Where to Eat in Montreal

BYOB: L’Academie

BYOB (Bring Your Own Wine/Beer/Beverage) is huge in Montreal. Unlike restaurants that allow you to bring your own wine in the U.S., there is no corkage fee – something that really shocked us when the bill came. Many of the BYOB restaurants are concentrated in the Plateau neighborhood along Rue St. Denis. On the recommendation of several people (including our guidebook, which I never usually pay attention to), we chose L’Academie for our Montreal BYOB experience.

The nice thing about the BYOB restaurants on St. Denis is that there are several SAQ’s located nearby, which means that you grab your bottle(s) on the way to dinner & if they run out, you simply pop across the street for more (SAQ = Société des alcools du Québec – basically like a state run liquor store in the U.S. but with the selection of a Total Wine). We saw numerous groups around us in the restaurant with tabletops full of empty bottles, laughing the way you’d expect a group of friends who had just finished five bottles of wine to laugh.

L’Academie specializes in pasta & mussels (we really enjoyed the tortellini stuffed with veal & the gnocchi with gorgonzola). If you visit Sunday through Wednesday night, they have a heck of a deal for you: $12.95 for any pasta or mussels dish on the menu & a soup or salad. Couple that with an $10 bottle of wine & you have yourself a pretty nice evening. Even on a Wednesday night, the place was packed, so reservations are a must (if you’re traveling from the States & don’t want to call long distance, they take online reservations).

A snack: Les Glaceurs

We found Les Glaceurs by accident: we were simply walking down the street & were stopped in our tracks by the stunning display of Halloween-themed cupcakes in the window. “Well, clearly we have to come back here,” B said. And we did. Twice in fact. Les Galceurs became our little indulgence during our time in Montreal.

Our first visit started innocently enough: we had late dinner reservations & needed a place to relax with a snack, a hot cup of coffee & some free wifi. B selected the pumpkin cupcake &, after much deliberation, I picked up a package of mini-macaroons. As we sat in the little bakery overlooking Notre-Dame Basilica, we looked at each other as our teeth sunk into the sweet goodness: this was good. Very good, in fact.

Our second visit was planned. Built into our afternoon agenda on a rainy, chilly day. Again we had a pumpkin cupcake (they were that good) & a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting. Again we marveled as we stuffed our faces: “Why don’t they have one of these in DC? We should open a franchise” (never mind that there are at least a dozen cupcake places in DC including the now famous Georgetown Cupcake – but these were WAY better than Georgetown Cupcakes!).

Just in case you’re in the mood for something sweet & you’re not in Old Montreal, they also have locations downtown & in Westmount. Make sure you make it to one of the locations, because a trip to Montreal really wouldn’t be complete without it.

A carnivorous feast: Au Pied de Cochon

I was really excited to get a reservation at Martin Picard’s place celebrating all things pork. I emailed them about three weeks before our trip to see if we could get a table (they’re happy to email with you if you don’t want to make a long distance call) & was lucky enough to snag one at 8pm on a Friday night. I’m going to be honest: if you don’t like pork, you have no business visiting this restaurant. Yeah, they have non-pork items, but the pig reigns supreme here. The vibe of the place can be described as the following: loud. Chaotic. Loud. Pig heads. Loud. But loud in the good, lively way that loud is when people are really enjoying themselves over a good meal.

We should have fasted before our meal here – & definitely should have skipped that day’s visit to Les Glaceurs – but we were prepped & ready when the pork started rolling out. We actually began our meal with something that’s not pork at all: a foie gras pate. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest pate lover – something about the texture & the temperature – but this was darn good. Then the real pork feast started. For our main course, I had the melting pot: literally a small pot full of pork products – tenderloin, shoulder, sausage… & blood sausage (I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it), all served over mashed potatoes. B had the special cut of pork – undoubtedly the biggest pork pot roast for one that I’ve ever seen. Somehow, after all that meat, we decided that we still had room for dessert & split a chocolate pot de creme.

We probably should have skipped dessert.