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.

But 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

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 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’re driven by both imperatives, each trip to Montreal, and we felt that the stakes were higher this year because it wasn’t just us – we had four friends along for the ride. Yes, all were easy-going, all love great food, and most of them had been to Montreal before, but we still wanted to create a special experience for them, and highlight some what makes Montreal special to us.

I’ve already outlined the plan, so please allow this post to be about the experience of each restaurant; not a review per se, but a recounting of our time there.

Toque!

This was the celebratory dinner – the first night in Montreal for all of us; a chance to leave behind work, the 2008 Election, all things USA, and kick back. Toque was a great choice for this. Yes, it’s expensive, especially if you choose the tasting menu with wine, but we find that, more and more, we enjoy having the chef create the experience for us and match wine to it. In the best of circumstances, this can be the way to truly discover how a chef thinks and cooks, as well as the sommelier’s knowledge of wine. We were pleased with the experience at Toque; we found the atmosphere enjoyable, the food was delicious; and we were pleased that we could get a brief tour of the wine cellar and the kitchen afterward.

Pintxo

As I’ve explained previously, this was our choice to highlight the great neighborhood restaurants of Montreal. It’s hard to pick one and hope to do justice, but the point is to chill and enjoy it. Pintxo was great fun – we ate nearly every one of the small plates on the menu, and ordered seconds of a few of them. Several of us dived into a main dish, only to discover that we were more full than we expected; a few more tapas would have been excellent and we could have skipped the mains. The atmosphere at Pintxo is tight and convivial; we were a little loud, but then, so were our fellow diners at neighboring tables. No one cared; we all had a great time. The best part was the food, no surprise. There’s nothing quite as fun as getting exposed to new tastes in a no-pressure atmosphere. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of blood pudding, however nearly all of us had a taste because that’s all that was required of us – a taste. Plus, who wouldn’t enjoy seeing new plates of food arriving every couple of minutes? If Brunoise had survived a few weeks longer, we would have eaten there instead, but this “second choice” turned out to be really wonderful.

Au Pied de Cochon

I’m hesitant to admit that this was our second visit there… and still no foie gras. That’s another reason to go back. I think it would be hard to overstate our pleasure with this meal. All six of us ate till we could eat no more; we had excellent wine; we had a server who is a contender for Best Server of All Time – she fostered and magnified the sense of joy we had eating there, and her excitement and enthusiasm were so infectious. Martin Picard’s restaurant isn’t about pretension; it’s about eating good food. It’s loud, a bit raucous, a touch chaotic… but the food is consistently good. The cassoulet was tremendous; the venison tartare, delicious. I had bites of just about everything the others were eating, and it all tasted great, too. This year, we got Sugar Pie. (Last year, there were out of it.) In the company of our best friends, this rises above all other meals as the best dining experience of Montreal.

Gandhi

We’re fans of Gandhi – we like the food, the naan, in particular. We broke our rule and dined there twice – on Christmas Eve and again on Boxing Day. (It’s close to where we stay; I had a cold. It was easier just to go back than to venture out.) I think we were all pleased with the food, but it was one of those moments where you understand how important the ambiance is to your enjoyment of the evening. The restaurant was nearly empty – it was early, first of all; and on Christmas Eve, Indian food is often not at the top of one’s list. Well, we enjoyed the meal, as we did again on Boxing Day, but the traditionalist inside me wishes we had gone to Bonaparte again on Christmas Eve. As I’ve noted before, the Bonaparte menu is pretty much unchanged over 4 years of Christmas Eve dining, but it’s always full on Christmas Eve, and its Quebecois/French cuisine is what traditionalists like me enjoy on such a night. Perhaps next year.

Otto

This is the fourth year in a row of dining on Christmas night at Otto – the restaurant in the W Hotel. After three years of a nearly empty dining room, we were surprised to see the place get positively busy; so were the staff – they were calling in reinforcements. The menu has changed in recent weeks, and although we’ve always had good experiences, I think this was the best meal we’ve had there so far. We often feel like we’re copping out by going to Otto – after all, it’s a hotel restaurant. But on Christmas, there’s precious little open; hotel restaurants are our best option. Perhaps we could have been more adventurous – our list included untried restaurants at the St James, St Paul and Le Meridien Hotels, but Otto proved to be not only a comfortable dining experience, the food was also very enjoyable.

Final Thoughts

Unless our friends flat out lied to us, they enjoyed themselves at these restaurants. I think it’s hard to arrive at a perfect choice, the larger your group gets. But we were blessed to be a group of six hungry, curious guys, who live food, love wine, and genuinely enjoyed each others’ company.

Does it get any better than that?

We had planned to take our annual walk up Mont Royal today – it’s a perfect thing to do on Christmas, when there’s very little to do, the shops being closed, etc. But Chuck was feeling under-the-weather because of a cold, so we took advantage of the opportunity to be lazy. I think that’s the key to a good holiday – not over-planning, and being flexible about the plans you’ve made.

We walked around the Old City and I took more photographs, which I’ll be posting here in the next couple of days.

I should add that, although most shops in the Old City are closed on Christmas, many of the shops more directly related to the tourist trade are open, as are a number of restaurants, particularly on Rue St. Paul Est, as well as along St. Laurent Boulevard. You certainly don’t have to starve. Rue St. Paul Ouest may seem deserted by comparison.

Tonight, we’re having dinner at Otto. Otto is located in the W Hotel and the food is quite good. I won’t pretend that it’s our favorite place to dine in Montreal, but on Christmas night, the hotel restaurants tend to be reliable places to find a bite to eat.

Last night, we had a great dinner at Bonaparte, and I’ve commented already about how it’s a fine place to enjoy dinner on Christmas Eve, since it’s rather traditional and French-inspired. But this year, we also discovered that Gandhi, one of our favorite restaurants in the Old City, was open on Christmas Eve with a special dinner menu. And somehow, this year, that seemed quite appealing. And so, next year, if Gandhi is open, we may try moving our Christmas Eve dinner there. Traditions are to be savored, but sometimes it’s worth breaking them, too.

—

A note about Otto, now that we’ve returned. The food was excellent, as always. The restaurant describes itself as Italian, and this is true, but there’s also an Asian element that creeps in. We had excellent tempura-battered seafood, and our entrees were tuna, as well as a delicious risotto with perfect texture. Dessert was fun, too – nice take-offs on Tiramisu and Cannoli, with Chambord gelato.

“Pirates of the Carribbean” is on CBC – that’s a nice way to kick back and finish off a relaxing and enjoyable holiday.