Ah! Nothing better than a dinner in Vieux Montreal! Lovely restaurant with yummy dishes. The…read moreoysters from Prince Edward Island were delicious! The other fav was the Mushroom Risotto. All else very pleasing to everyone. Service good, selection of menu plenty and a bit on the $$$$ side but for the quality good. Serving size healthy so very possible to share! Tres Bien!

Great place, good food... Small and cozy, but the service and food is awesome. I brought a group…read moreof 15, and it was chaotic to get everyone seated, but the staff was great and did a great job.

Style Labo has moved into a new facility just a few doors down from their original location. And…read morethe new space is spectacular. Just the design and layout is the finest I have ever seen of a retail establishment selling whimsical, retro, antiqued item. You will find something here for every budget. The owners have curated amazing pieces and surely to fit any style of home. I was really inspired here. Check it out.

This store is an absolute time capsule of industrial furniture…read more Everything from ceiling lights, stools, and drafting tables... to more bizarre and unique items. All of it is very authentic and industrial, a lot of the pieces are very unique. The only downside is the prices, which can be high. If you are not on a tight budget, you will probably not find more amazing and unique industrial furniture elsewhere in Montreal. I think I spent over 5 minutes actively oogling a drafting table.

I love this place. We don't buy a lot of new furniture so I pick what I have very carefully. Lovaco…read morehas beautiful furniture that fits our space and style, made from materials that I can feel good about, and that wear well. We got our sofa from them at the start of the pandemic and our giant dog immediately adopted it, which would be hard on a lesser sofa, but ours still looks great. We've since gotten a living room chair, and a stool that are PERFECT and comfortable, a beanbag chair which is the most charming thing we own, and a couple of gorgeous lamps. The service is always wonderful, both friendly and helpful. We're looking forward to seeing what they'll have in their new, bigger space. This is the store for people who tend towards a mid-century or Scandinavian aesthetic but are grossed out by how shoddy Ikea has become and can afford to spend a little more on something that's local, much better made, and noticeably better looking.

Interesting part of underground city. It has a food court but a lot seemed closed with a lot of…read moredecorations and plants including a skeleton sitting a table in November, so strange. Shopping options didn't seem so noticeable. They have a help desk that was helpful to learn to navigate as it's very confusing to get around. Does have a good Starbucks with seating on benches across the hallway.

Place Ville Marie (PVM for short) is a large office and shopping complex skyscraper in Downtown…read moreMontreal, comprising four office buildings and an underground shopping plaza. I have visited this Place many times, this last time to see an acrobatic show put together by the Circus festival of 2023. The place at street level has many outdoor restaurants, gardens, benches and places to sit and relax. This plaza serves as the main and official headquarters for Royal Bank of Canada, Canada's Largest Bank. It is a 617 ft, 47-stories, cruciform office tower. The complex is a nexus for Montreal's Underground City, the world's busiest, with indoor access to over 1,600 businesses, numerous subway stations, a suburban transportation terminal, and tunnels extending throughout downtown. A counter-clockwise rotating beacon on the rooftop lights up at night, illuminating the surrounding sky with up to four white horizontal beams that can be seen as far as 31 mi away.

The most wonderful, arty-farty, curated junk shop curiosity cabinet, I-can't-believe-they-have-that…read moreshop I have ever been in. This is the place you always want to discover on vacation and you never do. It's always a weird awkward gallery that doesn't have anything you want to buy, so you duck out (embarrassed for both yourself, and the shop owner), or else you want something but it costs $500 so you just sigh and leave. No. This place is awesome. I was lured in by the hilarious window display, and stayed to wind my way through stacks of hand silk screened prints ($10-$100), vintage drawings and posters and postcards, a vintage Disneyworld map from back when they made aesthetically pleasing tourist schwag ($15), bowls of plastic fruit (for sale? display only????), vintage viewmaster reels ($5+), and cubbies full of random weird ceramics, souvenir dishes, and other flotsam and jetsam that seems to have washed up on Monastiraki's shores. We spent at least an hour in here perusing the wares before departing with a gorgeous print. The owners were kind and charming.

Art epicenter for underground comics run by the wise and crafty Billy Mavreas, trust me you want to…read moreapproach softly and see if you can get him opening drawers for you and telling stories. There is a whole history of poster art tucked into the nooks and crannies of Monastiraki, rareties coming through, art exhibits and friendly parties sorta monthly, and all kinds of good looking and weird antiques and vintage books and memories to be dusted off and appreciated by the right set of hands. The whole place is a living installation - if you're lucky in the summer you walk by and the window is alight with shadow puppets, or a kids crafty birthday party - and any day you come there's something in there to discover.

Home to countless vernissages, conveniently located downtown in an otherwise pretty awful St…read moreCatherine location, holder of secrets from a past life that I may or may not have led, the Belgo is an unassuming spot for all things contemporary art in Montréal. Inside this typical Quebecois / European / Canadian building rests one of my favourite spots to discover new art in the city. Galleries, dance studios, yoga spaces -- this former industrial space is headquarters for all modern art lovers in Montréal. And who knows, if you're lucky you'll stumble upon one of the countless openings that will inevitably be going on during any given weekend where you'll sample some cheap wine; eat a few grapes, some carrots and a lot of cheese; and get a glimpse of some of the best up and coming artists Canada has to offer. ...sigh. I miss Montreal.

The Belgo is home to over 30 galleries and artist studios making it an epicenter of Montreal's…read morevisual art community. You can roam around and poke your head in places and have adventures in here pretty much any day of the week. Check out the Galerie Illustration Québec for group shows by incredible illustrators. One of the gallery owners keeps a great blog about events going on in the building: http://www.thebelgoreport.com

Fonderie Darling was a great place to stop by as we walked around Montreal visiting different…read moregalleries. The two exhibits up, one sound based and the other painting, were both very interesting and engaging. This is a place for experimental and new installations and exhibits. The sound based exhibit was an immersive installation in a large room. It used neon lights, instruments, feedback, amplifiers, cymbals in a large assemblage all controlled automatically. It was a very interesting space to inhabit, and since we were the only ones there we stayed as long as we wanted. I would really recommend anyone looking for an interesting gallery in Montreal to check it out! On par with NYC galleries in my opinion. NB there was a 5 CAD entry charge per person, but I found it worth it!

I had walked by this new spot a few times while taking some Wellington strolls and was already…read moreenchanted by all the fancy kitchen apparel. Actually visiting the store I kinda felt like I was in a Pinterest kitchen museum: the space is small but curated to the Nth degree with ALL the fancy kitchen ware (think a permanent Souk at SAT set up). Prices range from moderate to extremely pricey but I think that's attributable to the clear quality and designer element. While I definitely don't plan to come here for my immediate kitchen needs, I think this is going to be a new go-to spot for nice gifts for foodie friends. Also, I'd like to add that they were really COVID-compliant (while still being super friendly) which I really appreciated.

For my 50th First-to-Review, I thought I'd review a different sort of food related business…read more.. This somewhat newly opened kitchenware's shop shares a large local with La Librairie de Verdun, and a little coffee shop - the name escapes me - in their back corner (with it's own side entrance, which is on the side street). There are a lot of windows in which to ogle the beautiful and pristine mostly high end merchandise (a pretty diverse and quality selection). Items range from peppercorn mills, to tough aprons; artisanal cutting boards to Madeleine molded baking trays; and more...to the most amazing cookware (I'm talking serious Dutch ovens my wanna-be-chefs - myself included)). I can sum this place up as a virtual (though it's physically there) candy store for cooking enthusiasts, home cooks, real cooks, sous-chefs, chefs and possibly even TV cooking show hosts. Oh, and yes, any wanna-be-chefs (spatula intended).