The Top 25 Restaurants in Montreal Right Now

Le Violon. Photo by Jeremy Dionne

Food & Drink

The Top 25 Restaurants in Montreal Right Now

by Clay Sandhu

An evolving list reflecting what we’re into and where we think you’re guaranteed to get a good meal.

Below is a list of the Top 25 Restaurants in Montreal right now, an evolving selection of places we love to eat at. It’s by no means definitive, it’s just a reflection of what we’re into at the moment and where we think you’re guaranteed to get a good meal.

The Top 25 Restaurants in Montreal Right Now

1. Limbo

Taking over the space formerly home to Marconi, Limbo is the latest project from the much-loved chef and ex-Salle Climatisée chef-owner Harrison Shewchuk. Joining Shewchuk in the venture are Jack Zeppetelli (ex-Pichai) and Jesse Massumi (Pumpui, Pichai), who head up the front of house, in addition to the brilliant Cédric Larocque in the kitchen. Shewchuk’s romantic, francophile tendencies are on full display with a menu that combines classics (mousse de foie with baguette) with other delicacies drawn from the deep recesses of the French culinary canon —  like the fantastic pommes dauphines with mouclade (a curry sauce from La Rochelle) or an incredibly robust and well-executed crispy tête de cochon, served with puntarelle. Shewchuk and Larocque are doing some of their best-ever cooking, the wine list by Pichai’s Henri Murray is thoughtfully curated (the house martini is perfect, too), and the room has all the warmth and charming sophistication you could hope for. Since opening in March, Limbo has quickly become one of the best tables in town. (45 Mozart)

2. Le Violon

Despite his well-established celebrity-chef status, Le Violon is technically Danny Smiles’ first restaurant. Taking over the space formerly home to Maison Publique, Smiles is joined in the kitchen by co-owner and co-executive chef Mitch Laughren, along with chef-de-cuisine Sara Raspa. Replacing Maison Publique’s cottage-kitsch décor is one of Montreal’s most elegant dining rooms, thanks to designer Zébulon Perron and co-owner Dan Climan. The food is refined and beautiful, drawing inspiration from around the world. You might start with a plate of oysters with rhubarb mignonette and move to a kibbeh nayyeh-inspired beef tartare followed by a plate of stout bread with mussels bathed in cheddar custard or gochujang-glazed sweetbreads with a handsome round of grilled new onion. Word to the wise: save room for dessert. (4720 Marquette)

3. Beba

Owned by brothers Ari and Pablo Schor, Beba is a restaurant that changed the dining landscape in Montreal and has firmly entrenched itself in the ranks of the city’s best restaurants. Constantly in evolution, Ari’s vision is technique- and ingredient-driven, meaning he never hesitates to break with conventions or expectations to deliver a truly exceptional plate of food. Free from unnecessary embellishment and chef-centric ego, the menu oscillates from exceptional fish from Japan to premium caviar, perfectly prepared offal to boiled meats. Argentinian on paper, the restaurant’s roots are accented with Jewish, Spanish and Italian influences, resulting in food that is singular, entirely unpretentious (though often luxurious) and absolutely delicious. (3900 Éthel)

4. Bar-St-Denis

Though Bar-St-Denis may have started as a watering hole with elevated bar food, Emily Homsy and David Gauthier’s eatery has clearly evolved to become one of Montreal’s best and most innovative restaurants. Having made its way onto the Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list, this regular haunt for industry folk and Little Italy locals has built its reputation on its easygoing atmosphere, genuine hospitality and undeniably excellent food. Inventive, iconoclastic and invariably delicious, a meal at Bar-St-Denis is always guaranteed to surprise and delight. (6966 St-Denis)

5. Gia

Arguably the crown jewel of the Nora Gray/Elena group, Gia is an emphatic embrace of Tuscany and Abruzzo, and represents the owners’ many years of dedication to bringing the best of Italy to Montreal. Open for lunch and dinner, the restaurant’s casual and convivial vibe is rooted in the Abruzzese tradition of grilling arrosticini (small skewers of meat cooked over charcoal) and drinking generous amounts of wine. The kitchen is run by co-owner and Elena mainstay Janice Tiefenbach alongside Chef de Cuisine Conrad Charron, while the front of house is overseen by Lawrence (Larry) Fiset, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the world of wine makes his list one of the best and most interesting in town. Pop in for a full meal or pull up to “Wine Island” for a few bites and a glass or two of vino. (1025 Lenoir)

6. Sushi Nishinokaze

    An exercise in precision and reverence, Sushi Nishinokaze quietly sets a new standard for Japanese dining in Montreal. The eight-seat Edomae-style sushiya is led by chef Vincent Gee, whose experience spans Tokyo, Vancouver and Toronto, alongside co-owner Julian Doan. Together, they offer a 24-course omakase that balances technical mastery with a modern, deeply personal touch. Seasonal, wild-caught seafood, a proprietary rice blend cultivated near Kyoto and nearly priceless tableware from Doan’s private collection all speak to the restaurant’s uncompromising ethos. The space, designed in collaboration with Montreal architect Justin Nguyen and Taichi Kuma (son of Kengo Kuma), reflects a quiet harmony of cultures. A tightly curated beverage program includes privately imported sake, grower Champagne and natural wines — also from Doan’s personal collection. At $360 a head, it’s among the city’s most rarefied tables — and one of its most thoughtfully conceived. (5264 St-Laurent)

    7. Nora Gray

      Once a trailblazer in Montreal’s Italian dining scene, Nora Gray has quietly reemerged as one of the city’s most compelling restaurants. With chef Dmetro Sinclair (ex-Salle Climatisée, Willow Inn) now leading the kitchen, the menu has found new clarity — embracing the spirit of Italian cooking with dishes that are generous, confident and deeply flavourful. Think maltagliati with chicken liver ragù, charcoal-grilled Berkshire pork finished with lardo and oregano, or slices of raw Bluefin dressed in peperoncini and olive oil. The wine list, curated by Shelby Skaberna, is thoughtful and deeply rooted, with an emphasis on Old World producers, back vintages and bottles that reward curiosity. Tucked away on a quiet stretch of St-Jacques, the softly lit, wood-panelled space remains one of the city’s most comfortable dining rooms. (1391 St-Jacques)

      8. Mon Lapin

      Marc-Olivier Frappier and Vanya Filipovic’s Little Italy restaurant remains, month after month, the top restaurant in Montreal. Having nabbed the #1 spot on Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants two years running, Mon Lapin’s list of accolades only continues to grow. The food here is a poetic mixture of French and Italian cooking in Frappier’s unmistakable and ingenious style. As the undisputed queen of natural wine, Filipovic’s list is expertly curated and chock-full of classics and quaffable curiosities. (150 St-Zotique E.)

      9. Foxy

      Spectacularly good wood-fired cooking, cleverly finessed cocktails, warm-yet-professional service and one of the city’s very best wine lists — honestly, what more could you ask for? Formerly owned by serial chef-restaurateur Dyan Solomon (Olive + Gourmando, Un Po Di Piu), Foxy was sold to the restaurant’s managing director Véronique Dalle last year. As one of Montreal’s most celebrated wine professionals, Dalle has been shaping wine lists across the city for decades in addition to training many of Montreal’s best sommeliers as an ITHQ instructor. It’s certain that the restaurant’s sterling reputation, exceptional sense of hospitality and excellent cooking will remain intact. With a menu built for the open flame, expect dishes with global influences prepared with tact and a generous helping of know-how. (1638 Notre-Dame W.) 

      10. Bistro la Franquette

      Though it still feels like the new kid on the block, it’s hard to remember the Westmount dining scene without Bistro la Franquette. From his days running the kitchens at Pastel and Fantôme to his string of wildly successful “Baby Duck” pops-ups, chef Louis Deligianis is known around town as one of the city’s most talented cooks. At Franquette, he deftly lays his hand on bistro classics. Vegetables and proteins are cooked with masterful precision, sauces are rich when they ought to be and delicate when not. The menu is dynamic, moving from springy and briny house-made halloumi to a beef tartare “club sandwich” to guinea fowl, sweetbreads or a perfect steak frites. Co-owner and general manager Renée Deschenes, for her part, oversees a solid front-of-house team while providing an exceedingly warm and welcoming brand of hospitality and keeping a very well-stocked wine cellar. (374 Victoria)

      11. Dorsia

        WITH Hospitality’s most lavish project to date, Dorsia is a fine-dining destination that delivers on its ambitions. Housed in a dramatic Old Montreal corner building, the space is pure grandeur — custom marble, parquet floors and a blown-glass chandelier set the tone, with interiors by Ivy Studio drawing inspiration from the great dining rooms of London and Paris. Behind the stoves is chef Miles Pundsack-Poe (ex-Meadowood, Ensue), whose French-Italian menu balances precision with flair. Highlights include squash agnolotti finished with dry-aged citrus butter and black truffle, and a lacquered duck crown for two — dry-aged, five-spiced and served alongside a cascade of roasted mushrooms. The wine list is broad and conventional, but well-chosen; the service is polished, attentive and refreshingly warm. For dessert, a cashew millefeuille with passionfruit and mango might be one of the best finales in the city. (396 Notre-Dame W.)

        12. HENI

        Centred around the ancient and diverse culinary traditions of the SWANA regions (an acronym for Southwest Asia and North Africa), HENI is one of the most unique, clearly defined and well-executed restaurant offerings to hit Montreal in some time. The kitchen is run by chef Julien Robillard (ex-Pastel and Hotel le St-James) along with sous-chef Rami Nassim and pastry chef Tien Nguyen. The menu embodies the flavours, techniques and diversity of the various regions it claims (think kibbeh nayyeh, Moroccan pastilla and couscous) and delivers them with finesse, refinement and a great deal of respect. Aside from the food, co-owners Noah Abecassis and Soufian Mamlouk also run Sienna Wines, an importation agency dedicated to importing low-intervention wines from Lebanon — one of the world’s oldest winemaking regions. (2621 Notre-Dame W.)

        13. Pichai

        A Thai go-to without equal and easily one of the city’s best restaurants. Moving away from silky curries and mango sticky rice, which made its sister restaurant Pumpui famous, chef Jesse Grasso’s food is diverse, composed and more reflective of dishes you’d see in northern Thailand. The fried fish balls in a sweet chilli sauce are incredible, as is the Laab Ped, a spicy salad of duck and duck hearts, but it’s the specials that keep the crowds coming back. Seasonal specials might include firefly squid served with nam jim talay (a potent dipping sauce made of lime, coriander and pickled garlic) or grilled veal heart with a fragrant lemongrass relish. The food is powerfully flavourful, unapologetically spicy and damn delicious. (5985 St-Hubert)

        14. Lawrence

        Having originally started as a pop-up kitchen running out of Sparrow in 2010, Lawrence is a name synonymous with hearty English cooking, whole animal butchery and, of course, brunch. Since taking the decision to run the kitchen solo, chef/owner Marc Cohen has breathed new life into Lawrence, re-establishing it as one of the most exciting restaurants in the city. The concise but balanced menu focuses on tidy, composed dishes that marry the best of old Lawrence’s offaly-good cooking with a newfound elegance, sophistication and maturity. Sommelier Keaton Richie’s wine list is also one of the deepest and best curated in Montreal and features everything from accessible discoveries to sought-after back vintages. (9 Fairmount E.)

        15. Liverpool House

        Of all the restaurants in the Joe Beef family, Liverpool House may be the one that most faithfully captures the group’s original spirit — clever, irreverent and deeply rooted in the tradition of bourgeois French cooking. Chef Catherine Watters’ menu leans hearty and indulgent, but with plenty of freshness: zesty Italian-style beef tartare, perfectly roasted char with leeks, a proper steak frites and a heap of enticing specials. It’s loud, lively and always generous — the kind of place that reminds you what this group does best and why they’ve been so influential on the restaurant scene both here and around the world. (2501 Notre-Dame W.)

        16. Pasta Pooks

        Luca Vinci, Montreal’s reigning king of the pop-up, has officially put down roots in the former home of Little Italy staple Dinette Triple Crown. After perfecting his pasta craft in kitchens across the city — most notably at Impasto — Vinci, along with longtime friend and business partner Victor “Coach Vic” Petrenko, is now serving up some of the city’s best fresh pasta and hoagies from an intimate, park-side space. The pastas are classic in spirit — think spinach ravioli, tagliatelle bolognese, gnocchi pomodoro — but executed with finesse by chef Kai Borst. The lemon-pookie cheesesteak hoagie, on the other hand, is pure invention: unexpected, irreverent and entirely delicious. On the beverage side, a short but sweet collection of natural wines is offered by the glass or bottle. (6700 Clark)

        17. Taverne on the Square

        For over 20 years, Taverne on the Square has been a beloved fixture of the Westmount dining scene. As classic as they come, Taverne’s intimate and elegant dining room, with its spectacular curved banquettes and expertly draped white tablecloths, is among the most attractive in the city. Chef Stephen Leslie built his reputation on sourcing the best ingredients and puts together pitch-perfect renditions of tried-and-true dishes like salmon tartare, mac n’ cheese (theirs uses 18-month aged Comté) and Caesar salad. Unfussy and incredibly consistent, it rarely misses. Co-owner Jon Cercone’s wine list also deserves a special mention, as it’s filled with an abundance of rare and sought-after wines. (1 Westmount Square)

        18. Rôtisserie La Lune

        La Lune is what happens when the team behind Canada’s top-ranked restaurant decides to reimagine the classic rotisserie. Co-led by Marc-Olivier Frappier and Jessica Noël (Mon Lapin) alongside chef de cuisine Charles-Eric Boutet, the concept is simple: perfectly roasted chicken, crispy fries and luscious gravy, but executed with the kind of care and finesse this team is known for. The front-of-house lineup is equally stacked, with Vanya Filipovic joined by Mon Lapin veteran Alex Landry and celebrated wine minds Morgane Muszynski (ex-Denise) and Rosalie Forcherio (ex-Paloma). The wine list is, unsurprisingly, excellent, and the desserts (especially the carrot cake) are worth saving room for. With a stunning dining room designed by Zébulon Perron and an all-star cast, La Lune casts a shadow far larger than its humble inspiration. (391 St-Zotique)

          19. Molenne

          Named after the Joual mispronunciation of “Mile End” — a nod to the neighbourhood’s working-class, bilingual past — Molenne blends French-Québécois tradition with a contemporary brasserie sensibility. Set in the former Café Mei, the dining room by Atelier Séguin Besner layers salvaged banquettes, antique chimney plaques and archival equestrian imagery into a space that feels both grounded and transportive. Chef Louis-Joseph Rochefort (Bouillon Bilk, Le Serpent, Attica) leads a generous, seafood-forward menu shaped by local sourcing and classic technique — tourtière de Lac-Saint-Jean, razor clam salad, duck liver tartlet. The wine list, curated by Miro Ramirez, draws from a 5,000-bottle cellar that includes both rare vintages and accessibly priced selections. (5217 St-Laurent)

          20. Kitano Shokudo

          Ask your favourite chef what their favourite restaurant in town is and Kitano Shokudo is likely to come up. Run by chef Hiroshi Kitano, this Plateau restaurant is best known for its high-quality ingredients (some shipped from Japan, much sourced locally) and the enticing, seasonal menu that brings together regional staples from the whole of Japan. Fish is nearly always the star with jewel-box-esque chirashi bowls overflowing with colourful sashimi, but don’t miss the richly flavoured shoyu ramen or crispy karaage. The specials are always worth ordering and they vary from wild boar mapo tofu to uni carbonara and the infamous confit duck leg. Easily one of the best Japanese restaurants in the province. (143 Mont-Royal E.)

          21. Monarque

          Since opening in 2018, the Old-port Brasserie run by Executive Chef Jérémie Bastien and his father, Leméac’s Richard Bastien has become an incontournable. Designed by celebrated architect Alain Carle (Milos, Harricana, Vol de Nuit), its look is stunningly sophisticated and timeless despite its modernity. Bastien’s menu is French but does away with conventional brasserie food for something more upscale, refined and better suited to the grandeur of the dining room. (406 St-Jacques)

          22. Damas

          Fouad Alnirabie’s Outremont institution is a love letter to Syrian cuisine and one of the most elegant and elaborate dining experiences in town. While you can easily opt for a tour of classic kebabs and mezze, the best way to experience Damas is by the sensationally delicious 10-course tasting menu. Abundant in delicious bites of land and seam it can include, at any time, perfectly prepared lamb, charred octopus, or succulent shrimp fragrant with Aleppo pepper, garlic, and tahini. The food’s only equals are the beautifully ornate dining room and the wine cellar which holds some of the city’s rarest and most coveted bottles. (1201 Van Horne)

          23. L’Express

          The bistro that needs no introduction. Open since 1980, l’Express is perhaps the city’s most beloved dining institution. Classic French fare like steak frites and rognons de veau are served in the generously lit, Luc Laporte-designed dining room. While the restaurant isn’t known for being particularly innovative, the daily specials have gotten a lot more playful in recent years and have graduated from casual curiosities to frequently must-order dishes. 44 years after its opening, l’Express feels refreshed and reinvigorated and may be better than it has been in some time. (3927 St-Denis)

          24. Marcus

          Among Montreal’s most beautiful restaurants, Marcus (named after celebrity chef/owner Marcus Samuelsson) is all about the finer things. Located inside the lavish Four Seasons Hotel and designed by Zébulon Perron, the restaurant has a swank and distinctly coastal feel. Executive chef Jason Morris (ex-Fantôme and Pastel) runs one of the city’s tightest brigades, and his menu concentrates on exceptionally high-quality fish and seafood prepared with finesse and intention. The cocktail program deserves a special mention (it’s spectacular) as does the terrasse, which is easily one of the best in town. A place to see and be seen. (1440 de la Montagne)

          25. La Spada

            The sister of NDG mainstay Amerigo, La Spada is a Roman-inspired Osteria and a love letter to Italian pop culture. Co-owned by beloved food photographer Scott Usheroff and chef Steve Marcone, the menu focuses on the Roman classics (cacio e pepe, carbonara, etc.) but draws on a wider range of dishes from the Italian and Italian-American canon, like tortellini in brodo, braised meatballs and penne alla vodka. With crisp yet casual service, a beautiful room draped in nostalgia, and a beverage program worth its salt, La Spada is a welcome addition to Montreal’s Italian dining scene. (3580 Notre-Dame W.)

            For more on the Montreal restaurant scene, please visit the Food & Drink section.

            Posted in Food & Drink

            by Clay Sandhu

            Food Editor
            Clayton Sandhu is what you might call a tasteful glutton who happens to write about food. When not cooking in restaurant kitchens or pouring natural wines, he can be found eating well, drinking well and enjoying a leisurely lunch.