A Perfect Day in Montreal With Andy Dubois

The day starts with coffee, and for Andy, proximity is non-negotiable. La Finca sits directly across from her front door, which makes it less a choice than a fact of life. Co-owners Geneviève Lavoine-Houle and Marie-Laurence Guindon have been running the place since 2016, pulling espresso from De Mello Palheta and keeping the kind of easy, welcoming room where laptops are tolerated and the outdoor terrace fills up fast in summer.

"Santiago is always giving me my coffee and I'd say I'll take it to go. I never really stay."

Coffee in hand, Andy heads toward the Old Port. Her first stop isn't a restaurant or a gallery—it's Aesop, the Australian skincare house tucked into the ground floor of the Harrison-Stephens building on rue Saint-Paul Ouest. The interior, built from L-shaped steel bars, common brick and fibre cement board, leans into the neighbourhood's industrial past without making a fuss about it. For Andy, it's less a shopping trip than a ritual.

"I'll stop at Aesop just to have a little rest. It's like a romantic slash reset moment for me. It's really therapy."

A few steps further into the Old Port, Andy swings by Le Cèr to say hello. The gallery and studio was opened in 2024 by Cor Oda and Kit King—a Japanese-American and Bahamian-Canadian artist duo, both former tattoo artists turned internationally exhibiting painters—whose practice spans fine art, sculpture, furniture, ceramics and lighting. The objects they make share a sensibility rooted in raw materials and the presence of time. It's the kind of place where a visit can turn into a conversation you didn't expect.

"I'll go say hi to them. Sometimes we'll chat."

Workout time. ERE occupies the ground floor of a Cité du Multimédia building on Boulevard Robert-Bourassa, and it doesn't look like any gym you've been to: cream walls, velvet terracotta bleachers, blush pink lockers and three distinct rooms — infrared mat Pilates and sculpt, rhythm-based cycling with a colour-synced LED system, and reformer Pilates behind sheer curtains. Ivy Studio designed the space in 2025, and it shows. Andy keeps coming back for the variety.

"I love ERE because they have infrared workouts, they also have Pilates, they have spinning. They just have a lot of different options in one studio, which is nice — because sometimes you're craving other things."

Foil Gallery isn't your standard white-wall affair. Founded by digital artists Frédéric Duquette (FVCKRENDER) and Jo-Anie Charland in Mile-Ex, the space strips away art-world pretension in favour of something warmer and more immersive as part gallery, part café, with a soundscape by Olivier Lamontagne and a custom fragrance from New York's DS & Durga. The works on offer span digital and physical mediums, all available for purchase, and the programming goes well beyond openings: listening parties, ambient events, the occasional pop-up. Andy knows the founders, which helps with the door, but the draw is the events calendar.

"I love their events. They had this cool thing called In:fusion, a collaboration with a New York City-based tea company, a mix of Japanese tea and sound and stillness. And I like their listening parties. Sometimes they do a little pop-up. Sometimes it's more ambient. Yeah, big fan."

On a rainy afternoon, Andy heads to the Cinéma du Musée inside the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The screening room was built in partnership with the Cinéma Beaubien team in 2018, running on a laser projector and Dolby 7.1 sound inside the old Maxwell-Cummings auditorium, connected to the Galerie des Bronzes. For someone whose work is about building atmosphere and intention into every frame, it's the right room for the right kind of film — independent, international, the sort that asks something of you rather than just delivering a spectacle.

"If it's rainy, I'll watch a movie there. I like their selection, a mix of old and new ones."

The night ends in Chinatown. Sans Soleil lives in the basement of Fleurs & Cadeaux, a Japanese restaurant on La Gauchetière, and it operates on a simple philosophy: vinyl only, no compromises on sound. Kris Guilty, owner of La Rama record shop, opened it in 2020 with Hideyuki Imaizumi; the 600-pound Klipsch speakers and Guilty's extensive collection set the terms. Evenings tend to start with sake and sushi upstairs before moving into the standing-room basement later in the night. Andy is a regular.

"It's a listening bar. It really has this spirit and energy that you would find in Japan. It has soul, and you feel it, from the people that work there to the music. They're doing it for the love, not just for the money."

Before dinner, if the weather cooperates, Andy makes a point of walking past Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle in the Quartier international. The square's centrepiece is La Joute, a 1969 Riopelle bronze ensemble of thirty mythical and animal figures that was originally installed at the Olympic Park for the 1976 Games before being relocated here. Every evening from mid-May to mid-October, mist rises from gutters at street level and a ring of fire ignites above the fountain's surface. Shows run 35 minutes, on the hour from 5:35 to 10:35 p.m.

"Every time, even after four years of living in the area, I'm always in awe. I always stop and look."

Andy has produced campaigns for Ssense for years—Bottega Veneta, Issey Miyake, The Row, among others—which gives her relationship with the Old Montreal flagship a different texture than a typical shopping trip. David Chipperfield Architects designed the space inside a 19th-century warehouse on rue Saint-Paul: concrete, glass, and steel framing a retail environment that feels closer to a contemporary art museum than a boutique. A café sits above the sales floor. There are no impulse buys. For Andy, spending money here is also, in some sense, spending it on the community she helped build.

"I feel good about spending my money where I earn it. It still feels like almost a community. I know most of the people that work there."

Australian label Silk Laundry was built around a single conviction: well-made clothing in natural fibres, cut to last. Designer Katie Kolodinski's 90s Slip Dress remains the reference point, and the broader ready-to-wear offer—bias-cut pants, silk camis, shirts, knitwear—follows the same logic of enduring shape over seasonal trend. The Montreal boutique on Notre-Dame Ouest is one of very few standalone locations outside Australia.

"Great service, good quality. I'm glad we have a flagship in Montreal."

Andy's go-to for an early dinner — and she'll tell you to order the panna cotta the moment you sit down, before it sells out. Chef Robin Filteau Boucher opened Parapluie in Little Italy with maître d'hôtel Karelle Voyer, a room of around thirty seats serving French-inspired dishes built around seasonal ingredients. Mixologist Félix Pagé Blouin handles the cocktails, and Andy has learned to trust whatever he's making that day, even when the base spirit gives her pause.

"I will never, ever get tired of the mayo egg lobster dish and the panna cotta is absolutely divine. And the mixologist — every time he has a cocktail of the day, I'll always take it. He always surprises me."

For a longer evening, Andy ends up at Romies. Alex Cohen and Raegan Steinberg's Old Montreal restaurant reimagines midcentury American bistro dining with wine-red leather banquettes, candlelit marble tables and a courtyard out back with a pétanque area and tree canopy overhead. The kitchen delivers elevated diner classics — beef tartare, Venetian pasta with clams, a blackout cake that gets mentioned a lot. The Snell Martini gets mentioned even more.

"The staff is just easy. You kind of go into a rabbit hole and forget about time. You can be super chic or show up in a baseball cap and sweatpants. No one cares. And the chocolate cake — the very best you'll ever eat in your life."

Some nights call for something simpler. Nouveau Palais has been on Bernard Street in Mile-Ex for over fifty years, originally opened as The Palace in 1950 and running, more or less, on the same logic ever since. Jacques Séguin and Mary-Martha Campbell took over in 2010 and kept the retro bones intact. The natural wine list surprises people who judge it by the room. Andy orders the Caesar, splits the poutine, and occasionally gets talked into the soupe de jour.

"It's the kind of place you go with no expectation, real moment, real conversation. The staff brings you to having different types of conversations. You wouldn't expect it to be so good from the outside, but it is."

When the mood calls for something more considered, Andy heads to Outremont. Leméac has been a fixture of the French bistro end of Montreal's dining scene for over twenty years — beef tartare, escargots, steak frites, a terrasse that holds up in almost any season. It's the kind of place that resists the urge to reinvent itself, which is exactly the point.

"If I'm feeling fancy. It’s classic, been around for a long time."

There's one place Andy keeps coming back to that has nothing to do with who she knows or what's new. Tuck Shop has been a Saint-Henri fixture since 2010, running a concise, ever-changing bistro menu built around Quebec market products — Kamouraska lamb, Gaspésie seafood, wild mushrooms. Chef Theo Lerikos runs a tight 38-seat room where the wine list is driven by private imports and the service is the kind that makes a small room feel generous.

"It's tattooed on my heart. I started going in my twenties as a real treat—it wasn't something I could afford often. And now every time I go back, it's still one of my favourite restaurants in Montreal."