Montreal is on an upswing: Modern apartment buildings, cafes and bike paths are popping up. Photo / Getty Images
It’s hard to be a city competing against some of the world’s greatest: Paris, London, New York ... but Montreal is a city that’s on the up and up, writes Danial Adkison
“Bonjour hi,” the ubiquitous greeting servers and shopkeepers use to figure out whether you prefer French or English, encapsulates so much about Montreal, which like its province, Quebec, retains a strong French Canadian identity. In this 381-year-old city of 1.78 million, which Mark Twain once described as a place “where you couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window”, one of Canada’s most vibrant LGBTQ scenes thrives, and communities formed by Jewish, African, Asian, Italian, Portuguese and Haitian immigrants all offer something special to see (and taste). The city is on an upswing: Modern apartment buildings, cafes and bike paths are popping up in formerly industrial Griffintown, while the Plateau and Mile End areas offer art and music worthy of the place that nurtured Arcade Fire and Leonard Cohen. There is too much for just 36 hours, but if you bring some good walking shoes, you’ll find terrific meals, stunning views atop Mont-Royal and a creative spirit that comes across in any language.
8pm | Dine in a former church
Montreal is teeming with steeples and spires, though Mass attendance in Quebec has dwindled. Many churches have found new life as community spaces and restaurants, including the desanctified St Joseph’s Church, built in 1861, in the Petite-Bourgogne neighbourhood. If the facade impresses you, wait until you walk around to Candide, in the former rectory. Sit at the bar and the industrious, mostly young kitchen staff will happily explain the prix-fixe-only menu, which changes monthly. Fresh, Quebec-produced ingredients shine in dishes like a kohlrabi, bean and yoghurt salad, a riot of crisp and creamy textures. The presentation is as fun as it is delicious: For one dessert choice, Le Frère Chasseur cheese, shaved thin on a rotary curler, arrives looking like buttery flower petals (CA$78, or about NZ$95, per person).
10pm | Feel the love
The signs along the Rue Ste-Catherine, the main axis of the Gay Village, declare, “Quartier Inclusif”, a reminder that Montreal takes inclusion seriously. The street, closed to cars through the Village most of the summer and early fall, becomes a runway Friday and Saturday nights, when all parts — all ages, too — of the LGBTQ spectrum gather at bars and clubs to sing karaoke, dance and show off their fiercest looks. Leather is welcome at the cosy Aigle Noir, or Black Eagle, bar, but you won’t need to be wearing any to have a good time. Over a pint of beer (CA$6.75), you might strike up a conversation with a friendly Montrealer. If the weather is nice, finish your night at the multifloor Complexe Sky nightclub, with a cocktail at the rooftop bar (free entry to the bar, CA$8 for the club).
9am | Enjoy a Montreal bagel
In an urban zone of glass facades, concrete walls and chain restaurants, SoLIT Café offers an orange-tree-decorated oasis with an outdoor garden. It’s a relaxing hideaway for people-watching while sipping coffee. Try an everything bagel made by St-Viateur, loaded with guacamole, feta and a sunny-side-up egg (CA$23.75). After breakfast, check out the Hôtel Le Germain next door, which emerged from a major renovation in early 2020 and occupies the modernist former headquarters of a professional organization for engineers that was built in 1967, when the World’s Fair, also called Expo 67, transformed much of Montreal’s skyline.
10am | See Indigenous crafts
Occupying an Arts and Crafts-inspired former McGill University building just north of downtown, the McCord Stewart Museum (CA$20) specialises in the history of Montreal. The permanent “Indigenous Voices of Today” exhibition spotlights about 100 objects — including snowshoes, knives, beaded bags and an extraordinary parka made of waterproof, breathable animal intestinal membranes — from 11 nations in Quebec. One section focuses on the devastating effects that Canada’s residential school system had on Indigenous communities, a dark chapter the country is still wrestling to understand. On the top floor, see Canadian artist James Duncan’s panoramic, autumnal watercolours of 19th-century Montreal. Many were painted from the top of Mont-Royal, looking down toward the St Lawrence River, showing fields and bucolic copper and golden groves where gleaming skyscrapers now stand.
11.30am | Head to the top
Now, see for yourself how those views from the top of Mont-Royal have changed. Climb the steps at the top of Rue Peel to the summit of what locals call the Mountain, taking in the surroundings of a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. At the Kondiaronk Belvedere, a stone plaza at the top, you’re likely to see a variety of activities, possibly even juggling and unicycle riding (Montreal is the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil). Compare the new cable-stayed Samuel de Champlain Bridge, opened in 2019, with the nearby Victoria Bridge, a former railroad crossing (it now carries cars, too) that was hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world” when its first wrought-iron incarnation officially opened in 1860.
1.30pm | Hit an old-school deli
No visit to Montreal is complete without a pile of smoked meat — a savoury, peppery cross between pastrami and corned beef that appears in poutines and on pizzas as well as in sandwiches that are the trademark of Montreal’s Jewish delis. While many visitors line up at Schwartz’s Deli, one of the oldest in Canada, the 77-year-old Snowdon Deli is a little harder to get to but worth the effort. Take the Metro to the Snowdon stop, or ride a Bixi bike along a dedicated cycling lane on the Chemin de la Côte-St-Antoine, which passes through Westmount, one of Canada’s wealthiest enclaves. Grab a spacious booth and enjoy a smoked-meat sandwich (medium fat) with a smear of yellow mustard on pillowy light rye, a Cott black cherry soda and a plateful of sharp, sour pickles (CA$21 total).
3pm | Shop and sip coffee
Boulevard St-Laurent, which divides the city into east and west, has many of its best shops and cafes. In a mural-covered row house, you’ll find Eva B, a kind of Grey Gardens for the vintage set, with its mannequins, creaky wooden floors and shelves groaning with sometimes creepy dolls and well-worn books. Then grab a pick-me-up at Dispatch Coffee, a stylish, stripped-down space (Americano, CA$2.83) and head farther up the boulevard to admire the wares at Ô Miroir, a shop packed with mirrors of all sizes and shapes, as well as Style Labo Antiquités and La Pompadour, which are bursting with charming midcentury modern pieces. Looking for a zebra-striped armchair? La Pompadour may have just the piece (CA$975).
6.30pm | Feast on creativity
Boulevard St.-Laurent eventually leads to Mile End, the locus of Montreal’s creative class, northeast of downtown and Parc du Mont-Royal. The neighbourhood, which was once a blue-collar hub of Montreal’s Jewish community, now abounds in bars, clubs and restaurants like Le Butterblume, a solid choice for dinner with a menu that includes pork schnitzel with a breading of panko and pumpkin and sunflower seeds with jalapeño mayonnaise (CA$26). Keep the good times going with a cocktail and a slightly ironic game of table tennis at the Ping Pong Club, a comfy and convivial bar, nearby (free entry).
10pm | Raise a glass
The giant Molson brewery once dominated Montreal’s riverfront in the same way that its commercial brews dominated menus around the city. But in the last decade, microbreweries have exploded onto the scene, many now sharing Mile End with the pioneer Dieu du Ciel (which turned 25 in September). HELM, one of these upstarts, has an enticing offering of rotating brews in a welcoming space. The name stands for houblon, eau, levure and malt (hops, water, yeast and malt), the main ingredients of what you’re about to drink, and it takes its craft seriously with stouts, bitters and IPAs (draft pints, CA$7).
9am | No place like dome
The lasting impression of Expo 67 is most visible on the islands of Parc Jean-Drapeau, the site of many of the exhibitions. The former US pavilion, with a huge Buckminster Fuller-designed geodesic dome, is now the Biosphère, a museum occupying a graceful glassy building perched on tall stilts in the centre of the dome. (The acrylic panels of the dome burned in a 1976 fire, leaving just the steel structure.) Besides being breathtakingly beautiful, the museum offers interactive exhibitions, most kid-friendly, about environmental issues and climate change (adults, CA$22.75; 17 and under, CA$11.50). While you’re on the island, be sure to check out Trois Disques, a 70ft-tall stainless steel sculpture that Alexander Calder created in 1967 for the World’s Fair.
10am | Ride along the river
Contrast modern architecture with the industrial past by riding a Bixi bike from Parc Jean-Drapeau across the Concordia Bridge toward downtown. Watch for the Jenga-like lines of Habitat 67, the Brutalist apartment complex designed by architect Moshe Safdie. The path leads around the Five Roses flour mill, whose flashing sign is as beloved by Montrealers as the Citgo sign is by Bostonians. Montreal’s location near the eastern end of the Great Lakes helped make it the largest grain port in North America in the 1920s, a legacy you can see in the steamshiplike form of Silo No. 5, a hulking grain elevator that has stood empty since the mid-1990s. The path follows the Lachine Canal through Griffintown, a mushrooming cluster of glassy new buildings, where you can stop for a hand-rolled bagel with cream cheese (CA$3.50) at Le Trou, a tiny cafe.
11am | Get a massage
Listen for the sound of the water flowing over the canal locks. It will be your soundtrack to relaxation at Bota Bota, a luxurious spa that began aboard an old ferryboat docked near the Old Port and has expanded to include a nearby land-based garden with a complex of pools. The boat offers hot tubs, cold plunges, steam rooms, dry saunas and massages in a silent environment (signs remind you not to talk). Across a footbridge, in the garden (you can talk there), you’ll find pools ranging from hot to cold, including one with a waterfall to massage your shoulders (three-hour “water circuit,” CA$60 to CA$90, depending on the season and time).
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
GETTING THERE
Fly from Auckland to Montreal with Air New Zealand and Air Canada with one stopover.
DETAILS
Candide is a restaurant focused on Québécois ingredients and built in the rectory of a former church in the Petite-Bourgogne neighbourhood.
Kondiaronk Belvedere, a mountaintop lookout at Parc du Mont-Royal, offers panoramic views of Montreal and the St Lawrence River.
Bota Bota is a spa near the Old Port that features saunas, hot tubs, cold plunges and relaxation areas aboard a now-docked former ferry and in an adjacent garden.
Aigle Noir is an inclusive and friendly LGBTQ bar in the Gay Village neighbourhood.
Complexe Sky, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ nightclubs, has dancing, drinks and rooftop Gay Village views.
SoLIT Café offers delicious breakfasts and lunches.
Snowdon Deli is a favorite for smoked meat, one of Montreal’s most prized delicacies.
Dispatch Coffee serves delicious brews in a spare concrete space overlooking Boulevard St-Laurent.
Le Butterblume is a cozy Mile End restaurant that focuses on fresh produce.
HELM is a microbrewery that pours a variety of excellent beers in a welcoming, slate-and-wood space in Mile End.
Ping Pong Club is a comfortable Mile End bar that offers food, music, cocktails and, yes, table tennis.
Le Trou is a small cafe in Griffintown serving oven-fresh Montreal-style bagels.
Fairmont the Queen Elizabeth is a 950-room downtown stalwart with rooms furnished in a mod-flavoured style, including a very pink Barbie Dream Suite (with a disco ball). Visitors taking Amtrak’s Adirondack service from New York may appreciate the hotel’s location next to the station. Rooms from CA$420.
Hôtel Le Germain, in a refurbished 1960s office tower, has large, quiet rooms with bentwood tables, exposed concrete, peekaboo showers and clear acrylic bubble chairs hanging from the ceiling. Rooms from CA$385.
Le Cartier Bed and Breakfast is a tiny gem with homey rooms and a gorgeous back garden in the Gay Village. In the shoulder season, rooms from CA$120.
Short-term rental options are abundant, particularly in the Mile End neighbourhood, where hotel options are limited.
What could possibly trump a smiling, selfie-loving marsupial?