centre with a mix of restaurants, bars, and storefronts that leans eclectic and a little scruffy. This is a good thing. Saint-Denis, which has always had a more literary and French-language identity, has mellowed into bistros and boutiques over the decades. Mont-Royal, the main east-west artery, is where you run errands, get coffee, and somehow lose two hours (probably from walking and window browsing).