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.

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.

This is the first list we’ve created to roughly approximate the number of dinners we’ll have in Montreal. I wish I could say it represents the results of exhaustive research, but it doesn’t. However, Chuck and I have been reading menus for the past few days.

• Dinner 1: Laloux
• Dinner 2: Au Pied du Cochon
• Dinner 3: DNA
• Dinner 4: Le Club Chasse et Pesce
• Dinner 5: Bonaparte
• Dinner 6: Le Germain: Laurie Raphael
• Dinner 7: Yoyo
• Dinner 8: Au Pied du Cochon

This order isn’t exact – we need to rationalize it with the restaurant holiday schedules, but it’s a good start. There are several first-time visits: Laloux, DNA, Chasse et Pesce, Laurie Raphael, Yoyo; only two repeats – Bonaparte and APDC.

Why in heaven’s name would we visit APDC twice in one trip? Despite the caloric burden, Chuck has repeatedly suggested this since our last visit in December 07. Well, while we’ve eaten better food elsewhere, our experiences at APDC – the ambiance, food, service, conviviality – have been unforgettable. (Our friend Howard sums it up beautifully here.) I hesitate to refer to any one restaurant as the quintessence of Quebecois dining; no single place captures that. But for us, it’s come to represent this city that celebrates pleasure.

What about Gandhi? Holder? Well, there’s always lunch, and thus, the planning continues.

This blog has chronicled our restaurant thinking and planning since 2006, and you can see the 2006 redux, as well as the 2007 discussion and a review of some of the 2007 restaurants from the inimitable Howard Schaefer. It’s chronicled restaurants that closed before we got to them (Anise, Bazaar Anise, Chevre) and some that closed after one visit (Cube, Brunoise) when we would have liked a second opportunity to dine there.

Truth be told, I’m more into this thing about making a list 120 days out from a trip than Chuck is, but from our previous visits, here are the prime candidates for a repeat visit.

2007: Pintxo

In 2007, there were two significant additions to our dining list: Toqué and Pintxo. Toqué was a celebratory event, an evening with all four of our friends for a dinner that would be memorable. Toqué doesn’t disappoint, but I doubt we’ll go back this year because we’ll be alone and less in need of the over-the-top dinner event. Pintxo, on the other hand, is a top candidate for 2008. It was a supremely pleasurable experience, and despite ordering everything on the menu (except the mixed salad), I think there’s more to enjoy there.

2006: Au Pied de Cochon

A significant percentage of web text about Montreal restaurants is devoted to this establishment, and this blog has contributed a fair amount, too, so I’ll spare you an additional review here. But our dinner there in 2006 led to a group celebration in 2007; and following those smashing successes, we’ll be back again this year. We’re spending a record 8 nights in Montreal this holiday, and we’ve talked about going twice, once before Christmas and again after. The caloric weight of two visits in such a short period of time may be more than my body can bear, but I’m willing to put it to the test.

2005: Gandhi

I written alot about Gandhi here; we think they serve some really good Indian food, and we like to visit often when we’re in Montreal. It’s also just steps away from the auberge where we stay, which makes it a convenient stop when we’re hungry and tired after a long day of leisure.

2004: Bato Thai, Bonaparte, Otto

Unless I’ve miscalculated, we’ve not been to Bato Thai since 2005, so I can’t vouch for its current state, but we had three great meals there, we like the Thai food there a lot, and I’ve heard little since then to convince me otherwise. It might be worth another visit. Bonaparte is one of the our most visited restaurants in Montreal, in part because it’s close to the auberge, and it’s a nice “French dining experience.” I enjoyed it most for Christmas Eve, and we kept that tradition until 2007. It could return this year, and so could Otto, which has been the Christmas night restaurant since 2004. It’s just good food, the menu changes regularly, service is good, the wine list is fine. Christmas night choices for dining are limited, naturally, and although we’ve talked about Niu Kee for a couple years, so far we’ve booked at Otto every Christmas.

So to summarize:

Candidates for a repeat visit:

• Pintxo
• APDC
• Gandhi
• Bato Thai
• Bonaparte
• Otto

New Contenders (new to our list, I mean):

• Laloux has actually been on our list for some time, and Chuck is concerned that we make 2008 the year we get there. A search of “Laloux” will bring up enough reviews to confirm that this is a restaurant that deserves to be on the list. It’s been called the best in Montreal by many, and the best in Canada by some. We hope to draw our own conclusion.
• Le Local has generated a fair amount of buzz, not all of it positive, since it opened. I expect Chuck and I will give it some consideration.
• Holder has been around longer, and also receives generally positive reviews. We’ve kept this restaurant as an option for a couple years now… perhaps this year.
• Joe Beef
• Niu Kee: 1163 rue Clark
• Restaurant YoYo

The New Contender list will grow, I’m sure, and I’ll keep you up-to-date.

What about lunch? That’s next.

We’ll rendezvous in Toronto on December 20th with Bob and Michael, and they’ll join us on the train to Montreal on 12/21. When we arrive in Montreal, we’ll meet up with Howard and Donovan. They be with us until Christmas Eve; Bob and Michael will return home the day after Christmas.

As I’ve noted before, the presence of others has caused us to shift our approach to dining plans. Both couples have been in Montreal before, but not during the holidays. What we’re aiming to give them is a small taste of the city, knowing that we can’t begin to show everything we’ve discovered about Montreal, much less the vastness of the city we haven’t yet discovered.

Here’s how things are shaping up:

Toronto
12/20: Rain – the Rubinos are celebrities, and their restaurant gets some backlash because of it, but over multiple visits, we’ve loved the experience. Guy Rubino creates some really amazing dishes; we like the design of the space; Robert Gonsalves is one of the best pastry chefs around. I still remember a food and wine pairing from a tasting menu two years ago that was the most seamless expression of a pairing that I’ve ever had. Toronto has some good restaurants; in the “great” category, there’s Susur and we must break old habits to visit it soon. But sometimes it fun to drop in on an old friend, after nearly two years to the day since our last visit to Rain, we’re looking forward to it.

Montreal
12/21: Toque – this restaurant regularly surfaces in the “top restaurants” lists, and it has a solid reputation. We’ve never been, so I’ll have more to say in about a month. Chuck chose it because it’s likely to be a perfect “first night” restaurant, one of those places you choose to go because you’re in a celebratory mood and you want a crowd around you. I think it’s a great choice.

12/22: Pintxo – this was to be our night at Brunoise, which closed about a week ago. Forced to make another choice, we went with another restaurant we’ve not visited, but one that lets us focus on the smaller neighborhood bistro, which, despite the loss of Brunoise and Anise, seems to flourish in Montreal. Pinxto has a solid reputation; again, we’ll have more to say after we’ve been there.

12/23: Au Pied de Cochon – Martin Picard’s restaurant hits several buttons at once: quintessential Montreal, neighborhood establishment, solid reputation, den of decadence. Where else should one worship foie gras than in a loud restaurant, packed to the gills with diners who can’t get enough of it? Chuck and I ate here for the first time last year, and it’s been on every version of this list we’ve made since then.

12/24, 12/25 and 12/26 are still up in the air. I have a soft spot for Bonaparte on Christmas Eve; it’s traditional French/Quebecois, a little frumpy – it just feels right for Christmas Eve, where the stately meal is followed by bedtime viewing of “Scrooge” on CBC. Chuck, however, notes that the menu hasn’t changed in three years. This is largely true. So Bonaparte maybe out this year – at least for Christmas Eve. Christmas night, it’s hard to find much open, so it might turn out to be our lifesaver that night. Last year, we noticed that Gandhi had a special meal for Christmas Eve – we hadn’t noticed this in previous years. That’s tempting, if they’re planning it again for this year.

Lunch: I expect we’ll visit the usual suspects: Olive et Gourmando, Titanic, Holder, Cluny.

More updates as we nail it down.

Dinner
Friday 12/21 – Holder???
Saturday 12/22 – Brunoise???
Sunday 12/23 – Anise???
Christmas Eve 12/24 – Gandhi
Christmas Night 12/25 – Niu Kee
Wednesday 12/26 – Au Pied du Cochon

Montreal Bagels
Tokyo Sushi on St. Paul

Lunch
Olive et Gourmando
Pho Bang New York
Au Petit Express
Cluny
Titanic

* One lunch plus one dinner in Chinatown

Today, we were even lazier than usual. Chuck wasn’t feeling well – a lingering cold – so we spent a good part of the day lounging, after breakfast. We walked around for a while, but we spent most of the day either in our room or at the cafe Van Houtte next door to the auberge. We walked to the Bouchees Gourmandes on St. Paul Ouest in the afternoon for a quick bite to eat. While we were there, we also bought a dozen chocolates. They’re hand-made and they’re really wonderful. We carried the bag back to our room, where we promptly ate them all.

In the evening, we walked up the street to Bonaparte for dinner. I’ve already described it here as a perfect Christmas Eve dinner – traditional and French and quite good – and it didn’t disappoint. There are 2 degustation menus available this year – C$48 and C$62. We chose the first, which was more than enough food for us. Lobster bisque, foie gras terrine, salad, lamb, dessert. Wonderful. Even Chuck, struggling through his cold, enjoyed the meal. We walked back to the auberge in the crisp night air and watched “Scrooge” starring Alistair Sim, until we fell asleep.

Reservations at Bonaparte are recommended. But even for Christmas Eve, we heard there were openings right up until that afternoon, so while you should reserve, you may get lucky.