Montreal Food Guide on What to Eat Besides Poutine

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Montreal, the most populous city in the province of Québec in Canada. I love this very much because I’ve had so many memories of adventures, festivals, and great food experiences in all my visits to the city. When I go visit, I made sure I go to the usual joints and eat at the new good ones that I want to try.

If your planning to visit Canada then you’ve probably heard of the dish called Poutine. It is in fact the Canadian national dish. Made out of three ingredients fries, cheese curds, and gravy, it originated in the province of Québec so most definitely Montreal does it well. But that’s not the only food you can eat here. Don’t me wrong. I love poutine. In fact, every time I’m in Montreal, I make sure I get a poutine. It’s just that they have tons of other great foods you can eat in this francophone city and, you know what, they do them really well too!

Here are my top eats and where to eat them!

Load Yourself with Meat

Meat in Montreal is great. Many places here that has great meat and they are served in different types of dishes and cuisines. Montreal food scene is such a culinary experience that you’ll never get bored eating here.

Montreal has a big Jewish heritage from the European immigrants that brought bagels and also smoked meat. Yes, amazing smoked meat lives here in the city and there’s no other place to go none other than Schwartz. Schwartz is this world famous smoked meat shop right in neighbourhood Little Portugal. Their smoked meat is nicely season beef brisket with mustard in between two rye breads. It gets really crowded in the restaurant and even the take out store.

Montreal smoked meat Schwartz's Deli — This beef brisket is smoked to perfection by Schwartz’s Deli.

Smoked meat is an important Montreal dish so if you’re not in that area but in downtown instead, you can get it at Dunn’s Famous diner too. This one is open 24 hours and there are other great things on the menu like chili dog, poutine, and deli sandwiches.

Chilli dog Dunn's Famous poutine, Montreal smoke meat latkes — Get your comfort food fixed and order a chilli dog with fries, Montreal smoked meat, and more smoked meat on the Dunn’s Famous poutine dish, and latkes.

You’ve probably heard of Montreal when it’s featured in food televisions like in Anthony Bourdain’s shows. As a fan, I know he’s friends with Liverpool House and Joe Beef owners David McMillan, Frédéric Morin, and Allison Cunningham. They are right beside each other so you can try at least one of them. Joe Beef has this meaty steak dish while Liverpool House has a wrapped around bacon horse tenderloin.

Horse Tenderloin wrapped in bacon Liverpool House — bacon wrapped horse tenderloin on top of a toasted brioche with more of foie parfait that you can ask for and a perfectly sunny side up egg on top from Liverpool House.

Carb It Up with Montreal Bagels

If you arrive early in Montreal, start your day with some great bagels. Actually, morning, even during the day, or at night, grab yourself a bagel any time of the day.

Montreal bagel is a type of bagel that is smaller, denser, sweeter, and thinner than other bagels. It is very different from a New York style. New York’s is bigger, chewier and salted. Montreal bagels are prepared by boiling them in honey-sweetened water and baking them in a wood-fired oven.

There are two top local bagel chains in the city: St-Viateur Bagel at 263 Rue Saint-Viateur Oest (West) and Fairmount Bagel at 74 Avenue Fairmount. The original stores are both located in neighbourhood Le Plateau Mont-Royal and open 24 hours! They expanded that now both famous bagel bakeries have multiple locations throughout the city and even sold in groceries inside and outside the province!

They are amazing on their own specially when baked out of the oven. I would eat one on its own then have another one with my favourite toppings smoked salmon and original cream cheese.

Montreal Bagel St. Viateur Bagel Canada — Nothing beats a freshly baked sesame bagel at St. Viateur Bagel house.

Indulge in Sweets

No decent human being will skip dessert when visiting a place. This is very true when travelling. You would not want to leave the place without trying some sweets.

Chocolate at Juliette & Chocolat It’s the Angelina Paris of Montreal. In case you haven’t heard of Angelina, it’s this very popular cafe and chocolate shop in Paris to get like hot chocolat and mont blanc. Juliette is a flagship chocolate and dessert restaurant that serves sweet and cute confectionaries like brownies, banana split, chocolates and other dessert drinks. My most recent trip to Montreal I got a smoking hot chocolate with brownie and marshmallow skewer.

smoked campfire hot chocolate Juliette et Chocolat Monteral Québec Canada — Satisfy your sweet cravings at Juliette & Chocolat. Try their signature smoked campfire hot chocolate.

Mr Puffs is great. There is no other store that makes puffs as good as Mr. Puffs. Always fresh and new as they only make them after you have ordered. Every puff is hot and crispy in the outside and soft and gooey inside. This place is one of a kind dessert place and you can get many different flavour toppings to put on the puffs. I recommend ordering a box of 12 with two flavours: salted caramel and hazelnut biscotti.

Salted Caramel Hazelnut Pistachio Mr. Puffs — Soft and freshly made puffs drizzled in hazelnut pistachio and salted caramel at Mr. Puffs.

Walk Around With Ice Cream On Hand

A very creamy Crème glacée, aka ice cream in English, is a way to someone’s heart. My heart is super open to yummy ice cream. Montreal has a lot of this and they’re good when you’re strolling around in the heat of summer. Or if you’re used to the cold weather (or crazy like me) and still want to eat ice cream then you’d have one even if it’s winter.

La Diperie is a household ice cream shop in Montreal. This place is famous for the wide selection of dips snd toppings you can put on your ice cream and you can get a mini for $1.00! Vanilla dipped in Dark Chocolate is my all time favourite.

Another local place to get good ice cream is Bilboquet. They have unique flavours like maple taffy, rhum raisin, and maple syrup and names like the brou haha and cacophonie. Besides those, feel free to enjoy a very good pistachio ice cream from them!