Lesley Chesterman was not at all surprised when the prestigious list of 50 Best Restaurants in North America was announced in May and her native Montréal clinched four spots. The former food columnist and restaurant critic for the Montréal Gazette has long believed her hometown’s restaurants can compete in the big leagues — even with a population one-quarter that of New York City.
In a recent phone interview, Chesterman, 59, expressed offense at the New York Times’ assertion that — with 14 anointed restaurants — “Canada continued to overperform on the list.” The NYT writer’s point was likely that the much smaller country had surprisingly lapped the United States more than three times on a per-capita basis. But Chesterman took it to mean that American expectations for our northern neighbor’s culinary prowess were undeservedly low.
“We’re not overperforming,” she declared. “It’s that people need to discover us.”
Chesterman, a lifelong Montréaler and trained pastry chef, wrote for the Gazette from 1999 to 2019 and has done as much as anyone to aid that cause. She continues to do so through her Substack column, Lick My Plate, and her books, the latest of which, A Montréal Cook: Recipes and Reflections From My Kitchen (Simon and Schuster Canada, 366 pages, $33), came out in English in March. Chesterman also kick-started an exhibit on the history of the city’s eateries, “On the Menu — Montréal: A Restaurant Story,” at the McCord Stewart Museum through October 18.
Chesterman shared with Seven Days how she became a critic and what she’s observed over decades of patronizing and writing about Montréal restaurants. Following her recommendations (mostly), I created a 30-hour gastronomic itinerary built around a visit to the restaurant exhibit, starting with exquisite pastries, snagging a reservation at one of the 50 Best Restaurants in North America and concluding with a classic French Canadian breakfast.
How did you become passionate about food and build a career in it?
I was born and raised in Montréal. As a kid, I remember walking past restaurants that were boarded up, and I would always think, What happened in these places? What are the stories?
My parents were big restaurant-goers. My dad came from England, where there really were not restaurants after the war, or certainly ones that he could afford. My mother grew up in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where she loved food and cooking, but they really didn’t go to many restaurants. When my parents got here in 1961, I think they went crazy: They went to restaurants every night. They would eventually take us as well, so I went to a lot of these great Montréal restaurants.
I went to cooking school here when I was 19. I became a pastry chef, and I went to work in France, and then I came back to work in Québec. I decided not to pursue being a pastry chef. The years that I was doing it, there were no women. It was grim. I was a cooking teacher for professional students for a few years. I became a journalist because I questioned something in the paper, and one of the editors said, “If you think you can do better, why don’t you pitch a story?”
What was the impact of the 1967 world’s fair, Expo 67, on Montréal’s culinary scene?
I was born in 1967, and they say that 1967 was really the explosion of Montréal restaurants because of Expo 67 — that, finally, Québecers were exposed to this huge variety of restaurants from all over the world. A lot of the chefs that came here for Expo 67 stayed. There were a lot of great French restaurants in Montréal before the Expo, but I call that the first golden age of Montréal restaurants: 1967 to 1990. Then 1990 to the pandemic I would call the second golden age, where we saw the birth of Québécois cuisine with people like Normand Laprise [of Toqué!] and Martin Picard [of Au Pied de Cochon].
How have the city’s restaurants changed over your lifetime?
Creativity has definitely upped a lot. Back in the day, people were making classic food that maybe they would interpret their way, but it was always a very classic dish. Now we have a lot more different flavors. The variety is incredible, but the formality is absolutely gone.
When I go to a really nice restaurant in Montréal and I see kids walk in with backward baseball caps and sweatpants, I just die a little inside. I don’t think people have to get super dressed up but, you know, a certain amount of decorum.
There’s no formality, which is what I really loved in the past. There was a restaurant called Les Halles: You were nervous when you arrived, and the maître d’ would look you up and down. You’d be shaking. But it was so beautiful.
The greatest thing that’s happened here is the emancipation of the Québécois cook.
Lesley Chesterman
But the greatest thing that’s happened here is the emancipation of the Québécois cook. In Québec they say, “Maîtres chez nous” — we are the masters of our world — but in the kitchen they were not; in the kitchen it was French people.
When I was young, the top chefs were all from Europe. There were no Québécois chefs who had big jobs. That really changed with Normand Laprise.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
A Montréal Restaurant Tour with a Side of History
All prices are in Canadian dollars.
One Day Only
Rhubarbe, 1320 rue Charlevoix, 514-316-2935
When I asked Chesterman about her favorite local pâtisseries, her hands-down pick was Stéphanie Labelle’s Rhubarbe with one caveat: It had recently moved and is focused on special orders and catering, with the shop open only on Saturdays, 9 a.m. to noon.
Luckily, Rhubarbe’s new location is in the quartier of Pointe-Saint-Charles, a less-than-10-minute detour en route from Burlington to the McCord Stewart Museum, where we were headed early Saturday. I initially thought I could only preorder, though I later found out that the bakery does offer limited quantities of small pastries, such as Labelle’s impeccable-looking croissants (from $3.50), until it runs out. At 9:30 a.m., there was already a short line, so get there early if you plan to buy that way.
The website would not accept a U.S. billing address, but I emailed and successfully preordered far too much. (The order system will be upgraded soon, but if you run into the same issue, email or call.) Everything looked and tasted incredible.
Driving away, we tore — very messily — into the lushly topped focaccia ($26) spread with kale-pistachio pesto, matchsticks of pork guanciale and chubby mini pearls of fresh mozzarella. A full-size rhubarb gâteau Basque ($40) enclosed unctuous pastry cream and tart-sweet fruit within the classic buttery crust. Four individual pastries ($40 for 4) — a raspberry tart, cherry financier, strawberry chiffon cake and another with native haskap berries — were impeccably crafted works of edible art.
For those not dashing to their next destination, a lovely park on the Lachine Canal just a block away would make a perfect picnic spot. For those who can’t make Rhubarbe’s Saturday hours, Chesterman also recommends Automne Boulangerie, Café Bazin, Hof Kelsten and Miette Boulangerie.
Restaurant Retrospective
“On the Menu — Montréal: A Restaurant Story” is showing through October 18 at the McCord Stewart Museum, 690 rue Sherbrooke Ouest. $15-20; free for kids under 18. 514-861-6701
More than a decade ago, Chesterman’s staunch belief in the gastronomic wealth of her native city prompted her to propose an exhibit about the history of the city’s restaurants. She had heard about a similar project in New York City and thought there was more than enough material to do the same in Montréal.
“On the Menu — Montréal: A Restaurant Story” finally opened at the McCord Stewart last November and runs through October 18. It guides visitors on a historic tour of the city’s restaurants through a multimedia smorgasbord. Highlights include a vast assortment of menus; Montréal’s musical darling Leonard Cohen earnestly expounding on all-night diners; and a toddler-size, web-footed press used to make a French classic: pressed duck.
Québec’s French influence is evident in early restaurant menus of La Tour Eiffel, L’Ile de France and Chez La Mère Michel, and the palate-expanding Expo 67 looms large. The exhibit also nods to Indigenous food practices as well as immigrant entrepreneurs who brought smoked meat, rôtisserie chicken and dumplings. It explores the role of restaurants in urban redevelopment and highlights the legacy of local culinary players, including Chesterman.
“On the Menu” will fascinate those interested in restaurants, popular culture and urban history. The marvelous range of menu designs puts a cherry on top.
Chicken to Moon Over
Rôtisserie La Lune, 391 rue St.-Zotique Est, 514-948-9999
The three-mile walk from the museum to our late lunch reservation on the border of Little Italy was the perfect activity break before taste-testing another of Chesterman’s recommendations. I’m a huge fan of the city’s rôtisserie chicken, and she promised this would be a new way to experience the “beloved Montréal dish.”
The owners of Montréal’s vaunted Mon Lapin — a repeat winner on the list of 50 Best Restaurants in North America — opened Rôtisserie La Lune in late 2024. While the city boasts plenty of solid old-school chicken-and-gravy spots, La Lune combines relaxed elegance with excellent chicken and the kind of fun, interesting wine list for which Mon Lapin is known.
The beautifully designed room and spacious outdoor covered terrace read as a modern Parisian bistro. The menu also reflects that style, with dishes such as the indulgent chunky chicken liver toast ($16); refreshing herby cucumber salad ($15) with buttermilk and jalapeño; and a briny, crunchy green bean Caesar ($20) spangled with capers and bacon shards.
But the decidedly Montréal-style chicken (half, $37) was the quiet star of the show: fall-off-the-bone tender, deeply seasoned, and more than enough for two with a full gravy boat of copper-colored sauce and pile of crisp bronzed fries.
It paired beautifully, as our gracious and well-informed server promised, with a crisp, citrusy glass of Québécois pet-nat ($15) from Vignoble Les Ouches. Cheers to chicken!
Dream Dinner
Le Violon, 4720 rue Marquette, 514-209-1181
For dinner, Chesterman had suggested several restaurants, noting that many were hard reservations to score. Sixteen-seat Sabayon, new this year to the 50 Best, topped the impossible-to-get-into list, though Chesterman recommended its easier-to-reserve afternoon tea. She’s also a fan of Casavant, “a really great neighborhood restaurant I wish was my great neighborhood restaurant,” she said, and Montréal Plaza: “They put dinosaurs in the food!” (Yes, dishes are sometimes plated with toy dinos.)
In the end, I was able to book a table for two at Le Violon, another 50 Best winner and Chesterman recommendation in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood. She has not yet been, she grumbled, because it’s impossible to park. It’s also where former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau took Katy Perry on an early date last summer.
From the first sip of our gorgeous cocktails — the Kashmir ($22), made with mezcal and passion fruit, and the Cordelia ($19) of pink peppercorn-infused gin with rhubarb — I understood why Trudeau picked this charming jewel box of a spot to woo his date.
I understood why Justin Trudeau picked this charming jewel box of a spot to woo Katy Perry.
We leaned into the seafood side of the menu. One appetizer starred sweet morsels of lobster ($38) blanketed with a velvety, tomato-enriched Béarnaise and garnished with aromatic shiso leaf. Another presented raw, thinly sliced Prince Edward Island tuna ($35) crowned with matchsticks of sliced snap peas and heart-shaped anise hyssop leaves.
A toothsome monkfish main ($47) came gilded with scallop mousse-filled morels and a saline seaside vegetable called sea asparagus. Plump ricotta gnocchi ($40) in a delicate cheese sauce were paired with woodsy chanterelles and sweet peas that popped with freshness between my teeth.
Service was attentive and accommodating. When my husband eyed the pair of Pullman buns being delivered to many tables with deep longing, staff happily served him a half order.
I had passed one up to save room for luxurious mouthfuls of chocolate-cherry tart ($16) and an impossibly silken pistachio gelato ($16). For those not up for a whole Le Violon meal — a special-occasion splurge for most people — the owners also have a Mile End ice cream shop called Dalmata Bar Laitier.
We meandered back to our hotel on foot through the Plateau along avenue Mont-Royal, which closes to traffic every summer. A group of young women were taking selfies in front of a street sculpture with glowing letters, “Je te donne un rêve,” or “I give you a dream.”
It could have been a lyric from a Katy Perry song, but it definitely described my dinner.
Full of Beans
La Binerie Mont-Royal, 4167 rue St.-Denis, 514-285-9078
Our final full meal in Montréal was not endorsed by Chesterman, but “Je ne regrette rien,” as Edith Piaf once sang. When I had asked about some of the city’s old-school standbys, Chesterman offered Beautys, a Jewish coffee shop I’ve written about in the past; Moishes, an almost-century-old steakhouse; the iconic bistro L’Express; and even Montréal Pool Room, a longtime boulevard St. Laurent destination for late-night hot dogs.
But the veteran food critic dismissed la Binerie Mont-Royal, another almost-century-old restaurant, which serves French Canadian classics such as fèves au lard (beans cooked with lard), boudin noir (blood sausage) and tourtière (meat pie).
“Just to sit at a counter and have a bowl full of beans is not my thing,” Chesterman said. “I could eat beans at home.”
I could also eat beans at home, but they wouldn’t be as good as the porky, sweet-salty, soft-but-not-too-soft beans that came with the breakfast plate ($18.50) we shared at la Binerie’s counter on a slow Sunday morning. It included a crêpe, fried potatoes, bacon and ham, a fried egg, and a little ramekin of housemade cretons — a French Canadian meat spread for the two slices of toast.
La Binerie moved to new digs a few years ago, but the original menu board hangs on a wall, and counters from the old restaurant are in the rear dining area. A stick-to-your-ribs breakfast among these talismans of Montréal’s culinary history felt like a fitting end to the weekend itinerary. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Critique’s Choice | A delicious itinerary from a former Montréal restaurant critic includes the museum exhibit she hatched”
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