Montreal en Lumière, aka the Montreal Highlights Festival, can be a bit overwhelming. A Nordic style lunch, a Haitian brunch, an ice bar and some $300 three-Michelin Star cuisine? With so many dinners, invited chefs and special events, it’s hard to know where to make a reservation, not to mention where to hunt for free cheese or Quebec haskap berry juice samples.
That’s pretty much why I exist, I feel. To give you these suggestions. Here’s what you need to know:
Dates: Feb. 22 – March 3, 2019
What: Montreal’s biggest food festival.
Featured country: Each year the festival pairs Montreal restaurants with a guest chef from the featured country, except this year, when Montreal restaurants choose the chef they want to share their kitchen for a few nights. There’ll also be some restaurants without invited chefs that have special menus featuring products or restaurants from various countries or from the featured region of Quebec.
Featured region of Quebec: Côte Nord. It was the same last year, but this year there’s an area open to the public where you can taste a lot of these products for free. It’s called the Quartier Gourmand and it’ll be open Friday, Feb. 22 to Sunday, Feb. 24 at 305 Ste-Catherine West in the Place des Festivals. The first weekend will have soups from the around the world, a maple syrup tasting booth and talks with author Kim Thúy and Josée di Stasio. The second weekend will have a henhouse, a msuhroom farm, wierd citrus and Matty Matheson, who’s a foul-mouthed sweetheart. I just did a Global Television segment on this part of the festival this morning (P.S. I also covered Helena Loureiro’s “Tour of the Quebec Islands” dinners on Feb. 25 and 26; see my explainer of that meal lower in this post).
Free Cheese and Cider: And there’s the festival of Quebec cheeses (free samples of cheeses in the Complexe Desjardins from the 22-23 – expect lines) and the Mondial des Cidres, the cider festival (not free, but similar tasting idea on the following weekend, March 1-3 – $20 for 10 coupons and a tasting glass).
La Nuit Gourmande: New this year is a Nuit Blanche-style all-night food thing spread across four zones of the city. On Feb. 23, a bunch of restaurants and bars will set up outdoor kiosks, including beer tastings, bbqs, and cocktails, nighttime brunch, etc. It’s not all free, but some is.
Jean-Talon Night Market: Okay, it’s not much of a night market. The market of artisans is just going to stay open until 11pm on Feb. 23 and there’ll be some music. This ain’t Thailand. But it could be cute. Maybe I’m just a cynic.
But what the festival’s best known for gastronomically are the fancy dinners. My suggestions are based on what’s not sold out, what’s the most unique that you couldn’t otherwise get in Montreal on a given night, what’s sort of food intolerance friendly and what’s the best deal. I’d love to go to the $425 dinner at the Atelier de Joêl Robuchon with Veuve Clicquot wine pairing but…for the same reason, I’ll skip the $300 multi-course dinner from Mike Bagale, former exec chef of Alinea (though $300 for a three-Michelin-Star-quality meal might actually be a decent deal).
My Choices for Dinners, Lunches, Brunches and Drinks:
THE BIG ONE: Feb. 26 and 28 – Eric Bouchenoire and Dominic Demarville – Ode to Robuchon – $425 at Atelier de Joel Robuchon
THE OTHER BIG ONE: March 1 and 2 – Mike Bagale at Chasse-Galerie – $300 – 6 courses – former three-michelin exec chef at Alinea – Chasse Galerie
Feb. 21-22: at Le Margaux – Guadalupe chef – $50 for four courses
Feb 21-March 2: Swiss raclette with yellow wine from Jura at the ITHQ bar
Great deal: $6 for raclette, plus wine, 4-10pm daily
Feb. 21-March 1 (weekdays only): $25 three-course Nordic-style lunch at Etat-Major
Feb 23: Ice bar at Bar George – outdoors
Feb. 23: Discussion with Josee di Stasio – 4pm at Salle Gourmande at the Astral
Feb. 27-28: Female Portuguese chef at Ferreira Cafe – $95 and $160 five courses
Feb. 25 and 26: Helena Loureiro at Portus 360 – $80 and $120 with wine pairing. The dinners are called “A Tour of the Quebec Islands” and the products come from islands throughout Quebec, including crab, shrimp, oysters, smoked mackerel, seal and bigorneaux (all seafood) from the Magdalen Islands, some incredibly al dente and delicious seaweed (she wrapped some around lobster and served it with a green apple and lemon gel for the segment I did on Global TV above), some very aromatic and buttery raw milk cheese from Ile aux Grues and wine and crème de cassis from Ile d’Orleans and Sept-Iles. $80 or $120 with wine pairing. The restaurant is in a high rise building at 777 Robert Bourrassa Blvd and it comes with a 360 panoramic view of the city. Yes, you can get the view any night, but you can’t get the seaweed and seal or the cod liver paté (think foie gras of the sea).
Feb. 28: Candide – $65, $125 mostly canned summer vegetables and fresh winter veg, which is similar to what the restaurant does all nights of winter, and the price tag is similar, so I’d go just to see what they do differently from normal, if anything. Call it professional curiosity.
Feb. 27 and 28: Auberge St-Gabriel – French and Nicaraguan with NY/Philadelphia chef Daniel Eddy $75, $120
Feb. 27 and 28: Discovering Biodynamic Wines at Chez Victoire, $80 including wine, with biodyanamic French winemaker. I really like this wine bar. And $80 is one of the less expensive festival dinners where wine is included. Plus, biodynamic wines are fun. If this was your average restaurant and the private import company wasn’t throwing the event, I wouldn’t go, but the Chez Victoire somm knows what’s what.
March 3: Bagatelle Brunch at Agrikol with invited Haitian chef – $40, $70 with drinks – you eat, then you go dancing at Ti-Agrikol next door. The meal is three courses with optional 2 cocktails and 1 barbancourt rum. Boozy Sunday.
Feb. 28: Agrikol Dinner – there’s also a dinner version of the brunch event with two seatings (5pm or 8pm), $60 or $90 and instead of the barbancourt, you get to try some Bella Vita Grand Cru
March 1 and 2: Ikanos – Invited chef from Barcelona – $94 not including wine – 8 courses. I had a great Mtl en Lumiere meal here last year and this is the only Spanish dinner of the fest.
What else you need to know: You have to call the individual restaurants for reservations.
Happy eating!
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