At Montréal Plaza, chefs Charles-Antoine Crête and Cheryl Johnson run the kitchen like a well-oiled experiment: playful, unpredictable, but anchored by technique. The dining room, designed by Zébulon Perron, hints at the surreal—plastic dinosaurs on the pass, Elmo sightings at the bar—but the cooking is no joke. Scallop sashimi arrives on a toy triceratops, layered with citrus and quinoa; a whelk gratin might follow, then foie gras with strawberries, and a dessert that’s basically fruit gone punk. The à la carte is ever-shifting, but the tasting menu (introduced by demand) has become the house favourite.

French methods meet global flavour, with Johnson grounding Crête’s improvisational streak. Even with its absurdist touches, the place runs tight and tastes sharp. In short, Plaza not only blurs the line between high dining and irreverence—it makes it irrelevant.

Vin Papillon opened in 2013 as the quieter, greener offshoot of Joe Beef and Liverpool House, but over time it’s become something else entirely—less of a satellite, more of a touchstone. Originally conceived as a tribute to sommelier Vanya Filipovic and chef Marc-Olivier Frappier, the restaurant built its reputation on playful, vegetable-forward dishes and a wine list that championed natural producers long before it was fashionable. It’s where smoked carrot éclairs and ham with brown butter–drizzled cheddar became cult classics, and where a who’s-who of Montreal’s new culinary wave—Jessica Noël, Gab Drapeau, Alex Landry—cut their teeth.

Today, Vin Papillon is helmed by Fred Morin and chef de cuisine Alan Stewart, with wines now curated by Max Campbell of Deux Caves. The room remains intimate and unflashy, with white brick walls and a signature painting of an ocean liner—painted by Fred himself—looming over the open kitchen. The menu is short, seasonal, and slyly inventive, veering from wood-fired maitake to escargot atop escargot. It’s still walk-in only, still open at 3pm, and still one of the most quietly magnetic places to drink and eat in Montreal.

Lawrence has evolved, but its commitment to exceptional food remains unchanged. What began as a pop-up inside Sparrow in 2010 has now transformed into an intimate tasting-menu destination, housed in the former larrys space on Fairmount Avenue. Chef Marc Cohen, alongside Sefi Amir, has refined the restaurant’s approach, crafting a menu that blends whole-animal butchery with meticulous plating and a touch of British inspiration. Dishes lean adventurous—think brain and morel agnolotti or tongue terrine—while still maintaining the depth and elegance that made Lawrence a Montreal institution. The wine program, curated by Keaton Ritchie, mirrors this philosophy, focusing exclusively on private imports that highlight small producers. A close relationship with Boucherie Lawrence ensures the highest quality meats, while house-baked bread and seasonal vegetables round out the offering. Whether for a three- or four-course midday indulgence or a full tasting menu at dinner, Lawrence remains one of the city’s most compelling dining experiences.

Taverne sur le Square has built its reputation on restraint, repetition, and a room that never goes out of style. Open since 2001 inside Westmount Square, the dining room is defined by sweeping curved banquettes, white tablecloths, and a calm, clubby elegance that feels intentional rather than nostalgic. It is a place designed for conversation as much as for eating.

Chef Stephen Leslie’s cooking stays close to the classics, executed with care and consistency. Salmon tartare, Caesar salad, handmade pastas, and a famously composed mac and cheese anchor a menu that changes just enough to stay current without losing its bearings. The wine list, overseen by co owner Jon Cercone, leans deep and serious, with rare bottles sitting comfortably beside everyday picks. It is a restaurant built for regulars, and it shows.

Dining at this Old Montreal jewel of a French brasserie and dining room from chef Jérémie Bastien is both a masterclass in its cuisine’s techniques and classics plus cosmopolitan inclusions from other cuisines.

Toqué! is the kind of restaurant that defines a city’s culinary identity. For over 30 years, chef-owner Normand Laprise has used Quebec’s seasonal bounty as the backbone of his French-inspired tasting menus, balancing technical rigour with deep respect for the province’s small producers. What began as a modest 50-seater on Saint-Denis has evolved into a downtown institution at Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, complete with soaring windows, a sleek open kitchen, and a glass-walled wine cellar boasting over 700 labels. While dinner leans into a seven-course dégustation format, lunch offers à la carte classics like oyster gratin and duck confit. Laprise’s influence on Montreal’s dining scene is hard to overstate—his kitchens have shaped talents like Martin Picard and Charles-Antoine Crête, and his eco-minded philosophy set the standard long before it was trendy. Refined, consistent, and foundational, Toqué! is more than a fine dining experience—it’s a living landmark.

Consider this the next-gen steakhouse of Montreal: With its in-house butchery, it’s an address in Outremont that flips the porterhouse-and-martinis formula on its head in the best of ways.

At its core, Provisions is a butcher shop with a sharp focus on quality and tradition, bringing a touch of nostalgia to every bite. This is where you’ll find sandwiches and burgers built from the ground up—starting with hyper-local, pasture-raised meats processed in-house. The challah bread, hand-cut brisket, and signature house-made sausages make their offerings anything but typical.

Known for its standout burgers, Provisions takes the smashburger approach, ensuring a caramelized crust on the outside and juicy perfection inside. The sandwiches—brisket, Cubano, turkey, or even halloumi—strike a balance between satisfying simplicity and thoughtfulness. It’s food that’s as good as it is honest.

Set in a converted garage near Saint-Henri’s former RCA complex, Gia Vin & Grill's room balances industrial bones with warm Italian references, anchored by a bar and a cellar-like wine island that invites lingering. The menu draws heavily from central Italy, with an emphasis on charcoal-grilled meats, seafood, and vegetables, supported by a tight roster of pastas that rotate with the seasons. Arrosticini arrive smoky and direct, seafood is treated with confidence, and the grill runs year-round. The wine list leans Italian and thoughtful, favouring bottles with structure over trendiness.

John Winter Russell’s classic restaurant for refined seasonal dishes inside a deconsecrated church is an exploration of landscape through food, where the cooking is both intriguing and engaging.

The restaurant that launched a thousand ships, this is a definitive Montreal dining experience thanks to its one-two punch celebrating classic dining with a banquet-style celebration of good food.

Since 2005, this Little Burgundy institution has shaped the city’s dining scene, turning classic French techniques into something unapologetically Montreal. Founded by Frédéric Morin, Allison Cunningham, and former partner David McMillan, the restaurant pays tribute to 19th-century tavern owner Charles “Joe Beef” McKiernan, whose legacy of excess and generosity lives on in every over-the-top plate.

The menu, scrawled on a chalkboard and dictated by what’s fresh, blends Quebecois bounty with a bistro’s indulgence: foie gras, roasted bone marrow, and a perennial lobster spaghetti. The wine list leans classic, but there’s room for natural selections and deep cuts from smaller producers. The space itself—cluttered, candlelit, a little chaotic—feels like the kind of place where a dinner reservation could turn into a multi-hour feast. Expect to leave full, maybe a little tipsy, and with a renewed appreciation for why this spot remains one of Montreal’s greats.

This destination in Hochelaga is an exceedingly accessible option for fine dining where tasting menus take you on a tour of its chef David Ollu’s Bouillon Bilk tutelage plus wholly new avenues. Opened in Hochelaga back in 2018, food here continues to be looser and more curious than the restaurants that schooled its chefs in the best of ways: The tasting menu rotates at a pace that suggests they’re still discovering the place alongside their guests, leaning on vegetables, market runs, and whatever ideas surface in the kitchen that week. The light, unfussy, and warm dining room mirrors that approach.

It’s fine dining without the posturing, shaped by people who seem happiest when the conversation moves freely between the pass and the tables.

Foxy is organized around a single principle: everything passes through fire. Since opening in 2015, the kitchen has relied exclusively on a charcoal grill and wood fired oven, shaping a menu that favours restraint, smoke, and ingredient clarity over technique-heavy flourishes. Vegetables, seafood, and meats are treated with the same logic, often designed for sharing and built to reward simplicity.

The room mirrors that focus. Intimate and deliberately warm, the space hums from the open kitchen outward, with a steady rhythm that rarely dips even on weeknights. Under new ownership as of 2024, the philosophy remains intact, with seasonal menus grounded in local sourcing and a wine program that leans toward balance rather than excess. Foxy’s strength has always been consistency, not reinvention.

A Montreal institution since 1980 on rue Saint-Denis, L'Express continues to uphold its reputation for timeless French cuisine and conviviality. Founded by François Tremblay, Colette Brossoit, and Pierre Villeneuve, the restaurant caters to everyone with a welcoming atmosphere that remains to this day. With a menu largely unchanged over the years, L'Express offers classic dishes like sorrel soup, marrow, and veal liver, prepared with an unwavering consistency and attention to detail. Designed by renowned architect Luc Laporte, the elegant decor exudes a timeless charm, attracting a diverse clientele served by a stable team of long-serving staff.

Bistro La Franquette takes the idea of a neighbourhood bistro seriously, even in a part of the city not known for understatement. Opened by chef Elias Deligianis with sommelier and co owner Renée Deschenes, the restaurant leans into clarity rather than show. The menu is concise and seasonal, built around well executed plates that favour balance over excess, from pastas and poultry to seafood and classic steak frites.

The room is warm without being precious. High ceilings, handmade details, and a steady hum of conversation give it a lived in feel, while the service stays attentive and unforced. Wine plays a central role, with a list that leans European and rewards curiosity. La Franquette works because it resists the urge to overdefine itself, letting good cooking and hospitality carry the evening.

Blending the owners’ Argentinian background with explorations of great cuisines from around the world, this tiny Verdun restaurant is cooking some of the most impactful yet deceivingly simple food in town.

Damas operates at a scale that feels almost defiant in Montreal: a vast, richly detailed dining room devoted entirely to generosity. Opened by chef Fuad Alnirabie, the restaurant treats Syrian cuisine as both craft and ceremony, built around mezze meant for sharing, bread baked constantly, and charcoal-grilled meats that anchor the meal. The cooking leans bright and aromatic—fattoush heavy on herbs and lemon, hummus crowned with lamb, vegetables treated with the same care as meat. Lamb appears often and confidently, braised, grilled, or folded into larger compositions.

The room hums nightly, fuelled by families, long tables, and a service team that knows how to pace abundance without rushing it. Sit near the kitchen if you can; watching pita balloon and grills flare is part of the experience.

Hubert Marsolais and Claude Pelletier’s Old Montreal restaurant is a discreet and pensive place to spend hours over opulent dishes that, time and again, provide the most memorable of experiences.

Kamúy is chef Paul Toussaint’s broadest statement yet—less a single-island portrait than a shared Caribbean table set in the middle of the Quartier des Spectacles. The cooking moves across borders, pulling from Haitian, Antillean, and Latin traditions, then grounding them in Quebec ingredients and fine-dining technique. The menu leans toward small plates built for passing and tasting: accras, jerk-spiced seafood, bright salads, and mains that balance smoke, heat, and sweetness without crowding the palate. The room mirrors the food’s energy, with music, colour, and artwork evoking the bustle of an open-air market rather than a formal dining room. Cocktails, heavy on rum, mezcal, and tropical aromatics, keep pace. Kamúy works best as a gathering place—pre-show, long dinner, or anything in between—where culture, food, and rhythm share equal billing.

Le Mousso operates on a single, tightly controlled rhythm. Since 2015, chef Antonin Mousseau-Rivard has structured the restaurant around one nightly seating of 30 guests, all arriving before 18:30 for a fixed tasting menu served in unison. Courses are plated simultaneously and delivered by the kitchen team themselves, each dish introduced aloud before it reaches the table.

The cooking reflects a background steeped in contemporary art, with Québec ingredients shaped through precise, often restrained compositions that prioritize clarity over excess. The room mirrors that discipline. Minimal furnishings, long wooden tables, and a work by Jean-Paul Mousseau keep the focus on timing, technique, and the collective experience unfolding over several hours.

Its rotating menus of upscale, seasonal fare will keep you guessing, but the buzzy ambiance and service at this Saint-Henri eatery will make you feel like you’re immediately at home.

When Martin Picard opened Au Pied de Cochon in 2001, it marked a turning point in Montreal’s restaurant scene. The Plateau dining room—with its open kitchen, oversized portions, and unapologetic richness—deliberately rejected fine dining’s polished restraint. Instead, it offered something primal and exuberant: foie gras on poutine, pig’s feet reimagined, onion soup turned decadent.

Over two decades later, the energy hasn’t dimmed. It’s still loud, busy, and totally committed to indulgence. Behind it all is a generational crew of chefs and collaborators—many of whom went on to leave their own mark on the city. What started as a singular brasserie on Duluth has grown into a larger food ecosystem, with a sugar shack, cidery, offshoots like the Cabane d’à Côté, and even a product line sold nationwide. Still, the flagship remains its heart. For those looking to understand Quebec’s culinary id, this is where you start. Bring friends. And maybe a napkin for your forehead.

This ode to Quebecois cuisine is essential eating in Montreal, served in a completely unpretentious fashion that takes diners to the very heart of what makes this province stand out.

Since opening in 2018, Moccione has settled into Villeray like a place that was always meant to be there with an intimate room, steady energy, and a deliberately tight menu built around a handful of starters, a few pastas, and a rotating mix of meat and fish that changes with the seasons. In the kitchen, co-owner Luca Cianciulli keeps things anchored in Italian tradition, with house-made pasta as the backbone and no interest in overcomplicating plates that already work. Gnocchi, ragù, and carpaccio show up often for a reason. Out front, the wine list leans thoughtful rather than flashy, favouring producers that make sense with the food. It’s a neighbourhood restaurant in the truest sense: relaxed, precise, and quietly confident in what it does well.

Garde Manger has spent nearly two decades refining the balance between serious cooking and late night energy. Hidden behind a discreet Old Montreal façade, the room opens into two compact dining spaces divided by an open kitchen, where music from the 80s and 90s sets the tempo as service unfolds. The menu leans heavily toward seafood, favouring oysters, razor clams, wild prawns, and raw or lightly handled preparations that keep flavours direct.

Plates are designed for sharing as often as for solo indulgence, with chalkboard specials shifting alongside the seasons. The wine list is broad without being scattered, moving comfortably between France, Italy, North America, and organic or skin contact bottles. As the night progresses, the dining room tilts from polished to celebratory, a transition the restaurant has made its signature.

Île Flottante has settled into a format that prioritizes explanation as much as execution. Each dish from the tasting menu is introduced tableside by the service team, with enough context to frame what arrives on the plate without overwhelming it. The menu changes frequently and treats vegetables, fish, and meat as equals, allowing a grilled leek or a mushroom carpaccio to carry as much weight as any protein.

Set on St-Viateur, the dining room is calm and pared back, with a fully glazed kitchen that keeps the process visible. Pricing stays flexible through three, five, or seven course formats, encouraging return visits rather than one-off splurges. The experience feels considered but relaxed, anchored by seasonal Québec ingredients and a wine list built for discovery.

Hoogan & Beaufort operates like a carefully tuned workshop, where the building’s industrial past still dictates the pace of the room. Housed in a former Angus Shops structure from the early 20th century, the restaurant keeps its scale intentionally measured, with sightlines drawn toward the open-fire kitchen that anchors service from start to finish. Fire isn’t a flourish here—it’s infrastructure. Ingredients are selected with that constraint in mind, designed to withstand heat and emerge clearer, not louder.

Chef Marc-André Jetté’s menus prioritize balance and timing, moving comfortably between vegetables, seafood, and meat without leaning on excess. The wine program, deep and meticulously assembled, rewards curiosity as much as pairing logic.