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Visiting Montréal in Winter: What to Pack

Dec 16th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

Most of the email we get from readers about Montreal has to do with winter weather. How cold does it get? Is it windy? What should we bring for a December or January trip? Since I’m in planning/packing mode for this year’s trip, I thought offer a few thoughts.

I don’t have any breathtaking insights. These questions are hard to answer definitively, and the best example is the latest weather forecast for Montreal:

  • Today (Wednesday 12/16): snow and 15°F
  • Tomorrow: clear and 8°F
  • Fri: clear and 10°F
  • Saturday: snow and 15°F
  • Sunday: partly cloudy and 17°F

And here’s the norm: 26°F during the day and 12°F at night.

In 6 years of Christmastime vacations in Montreal, we’ve experienced a temperature range from -15° to 40° and heavy snow to rain to dry weather. If you’re planning a short trip of 2-4 days, you can tune your packing more closely to the weather forecast . But for longer trips like ours, we try to be prepared for a broad range of weather, with varying success from year to year.

Here’s the outerwear (and underwear) portion of my packing checklist:

  • warm gloves, quality scarf, cap (think cold and wind).
  • winter coat: rather than a heavy, long winter coat, I prefer a combo coat and hoodie sweatshirt. Most of the time, you’ll want and need both of them, but for unexpectedly warm days, remove one and wear the other.
  • long underwear: your lower extremities will thank you for this.
  • socks: we pack a mix of regular winter socks and heavy winter socks.
  • shoes: we pack a pair of tennis shoes, and a boot of some kind. I have some Timberland boots that are fur-lined and quite warm. I can wear them every day if I need to (most restaurants are casual). Ideally, your shoes will be waterproof; melting snow can leave huge pools of standing water, especially in Old Montreal. It’s no fun being soaked to the skin.
  • umbrella: we had rain briefly in 2007. The cap you packed will come in handy or you can toss a travel-size umbrella in the suitcase.
  • sunglasses.

It’s often windy, and even if the forecast doesn’t indicate it, it can still be blustery in the wind tunnel of urban streets. Probably not as intense as a winter day in downtown Chicago, but even if it feels nice when you step out the door of your hotel, I’d still recommend hat, gloves, and scarf.

Layers is the standard recommendation, right? It’s a good idea, especially if your trek around the city includes periods of walking outdoors and walking in the Underground City or while you’re shopping. When you’re indoors, you’ll want to peel off some of your gear without removing all of it.

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Where to Stay in Old Montréal

Dec 13th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

I got an email from a reader asking for a few recommendations for places to stay in Montréal, and after I answered him, I thought I’d post my recommendations here.

These recommendations are highly biased (what on this blog isn’t?), and all the hotels are located in Old Montréal. If you want to stay elsewhere, feel free to point your Google at downtown hotels or hotels on Sherbrooke, but here’s my list of recommendations if you want the charm of the Old City, and you want to avoid the most heavily “touristed” area of rue St Paul E. Prices range from about $170 a night to around $300.

Auberge-style hotels

  • Auberge Les Passants du Sans Soucy: we stay here every holiday. Nine rooms, each quite beautiful, friendly and helpful staff, with a great breakfast included.
  • Bonaparte: This place has 30 rooms; the best are Terrace rooms, facing the gardens of Notre Dame Basilica. They’re a little more expensive compared to other rooms in the hotel, but the view is wonderful.

Boutique hotels

  • St Paul Hotel: an old bank building, I think. Beautiful, high-ceilinged rooms. Extremely cool space. This hotel makes a statement and feels regal, but comfortable.
  • Hotel Gault: another hotel that’s extremely cool, although the rooms don’t make the same vaulting architectural statement as the St Paul. But if you don’t need a 15-foot ceiling, and you want a sleek, modern aesthetic, you’ll enjoy the Gault.

Recommended tourist hotels

  • Le Saint-Sulpice: We’ve not stayed in this hotel but it comes highly recommended by all kinds of people. Its look is more conventional, but very tasteful.
  • Hotel Nelligan: Same situation – we’ve not stayed here but we know people who have and they like it, although I’ve seen a couple reviews say the rooms are small.

Chain hotels

  • W Hotel: You either love the W or like it, or hate it. We love it. Last I knew (December 2008; I’ll check again next week), this hotel hasn’t been converted to the new white look of the W, so the rooms and hallways are dark and shadowy. The bars are cool and there are always beautiful people to look at.
  • Le Westin Montréal: The new Westin opened in 2009, located at the edge of the Old City. For the past two winters, we’ve walked by the old Gazette printing press facility and watched its transformation into a huge atrium for the hotel. It’s new, and yes, it has the Heavenly Bed. Enough said.

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Visiting Montreal in Winter: what to do

Nov 13th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

DSCN0240Montreal is a beautiful city to visit in Spring, Summer, and Fall, and it gets better every year. In 2009, a large section of rue St Paul in the Old City was blocked off for pedestrian traffic only, and the results appear to have been quite successful. The city also introduced the Bixi program, with bikes for locals and tourists to use and return easily at stations all over the city.

Montreal in Winter is just as beautiful, but the weather makes for an entirely different experience that many tourists avoid. Still, thousands of others make the trip in Winter and have an unforgettable experience. So what is there to do in Montreal in Winter? Here’s my personal list:

  • Walk the streets: Admittedly, this is a chilling experience, but if you’re made of hardy stock, there’s no reason why you can’t bundle up and get outdoors to see the city. Recommended walks include rue St Paul and nearby streets in the Old City; St Catherine, either downtown or the Gay Village; the Plateau along St Laurent; Little Italy and Jean-Talon Market. That’s enough to get you on your way.
  • Walk the Underground City: In my opinion, this is more exciting as a concept than an executed activity. I can say that it’s kind of fun, especially the first time you do it, and it has two distinct advantages: first it get you places, and second, it’s warm.
  • Climb Mont Royal: It ain’t a climb, it’s an easy saunter. But it leads to a beautiful overlook, giving you a view of much of the city. Dress warmly, don’t rush it, check out the sledding locals as you near the top, and at the Kondiaronk Belvedere at the overlook, buy a cup of hot chocolate and warm up while you check out the city before you start the trip back.
  • Shop: Well, duh. You’ll find all the larger stores and chains on St Catherine, and if you walk in the Plateau, you’ll run into all kinds of fun boutique shops.
  • Go to a Museum: there are too many to list, but allow me to note my own favorites. Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is on the Place des Arts on St Catherine downtown; Musée des beaux-arts is on Sherbrooke near downtown; Pointe-à-Callière is a great museum on Montreal archeology, located in the Old City on Place Royale.
  • Visit Notre Dame Cathedral: the basilica is stunning, and there are regular 20-minute guided tours.
  • Hang out at Jean-Talon Market: it’s open every day.
  • See Cirque de Soleil: it’s pure escapism and lots of fun.

This list is JUST a beginning. Tourisme Montréal has a much more complete listing of events and ideas. What do you like to do in Montreal on your Winter trip?

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Trip Countdown: Dinner List

Nov 12th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

With less than 40 days remaining before this year’s trip to Montreal for the holidays, the dinner plans are starting to fall into place.

First, a reset: Each year, we spend the Christmas holiday in Montreal, with a trip of 6-8 days. We’ve done this since 2004. We do it because it’s relaxing, a nice time to reconnect with friends who join us, and it’s become, over time, its own holiday tradition.

We like to eat good food, and so a big part of our planning for the trip is actually planning where we’ll eat. Each year, we choose a mix of favorite restaurants, as well as a few new ones to try.

This year, with 8 nights to fill and perhaps a 9th, here’s the plan:

There are long-time favorites like Toqué and Au Pied de Cochon; restaurants we tried last year and enjoyed, like DNA and Laloux; new restaurants on the list, like Trois Petit Bouchons and Newtown; and the Christmas Eve tradition, Bonaparte. In the case of Newtown, we’re following the chefs, Marc-André Jetté and Patrice Demers, from Laloux to their new venue.

I’ve written about this before, but one of the factors Chuck considers when he’s working on the plans is the style and type of restaurants on the list. He likes a mix of “signature experiences” and homier fare. Naturally, he wants all of it to be good. Now, he’s figuring out whether we’re too heavy on a certain style of bistro cooking – expressed differently at each restaurant, but still similar in style and concept. If that’s the case, I expect we’ll see a replacement of the dinner for Monday night – jumping into one of the ethnic traditions, perhaps.

More to come.

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Where to eat on Christmas Night

Oct 22nd, 2009 by Todd Mundt

So here’s the open question: Where can we eat on the holiday?

This is the question that vexes the traveler who isn’t planning to spend the holidays with family or friends. And the holidays are a great leveler because whether you’re new to a city or a frequent visitor, you can still be frustrated when you start to feel hunger pangs and you face the prospect of block after block of closed restaurants.

We’ve been spending the holiday in Montreal for 6 years now, and every year, we subject our long-considered list of desired restaurants to the reality of holiday hours. Most of the time we can make it all work out. We arrive about a week before Christmas and leave shortly thereafter, so we can manage our reservations around what’s open on a particular night.

xmas_rubyBut it’s not easy. Not only do most restaurants close for a few days (or longer) but others close capriciously – and here’s what I mean by that: last year, we reserved at Bronte about 3 weeks before our trip – it had been on our list for a couple years and we wanted to check it out. A week before our trip, Bronte called. They wouldn’t be able to fulfill our reservation on Open Table because they were actually closed that night. Why they’d not communicated that with Open Table? I’m not sure, but during the phone conversation they told us they’d be open on Boxing Day and they could accommodate us. So, we reserved for 12/26. On the afternoon of 12/26, Bronte called again: “We’re sorry but we won’t be open tonight.” It’s likely they looked at the number of reservations for the evening and decided it wasn’t worth bringing in the staff. Understandable, but frustrating, and Bronte is now off our list.

Christmas Eve is usually workable. A number of reputable restaurants are open because families and large parties often eat out before Midnight Mass or other celebrations. Christmas night is another matter. With the exception of hotel restaurants or Chinese restaurants, most everything is closed. Our Christmas dining record? Four Christmas night meals at Otto (W Hotel) and one dinner at Koko (Opus Hotel).

Whenever I mention Otto as the Christmas Night meal, it seems, a Chowhound or foodie will write to say something like, “I hardly think Otto is a great choice for someone interested in food.” To which I always respond with a sanitized version of, “Duh, but please suggest a better restaurant that’s open on Christmas Night.” I’ve never received a suggestion.

Chinese restaurants are a well-known option for Christmas Night because many of them are open. That’s something we’ve considered, except that our other Christmas Day tradition, dim sum for lunch, provides us with enough Chinese food for the day.

Locals can’t often provide much help with this question because most of them are at home with family and friends, recovering from a huge Christmas dinner.

But surely someone – tourist or local – has gone to a restaurant on Christmas Night in Montreal. If you’ve done so, where have you gone? What can you recommend?

photo: Christmas Day dim sum consumption at Ruby Rouge

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Google Street View Reaches Montreal

Oct 11th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

montreal - Google Maps

… and much of Canada, of course.

laloux - Google MapsThis was one of the more welcome stories of the week, especially for the thousands of tourists who visit cities like Montreal and Toronto every year – many for the first time. There’s nothing like being able to get a sense of a place before you go there, and with mobile devices like the iPhone and Android-based phones, you can easily access street views while you’re out and about.

If you’re like me, it’s a fun way to take a little walking tour of your favorite city, and that’s what I’ve been doing over the past few days since launch – virtually walking down the streets of the Old City, Little Italy, the Gay Village, and the Plateau.

The screenshots? Rue Notre Dame in front of the Basilica; Avenue Pins, looking at Laloux; St Catherine looking at Place des Arts.

laloux - Google Maps-1

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A good review for Newtown

Sep 11th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

Marie-Claude Lortie, in La Presse this week, writes that, while the ambience of Newtown is nothing like their old digs at Laloux, Patrice Demers and Marc-André Jetté are back in the business of creating really beautiful and good tasting food.

This follows a somewhat lukewarm review from Lesley Chesterman in the Montreal Gazette – albeit just a few weeks after the restaurant had reopened.

Perhaps a few hiccups at the outset, but they now seem to be firing on all cylinders. Friends of mine confirm this from their recent visit to Newtown, and we’ll be there in a few months to see for ourself.

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Cafe Myriade rocks

Aug 31st, 2009 by Todd Mundt

So if I’ve tweeted this, should I blog it? What if I also Facebooked it? Well, here’s my Social Media strategy: at this moment, I don’t give a rat’s ass.

macchiato_myriadeI’m proud of Montreal’s Cafe Myriade because Anthony and Alex both placed in the Eastern Regional Canadian Barista Championship several days back: Anthony in first place, and Alex in third. Both will represent Montreal in the national competition in Vancouver in October.

Myriade produces beautiful coffee – something that’s not, strictly speaking, impossible to do. It serves it with a smile and without attitude, and after watching baristas at Intelligentsia or Ritual sigh or roll their eyes at customers who unknowingly broke this or that cardinal rule of coffee drinkery, I had come to believe that these achievements were mutually exclusive. Not so.

1432 rue Mackay

photo: Chuck’s excellent macchiato, prepared by Anthony at Cafe Myriade on December 20, 2008.

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2009 holiday plans, v. 1.0

Aug 30th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

Well, with only(!) 110 days left before the next trip to Montreal, and our sixth holiday spent in the city, our restaurant plan is beginning to take shape.

Readers of this blog know that food matters a lot to us, and on a vacation where the goal is to relax and do little or nothing, planning meals takes center stage.

Each year, we choose a mix of old favorites, as well as new restaurants to try, and for our 8 dinners this winter, here are the 10 restaurants that have made the first cut:

  • Laloux
  • Newtown
  • DNA
  • Le Club Chasse et Peche
  • Toque
  • Mas Cuisine
  • Au Pied de Cochon
  • Restaurant La Chronique
  • Bonaparte
  • Otto

Favorites:

Laloux is now helmed by Eric Gonzalez, and the initial reviews are good, as expected. We ate his food at Cube in 2006. We went to Laloux twice in 2008 and loved it. Newtown is where you now find Marc-André Jetté and Patrice Demers, lately from Laloux. Their review in the Gazette in July was more guarded, but we were so impressed at Laloux that we’ll head to Newtown. DNA is impressive; we had an excellent meal there in 2008, and our friends enjoyed it again in May of this year. Plus it’s kind of fun to sit in a space that looks like a Borg cube and watch the holiday fireworks over the Old Port. Toque has had its ups and downs with reviewers, but we’ve had two excellent dinners here in 2007 and 2008, so we’ll return. The wine list is also quite good. Au Pied de Cochon – well, what can we say that hasn’t been said? A dinner here is de rigeur.

New Entrants:

La Chronique has floated around the planning list for a couple years now, and I think this will be the year when we give the bistro a try. Le Club Chasse et Peche is another restaurant that’s landed on our restaurant list at least twice, only to drop off. Not a statement about the quality of its food, but more the result of difficult choices. Mas Cuisine is run by the former chef from Bruinoise, which was a restaurant we loved in 2006, now just a memory. Brunoise is still fresh in our minds, so we’ll hope for a repeat at Mas Cuisine.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Night:

These two days present their own challenges, since so many restaurants close for one or both days. Hotel/Auberge dining options are usually reliable, and while Bonaparte and the W Hotel’s Otto aren’t what I would call stunning, each is reliably good. And as I’ve said so many times here, Bonaparte is kind of special on Christmas Eve, with its traditional, beautifully cooked, French/Quebecois food.

I’ll say more as we get closer and start working the list against our calendar and each restaurant’s plans around the holidays.

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Patrice Demers live in action

Aug 9th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

Thinking of Laloux again, and Newtown and Patrice Demers, here the video that gave us our first look at Demers in action. From the Something’s Cooking series (now defunct), here he is making the stunning Lychee Granite with Chef Nancy Hinton narrating the action.

We had this dessert twice at Laloux, and Chuck re-created it at home for friends earlier this year. As of this writing, it’s not on the menu at Laloux or Newtown, but we hope it will reappear at one or both restaurants!

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New Reviews of Laloux and Newtown

Aug 9th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

Let me pass on a couple reviews of note about two restaurants we’ve been watching closely over the past several months.

Laloux

In the Montreal Gazette, Lesley Chesterman visits and finds much to praise in the cooking of Eric Gonzalez and pastry chef Michelle Marek. First the setting, which hasn’t changed a bit and that makes her happy (and us, too). Next, the food and wine, both of which meet her high expectations.

We saw Gonzalez in action in 2006 at Cube, just before it closed, and we’re pleased that he continues to dazzle.

If you’re thinking about restaurant choices for your next trip to Montreal, or you’ve been to Laloux in the past and want to make sure its reputation is untarnished, this review should help you arrive at a decision.

Newtown

Next, Chesterman’s review of Newtown, under Marc André Jetté and Patrice Demers, both recently departed from Laloux. Chesterman’s visits occurred only about 6 weeks into their tenure there, and the results are mixed. With Jetté, her issue seems to be with execution rather than vision, and she has quibbles with Demers’ approach to portion sizes for desserts.

Her biggest problem seems to be with the venue, which despite a few touchups here and there is still basically the same space it was in 2001. Time for a change, and Chesterman suggests it’s worth considering a name change – something we thought might happen back when the Chef Musical Chairs got underway.

Our Plans

We ate at Laloux twice on our last trip. It was a brilliant dining experience both times. We plan to return, to discover firsthand what Gonzalez and Marek are up to. And despite the less stellar beginning for Newtown, we’ll be there in a few months, too, because Jetté and Demers are remarkably talented and we expect them to be into the swing of things, and producing great meals.

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MüvBox

Jun 24th, 2009 by Todd Mundt

The video is amazingly cool, the concept is forward-thinking and super-trendy, perhaps a bit too trendy even for the most over-touristed sections of Old Montreal. But here it is, MüvBox, now at the Quai des Éclusiers (McGill and de la Commune).

And, based on the word of Montreal Foodie, which we’ve come to trust over the years, it might be worth a free look around, but perhaps not for lunch.

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