Where You Should Eat in Montreal According to a Pro Chef

Condé Nast Traveler

17-07-2025

Transcript
This is the perfect sandwich.
Mm. You know what it tastes like?
It tastes like Montreal.
[mid-tempo instrumental music]
I am Chef Laurent Dagenais,
and today I'm taking you
to the most iconic restaurants in Montreal,
and this is Where the Chefs Eat.
[mid-tempo music continues]
[mid-tempo music continues]
[wind whooshes] [mid-tempo music continues]
We are here at stop number one, Schwartz.
[screen whooshes] [mid-tempo music continues]
Buon giorno. Mm-hmm. Laurent.
Frank. [Laurent speaks in French]
[Frank speaks in French] So, you know, New York City
has pastrami, they have Katz's Deli,
but we in Montreal have Schwartz's,
and Schwartz's is all about smoked meat.
What's different is the way the brisket is prepared.
Here it's a dry cure for 10 days
and then it goes for eight to 10 hours of smoking
and then it goes for four hours in the steamer.
You have a dry rub that's made of salt,
black pepper, garlic, onions, mustard, coriander.
But you know, what's the amounts? No one knows.
[gentle instrumental music]
Our queen, Celine Dion, she's a partner here,
and her late husband also is a partner here, René.
Now, let's see if my heart will go on for that smoked meat.
[gentle instrumental music] What's up, Frank?
Hey. How are you? Are you good?
Good, good.
Can I please get the usual?
A smoked meat sandwich medium,
side of fries, a pickle, and a dark cherry Cott?
Excellent. Thank you. [hands smack]
Very good.
[mid-tempo instrumental music] [knife chops]
[knife knocks] [mid-tempo music continues]
[plate taps] [mid-tempo music continues]
There we go.
Oh, amazing [hands tap]. Thank you.
So what you see here is nothing less than perfection.
It's a piece of art.
Smoked meat sandwich,
beautiful rye bread, not toasted,
and, as we like to call it here,
baseball mustard or just yellow mustard.
And then, you see this meat here?
Before I get in there.
This is a medium, you can also get the fatty one
that's very juicy and fat or the even leaner one.
All right, [hands tap and rub] let's dig in.
[gentle instrumental music]
Yeah, every bite.
[staff member chatter] [gentle music continues]
Mm. [hand knocks]. Hmm.
Mm. I missed you so much.
This is so good.
You know, every time, a perfect bite.
The nice rye bread is the perfect vessel
for this fatty, smoky beef.
Mm. [gentle music continues]
You know what it tastes like? It tastes like Montreal.
That's what it tastes like.
The family vibe.
It's old, it's smoky, it's greasy in a good way.
You can come here at 10:00 AM,
you can come here at 9:30 PM,
it's always a good time.
You know, I like my pickle sliced up.
Also, there's rules to this.
Never put your pickle in the sandwich.
That's a side, you know, you take a bite
of your smoke meat, extra musty.
Mm. Mm. [clothing rustles]
And of course, after that,
you wash it down with a good little sip of,
[slurps] mm,
[glass thuds] dark cherry Cott.
So, you know, it just feels like home.
I was probably five years old,
sitting at the same place with my dad and my bro.
It's just one of those places, just feel special.
[upbeat instrumental music]
And here we are, the best fast food in Montreal, Greenspot.
This is the ultimate chefs hangout.
Speaking of chefs, I have the honor today
of being joined by my good friend, Chef Jeremie Falissard.
Ah, chef.
[chuckles] [hands smack] You good or what?
Good. How are you?
Yeah, man. Good to see you.
Good to see you. Ready for a good time?
It smells so good, man. Can you smell that from here?
I'm ready for- Whoo.
A big poutine, baby. I'm down.
For those who don't know, I thought why not ask
my good friend Jeremie here, who's from France,
what is a poutine?
Well, I've been here for 20 years though.
You're still French.
[both laugh]
Well, listen, it's the go-to.
We're in Quebec. This is where it froms.
Especially in Montreal, there's a lot of different places
to have a nice poutine.
Yeah. It's my go-to
after clubbing usually, but now it became slowly
and slowly, my go-to daytime.
'Cause you don't club anymore 'cause you have kids.
Exactly. Yes.
So basically, let's break it down.
A poutine is what? It's french fries.
Not the crispy, nice golden fries.
Brown, overcooked fries to perfection,
some gravy, which is usually a powder-based gravy,
and cheese curds.
Cheese curds are basically
the youngest form of cheddar,
and you can find those in every single corner store
in the province, and it's always room temperature.
The second your cheese curds hit the fridge, they're done.
Why, because to get squeakiness,
people always say eat squeaky cheese, right?
Squeak, squeak, squeak,
squeak, squeak. And if it hits the fridge,
[Jeremie laughs] that squeakiness is gone.
[Camera Person] What was that noise again?
Like [imitates squeaking] [Jeremie imitates squeaking]
[Jeremie laughs]
[oil sizzles] [mid-tempo instrumental music]
Yes! Saint-Henri poutine.
Oh yeah. And the onion ring poutine.
That's lovely. Thank you. That's it! Thank you.
[Laurent's hands smack] There we go.
We have the Classic here, obviously.
The wild card, onion rings.
Saint Henri with the peppers. Yes.
Peppers. Yeah, and this is
the Pate Chinois.
Let's go. I'm kind of very high
for this one for some reason.
Yeah. Now, I feel like we
should just start with a classic,
'cause, you know, we all know what it tastes like, but-
Exactly. You have to judge.
Same way when you're tasting a pizza,
you go with the margarita
because it's the one- Yeah. Then you go crazy.
Perfect. Exactly.
Let's see how it goes. It's quite good.
I like that. Lemme just try
the sauce by itself.
[patrons chatter]
At first I thought it was some cinnamon,
but I don't think so.
Sometimes you think that two chefs would figure out
what's in the sauce, but guess what?
[Jeremie chuckles] Not today.
Onion?
Ya. Mm. Gladly.
Sound guy, get closer.
I wanna make you hear to squeak, squeak.
[cheese squeaks] [patrons chatter]
Can you pick this up? Squeak, squeak,
squeak, squeak. Can you hear it?
[patrons chatter]
Come on now. [hands tap]
[patron chattering continues]
Okay.[hands smack] The wild card.
[utensils clang] [patron chattering continues]
This is interesting.
Yeah. First time for you?
Yeah. First time for me.
I think it's a good idea.
I think it's a good idea.
I feel like I go with my fingers too, for some reason.
It's hard to...
[patron chattering continues]
You gotta do cheese.
[patron chattering continues]
Mm-hmm. Mm. Oh.
[faint instrumental music] [patron chattering continues]
Bro, that's pretty good.
Bro. [patron chattering continues]
Surprised it's, I mean, I wasn't sure-
Nine. But to be honest,
it's like a nine outta 10.
I like it because there's the sweetness
of the onions coming out.
Obviously it's fried, so you have the-
Yeah, it's- The french fry
kind of feeling.
Yeah, it's a batter, so it's probably-
With the gravy and everything, it makes totally sense.
And people have a bunch of weird things
they do with poutine.
People put ketchup. People put some vinegar on there.
Some guy told me he was putting coleslaw
on his poutine, which is crazy,
but I think we should try ketchup
since it's the number one topping for-
For the pate chinois. Ah, it feels so wrong
to do this.
That's why it feels so right. I'm free. [chuckles]
Mm. Is it good actually?
Is it better?
Makes sense, bro. It's not weird.
It's good.
Oh, now I can smell pate chinois,
with the ketchup on there.
Yeah, it feels like you're
literally eating a pate chinois.
[fork clangs] I guess anyone
outside of Quebec probably don't know this,
but pate chinois is pretty much the most popular
household dish that you probably had at least once
or a thousand times growing up.
It's a classic.
It's just ground beef, mashed potatoes,
and canned corn, all stacked up.
The order is beef, corn, potatoes,
and then this is a poutine version of it,
so it just fries, gravy, canned corn, ground beef,
and now ketchup.
It translates to Chinese pate,
which is crazy 'cause there's nothing Chinese about this.
And last but not least,
this is the Saint-Henri, because we are in?
Saint-Henri. Let's go.
That's the hood.
That's the hood.
And that's ground beef, bell peppers,
and mushrooms?
I know it's mushrooms, but-
Yeah, yeah.
There's like thin sliced of-
Mushrooms in there? Oh yeah.
I see it. I see it.
Cool. All right.
Let's try this.
Mm. Oh my God. Look at this.
[Jeremie chuckles]
[utensil clangs] Mm.
When it comes down to poutine,
I'm a bit of a purist, you know?
So I always ordered a classic one for myself,
so anything too crazy, this was fun,
that was fun too, to try, the onion rings.
This was also very fun with the ketchup and whatever,
but this one not for me.
Well, I like it.
I'm gonna eat my pate chinois then.
I'll take it for me.
[mid-tempo instrumental music]
[speaks in French] Mon Lapin.
And here we are, sitting down at my favorite table
in my favorite restaurant, Mon Lapin.
They have all the accolades you can imagine.
Best food, best service, best wine,
and it's a nice neighborhood.
We are now in Little Italy.
A thing I really like about this place,
it's a corner restaurant.
That's always a thing I really enjoy.
People watching on the side. You have the open kitchen.
I like the decoration. You have a bit of Lapin everywhere.
You have the Jura, 'cause they're a big fan of Jura Wine.
Chef, [hands rub] what are we eating for lunch?
Not telling you.
[Marc-Olivier laughs] Perfect.
You know what? I never choose anyway.
We'll [hands tap] have some asparagus, some lobster.
We just got the first small nettle, cooked nettle, rhubarb.
Nice. You know?
You know what? The usual, I'm not gonna order anything.
You can just bring the, you know?
Yeah. Of course.
[mid-tempo instrumental music]
Ah. Le Croque-Petoncle
scallop sandwich.
Your 10th one.
[Laurent laughs] The 11th one's on us.
Wow. I've never seen this before.
[Marc-Olivier laughs] Crazy. Wow.
Amazing. Thank you so much.
It looks like a grilled cheese almost, but it's not.
It's a scallop muslin.
It's very light, very delicate.
Nice crunchy bread from [speaks in French].
I probably had this 10 times, and guess what?
I'm probably gonna have 10 more times
'cause it's just that good.
And then you have,
that's like the ultimate mayo.
Aioli with garlic, and then you add saffron,
which is originally served with the very classic French dish
from Marsaille called [speaks in French].
So it's perfect. Wow, look at this.
And that's for me.
[crunches] Mm. Mm.
The nicest muslin. Look how that jiggles.
Basically in French cuisine, a muslin is always either,
it could be like a salmon muslin.
It's salmon that's blended with a bit of cream,
so I don't know if there's cream in there
'cause the chef won't tell me,
but yeah, it's just basically scallops
and you just blend those into a paste, and voila.
[crunches] If you close your eyes,
you can imagine yourself sitting down somewhere in Marsaille
close to the watery, like in the old port,
a nice glass of white wine,
and you just eating a [speaks in French].
You can hear the seagulls in the distance,
and that's where I'm at right now.
[gentle instrumental music] Hmm. [crunches]
[Marc-Olivier speaks in French]
[plate taps] So we have barbecue spinach
with lobster cooked in beef fat
and a tomato vinegarette.
Wow. Merci, chef.
[gentle music continues]
[patrons chatter]
Mm. [patrons chatter]
I don't know how he does it. You know?
It's so simple. Just spinach, lobster, and fat.
It's the ultimate surf and turf.
You have the lobster, the lard, best of both world combine.
It's not like the usual filet mignon
with a fat piece of lobster.
It's just delicate, well balanced,
and then you have a nice little touch
of the onion flour at the end
that just brings a bit of [speaks in French].
[gentle music continues]
I hope you're still hungry, huh?
Thank you, chef.
First-of-the-season asparagus in a nettle sauce,
and on top we have a sweetbread glaze with spruce honey.
Wow. And what's this, chef?
Nettle chips.
[Laurent crunches]
Thank you, chef.
[gentle music continues]
[Laurent munches]
Mm. [utensils clang]
Also, sweetbreads are always a tricky one for chefs
to cook to perfection,
and you have the perfect crispy outside
of the sweetbreads and the soft inside,
so texture wise, it's very interesting to eat for sure.
And this spruce honey just brings you
like in a forest almost.
It's just very nice.
[Marc-Olivier] You wanna film the soft serve machine?
Yes. I'm like the biggest fan
of Dairy Queen [metal taps]
and I wanted my own soft serve machine.
This very simple, just rhubarb soft serve,
a nice palate cleanser in between courses,
or at the end of your meal.
We always do it 100% fruit.
This one's rhubarb.
We'll go into strawberries, haskap berries,
cantaloupe later in this season.
This one's rhubarb.
[Camera Person] Does Dairy Queen have something like this?
I'm the dairy king.
[mid-tempo instrumental music]
Monsieur. [Laurent gasps]
Wow, eh.
[chuckles] Chef. Double desserts.
Rhubarb soft serve with sesame,
and this one is brown butter meringue
with brown butter fruits and brown butter cream.
That's beautiful. Thank you, Chef.
I could use a spoon, but to be honest,
I've been looking at this thing for a minute now
and I wanna just go right in there.
[patrons chatter] [faint instrumental music]
[Laurent gobbles] [patron chattering continues]
Hmm. Hmm. [spoon taps]
Mm. This is like the perfect balance.
The acidity of the rhubarb doesn't make it too sweet,
and the maple is just perfect.
So this is a new one for me.
So we have a creme diplomat,
which is a mix of pastry cream
and asantee cream combined together.
Then we have a beautiful meringue.
[metal clangs] Wow. [gobbles]
Mm. [spoon clangs] [faint music continues]
[hand thuds] [faint music continues]
The lightest meringue I've ever tried in my whole life.
Brown butter blueberries. That's crazy.
I don't know why, but it's so good,
and this hazelnut diplomat on top
just brings everything together,
and this is the perfect grand finale
for a feast at Mon Lapin.
[mid-tempo instrumental music]
And guys, I think that's the end of our day together.
I took you guys to my favorite spots in all of Montreal.
We did Mon Lapin, we did Schwartz's and Greenspot.
[Laurent speaks in French]
[mid-tempo music fades]