For those of us who make regular, cross-border trips to Québec, it’s the frequently asked question, one that comes like clockwork — from friends and friends of friends, from neighbors and the neighbors’ second cousins, from acquaintances or sundry Seven Days readers: “I’m going to Montréal. What should I do?”
Our series on Québec travel has supplied some excellent answers, spanning ice skating rinks, museum exhibits, and neighborhoods such as Verdun, Shaughnessy Village, and Chinatown. But to settle the No. 1 FAQ, we combed our contacts for Vermonters who have explored the city through their particular areas of expertise — as chefs, bartenders, arts-lovers, travel professionals and more. Here’s what they said.
See the Sights
When Sydney Baker moved from Europe to Vermont in March to work at University of Vermont’s Office of International Education, she was motivated, in part, by the proximity to Québec. “I’m a Vermont-based Montréal enthusiast,” said Baker, who once lived in the city for six months, moonlights as a travel writer and posts about Québec travel on her Instagram account, @sydbakescreates.
In winter months, especially, it helps to have some indoor stops on your itinerary
For travelers getting to know the city, she recommends heading to the hip Plateau to see its plentiful street art and cafés, and strolling the cobblestone streets of the 17th-century Old Port neighborhood. In warmer months, she likes to hop one of its public river shuttles to Île-Sainte-Hélène and sprawling Parc Jean-Drapeau. It’s also a pleasant walk or bike from the Old Port along the 1824 Lachine Canal to reach Atwater Market, whose 1933 clock tower is among the city’s many art deco treasures. (For more, check out Alice Dodge’s art deco tour of Montréal from earlier this year.)
In winter months, especially, it helps to have some indoor stops on your itinerary, Baker noted. She recommends the eclectic McCord Stewart Museum as a “starter museum for the area,” particularly its permanent exhibit on Indigenous cultures. The history-focused Pointe-à-Callière museum delves quite literally into the city’s origins. “It’s an archeological site where you can actually see remains, right where the founding of the city took place,” she said, adding that its hands-on “archeo-adventure” area is particularly good for visitors with kids.
For a more contemporary take on city history, she suggests the small MEM – Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises in the Quartier des Spectacles, where the free exhibition “By and For: 30 Years of Sex Worker Resistance,” from sex worker advocacy group Stella, l’amie de Maimie, runs through March 15. (For more on Montréal’s history of sex work, see this summer’s article by Karen Gardiner.)
Eat a Little Bit of Everything
What defines Montréal gastronomy for chef Micah Tavelli, of Burlington’s Majestic café and bar, is its fusing of thoughtful food with unfussy vibes. “It’s more like a dinner party than dining out at a fine-dining restaurant,” he said of celebrated small-plates eatery Mon Lapin (dishes CA$6-66), which spent two consecutive years atop the Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list. Tavelli went there for his most recent birthday, his second visit. “Every bite that we had was exciting and something I’d never thought of,” he said. The laid-back energy extends to his newest find, the Mile End neighborhood’s Molenne (mains CA$30-36), which opened in February with a focus on Canadian seafood and Québécois meats — and where Tavelli particularly enjoyed a dish of fried enoki mushrooms. “It was absolutely stunning,” he said, “young chefs that are breaking out and doing their own thing.”
Another Montréal dining fan is Cara Tobin, chef and co-owner of Honey Road and the Grey Jay in Burlington, who started making regular trips with her children, ages 6 and 10, a couple of years ago. “We wanted them to experience something different, and we wanted to eat good food,” she said. The kids have been warmly welcomed at every restaurant they’ve visited, she said, including the upscale Joe Beef (mains CA$41-71), which is widely credited with transforming the city’s restaurant scene. “It’s an incredible experience. They’re still doing an amazing job,” Tobin said. “My 10-year-old was eating snails and caviar and foie gras.”
That was a special-occasion meal. On more typical trips, Tobin and family head to Chinatown for pineapple buns from one of the neighborhood’s many bakeries; comforting Chinese classics at Mon Nan (mains CA$18-30); or dim sum at Kim Fung (dim sum plates CA$7-12), where she loves the spareribs, dumplings, and sticky rice enclosed in a lotus leaf. Another pro move, in warmer months, is to delegate one parent to grab takeout — or a bag of Montréal bagels — while the other takes the kids to a nearby park until the food arrives. “There’s a park or play structure on every other corner,” Tobin said. “No one’s freaking out, and it works out nicely every single time.”
While it’s hard to sum up the food scene in a city as diverse as Montréal, Tobin did observe that its cuisine is often flesh-forward. “There’s hidden meat in everything,” she said, recalling a salad she once ordered, when craving something light, only to watch it arrive graced by a mound of fried duck livers. But Andrew Wild, a regular visitor to Montréal and the founder of Burlington’s plant-based protein business Mighty Mudita, says there’s plenty of excellent, meat-free options up there — meals that showcase the city’s thrilling cosmopolitanism.
“There’s an exceptional array of vegan and vegetarian offerings,” he said, pointing to Thai, Lebanese and Indian eateries as standbys. One favorite stop is family-owned and -operated Syrian eatery Sham (mains CA$24-38), where he appreciates generous portions of traditional dishes on an all-vegan menu. “To have plant-based protein options, like shawarma, is very special and very delicious,” he said. “It’s also just a beautiful setting — a really great atmosphere.”
Having tasted his way through most of Montréal’s Ethiopian restaurants, he and his wife have become regulars at the Plateau’s Queen Sheba (two-person sharing platters $44-45). The menu includes plant-based classics such as shiro wat, made with chickpea flour, and berbere-spiced lentils. Wild is a fan of the vegan sharing platter that features a little bit of everything atop a generous disk of injera bread. “It’s exceptional food, at a very reasonable price,” he said.
Explore Art
Seven Days visual art editor Alice Dodge got a creative head start at the Visual Arts Centre, in Montréal’s Westmount neighborhood where she grew up. “It’s similar to the BCA Center in Burlington,” she said. “They’ve got a gallery and gift shop, and they also do classes — that’s where I started doing summer camp-type classes as a kid.”
It’s still worth a stop — perhaps while visiting the adjacent Notre-Dame-de-Grâce area that Dodge explored for a neighborhood guide released last spring. But for Vermonters dipping a toe into the city’s wide-ranging art scene, Dodge recommends starting at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts for its permanent collection that includes works by Canada’s Group of Seven artists, whose landscape paintings helped spark the country’s first major national art movement in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as paintings by Jean-Paul Riopelle.
“Riopelle is probably the most famous Québec artist … lots of big, abstract expressionist works,” she said, adding that visitors might also seek out the bold, striped canvases of Guido Molinari, an influential contemporary artist born in Montréal in 1933. This winter, Dodge is looking forward to taking in the exhibit “History Is Painted by the Victors,” a solo show through March 8 dedicated to works by interdisciplinary Cree artist Kent Monkman, who combines monumental grandeur with playful and subversive imagery.
Conveniently for travelers, the museum’s location on historically tony Sherbrooke Avenue puts it within easy walking distance of a handful of well-established galleries, including La Guilde, Galerie Eric Klinkhoff, and Galerie Cosner.
Beyond that Golden Square Mile neighborhood lies a quirkier side of Montréal art. The main location of the Museum of Contemporary Art remains closed for renovations until 2028, but its small temporary (and somewhat hard-to-find) location at Place Ville Marie often features interesting shows, Dodge said. Its group exhibition “In Praise of the Missing Image” explores themes of colonialism using photography, sculpture and video through March 8. Other stops Dodge recommends include the contemporary art nonprofit PHI, whose current exhibitions in the Old Port include the immersive “swell of spæc(i)es” by Josèfa Ntjam and the “Sensory Oversoul” installations from Japanese artist collective Keiken. And, in the canal-side Griffintown neighborhood, she likes Arsenal Contemporary Art, a shipyard turned private art center with a focus on Canadian artists.
Visit a Nordic Spa
With their cycles of heat and cold, Nordic spas are a province-wide specialty, and there are good ones within city limits, said Jovial King, founder of both Urban Moonshine and the SILT Bathhouse that remains in development after a planned Burlington location fell through. She’s also a regular at Québécois spas. When she’s seeking quiet and introspection, she visits the Old Port’s indoor Scandinave Spa (thermal circuit from CA$70). “The whole thing is silent,” she said. “It puts you sort of into a deeper place.”
On convivial trips with girlfriends, she heads instead to nearby Bota Bota (thermal circuit from CA$60), a floating spa on a converted barge with indoor and outdoor spaces. “It adds a touch of self-care or fun to a trip to Montréal,” she said. “I recommend going in off hours because it is a spectacular facility and can get really crowded at peak times.”
Surprisingly tranquil for its urban location is the indoor-outdoor Strøm Nordic Spa (thermal circuit from CA$69) on Nun’s Island in the St. Lawrence River, which is perched at the edge of a small lake. “It’s very sweet, it’s very peaceful, and it’s a bit understated,” King said. “It’s probably the one I frequent the most.”
Catch a Show
“What makes the Montréal music scene so interesting is that it’s beyond eclectic,” Seven Days music editor Chris Farnsworth said. “The city just tends to go out for stuff … whether it’s folk, bluegrass, metal, hip-hop or whatever, you’re going to find a really strong strain of support behind it.”
If music is everywhere, where do you start? Farnsworth tunes into Québécois cultural outlets such as Cult MTL, which he describes as “kind of like Montréal’s Seven Days,” and checks the websites of indie landmark Casa del Popolo, whose multiple sister venues host shows from jazz to rock. He also looks to concert promoter Blue Skies Turn Black as a cultural curator. “They’re always booking great music,” he said. “Kind of like Montréal’s Waking Windows.” (RIP.)
Scrolling through the calendars of favorite venues is fruitful, too. “Club Soda is historically one of the great East Coast venues,” Farnsworth said. “It’s just a great rock club.” Other standbys include indie-focused Theatre Fairmount, wide-ranging music hall L’Olympia and Theatre St-Denis for shows that lean highbrow.
The packed, year-round music festival schedule is as diverse as the city’s music scene itself. “Find your kind of festival, and they’ll have it,” said Farnsworth, who has been making annual trips to September’s wide-ranging international music festival POP Montréal, with shows in small venues spread across the city. “One of the weirder ones I’ve been to is Distortion Psych Fest,” he said of July’s psychedelic and experimental rock event. “You’re not going to know any of the bands … but it’s a great place to find something really cool and hip.”
Have a Drink
Montréal wasn’t always big on cocktails, said Sam Nelis, a veteran bartender and owner of Winooski café-bar Specs, who spent childhood summers in Montréal and attended Concordia University. “It was always a little bit more of a wine town,” he said. “Then a few bars really put it on the map.”
Among the slinkiest veterans of that first wave is Atwater Cocktail Club (cocktails CA$13-35), where you step through an unmarked, graffitied door into a dim room with lush décor. “They got Montréal on the radar in a more continental way,” he said.
The same owners are behind another of Nelis’ favorite Montréal cocktail bars, Milky Way (cocktails CA$13-75), which is hidden above a pizza place in the Verdun neighborhood. It feels younger and more playful than the original, with a menu that includes tiki-inflected items such as the Cooler Kids (CA$30), a tequila drink for two that comes in a bowl garnished with a flaming “volcano.”
“Québécois food and drink … are rooted in connecting with each other, your city and the folks around you.”
Alex Leopold
Both are speakeasy-inspired, a trend going strong in Montréal. But not every great Montréal cocktail bar requires the contrivance of slipping past an intentionally battered door. Nelis, who worked at Caledonia Spirits before starting Specs, also recommends the drinks at Pub Bishop & Bagg (cocktails CA$10-21), in Mile End, a wood-lined British-style pub whose vast collection of gins includes bottles from Finland, South Africa and, yes, the Green Mountain state. “You can go in and taste a huge plethora of spirits in the same category,” Nelis said. “That’s really cool, and it’s something that doesn’t exist in Vermont.”
About that wine scene Nelis mentioned. You can’t just hit a liquor store to find the best bottles in Montréal, said Alex Leopold, owner of Burlington wine bar and shop Bar Renée, who visits often. “Some of the most exciting wines are of such small production that they fall into the hands of restaurants and bars before they trickle down to the [provincial alcohol distributor] SAQ,” he said. And for Leopold, going out is the key to Montréal’s wine culture anyway. “Québécois food and drink … are rooted in connecting with each other, your city and the folks around you,” he said.
In fact, Leopold’s favorite places to drink wine in Montréal are mostly restaurants, such as Verdun Beach (wine by the glass CA$13-17, dishes CA$3-38), a convivial Verdun eatery inspired by guinguettes, historic, open-air French watering holes known for affordable and plentiful white wine. “It’s a pretty space that always has a lot of energy, for full meals, a quick glass or digging into the extensive wine list,” Leopold said. In summer months, its patio tables spill across Wellington Street.
Another highlight is the Plateau bistro Rouge Gorge (wine CA$6-30, dishes CA$8-39). “It feels just like a neighborhood bar in Paris,” Leopold said. “You can peruse their online wine list, which is very extensive. It’s kind of eclectic but rooted in natural wines, both ones that are clean and precise and more avant-garde as well.”
Don’t be afraid of asking lots of questions of the sommelier or server, Leonard counsels, adding that he’s found Montréal wine people to be particularly open to such chats. “It can be fun and interesting and illuminating,” he said. “Just being casual and having fun with it — these places exemplify that for me.”
This article is part of a travel series on Québec. The province’s destination marketing organization, Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec, under the Bonjour Québec brand, is a financial underwriter of the project but has no influence over story selection or content. Find the complete series plus travel tips at sevendaysvt.com/quebec.
The original print version of this article was headlined “The Montréal FAQ | Nine in-the-know Vermonters on their favorite ways to experience the city”
This article appears in Dec 3-9 2025.
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