7 Deserving Of A Michelin Star Restaurants in Montreal, Canada

Montreal is truly a city of culture, beauty, and good food. However, there are no Michelin Starred restaurants in Montreal. This is because, while the Michelin Guide does cover Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, it has not expanded its awards to the City of Montreal. Even though Michelin is perhaps one of the most famous culinary awards in the food world, there are other awards that recognize restaurants well worth their salt. Canada's Top 100 Restaurants award ranked many of the restaurants on this very list. One of the newest culinary awards in the Quebec province is the Lauriers. These are similar to the James Beard Awards in the States, and in 2021, they recognized several Montreal restaurants as finalists.

There are Michelin-Star awarded Chefs who have continued their culinary adventures in the city of Montreal. This should show you that even the Chefs know how to extend beyond an award and bring good food to communities for the love of the restaurant world. Keep on reading to learn about the very much deserving of a Michelin Star restaurants in Montreal, Canada.

Maison Boulud

1228 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1H6, Canada

This is one of the Michelin-recommended restaurants, as per their website. Maison Boulud is run by Michelin Starred Chef Daniel Boulud. Boulud owns numerous restaurants, as well as Daniel in New York, which currently has two Michelin Stars. Maison Boulud serves French-inspired creations in the elegance of the Ritz Carleton, Montreal. Chef Boulud combines his experience in award-winning kitchens with all kinds of cuisines, to form a menu based around contemporary, and flavorful French food. They offer a petit-déjuner breakfast, lunch, brunch, and dinner menu options. Let's take a look at their dinner menu.

Their dinner menu costs $189 per person and features an 8-course tasting menu. You'll start with oysters on ice and your choice of caviar, served with potato blinis, eggs, capers, and crème fraîche. Entrés include cold pea soup with almonds, grilled artichoke salad with stracciatella, and heirloom tomatoes. There's hamachi crudo, lobster with strawberries, black currants, and beef carpaccio with black garlic. For mains, try the black truffle risotto, halibut, scallops, rabbit, lamb, or a Prince Edward prime rib in a bordelaise sauce. Save room for dessert which features a chocolate coulant cake, meringue rhubarb, strawberry shisho, madeleines, or a variation of sorbets and ice creams.

Joe Beef

2491 Notre-Dame St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3J 1N6, Canada

Joe Beef is run by Chef Fred Morin and works to showcase the local produce, meats, and ingredients of the Quebec terroir. Many people credit the Joe Beef restaurant group as a driving force in the Montreal food scene (via Tastet). Their menu is seasonal but features items like a raw bar, steak dishes, jamón, and melon, served with truffle, foie gras, Roquefort sheep cheese, and caviar. Check out their reservation page for more details on when you can try this Anthony Bourdain favorite, Joe Beef in Montreal.

Le Vin Papillon

2519 Notre-Dame St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3J 1N4, Canada

Another restaurant of the Joe Beef restaurant group is Le Vin Papillon. This wine bar is recommended by the James Beard Foundation as part of their “Devouring le Montreal” series. It also won the “Restaurant of the Year” Laurier Award in 2021. With a killer wine list and lots of good food to try, this place is well worth a jaunt through the streets to get a table. The food options include a white ham dish with Avonlea cheddar, celery root, and ricotta, and a brioche bun stuffed with anchovies, greens, and porchetta. James Beard recommends their carrot pastrami éclair which comes with honey mustard, whipped sour cream, and cream cheese. Try their grilled sea snails, endives in remoulade, and hazelnut chocolate layer cake. Yet another one of the deserving of a Michelin Star restaurants in Montreal, Canada.

Toqué!

900 Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, Montréal, QC H2Z 2B2, Canada

Toqué! is a James Beard nominated restaurant – specifically for its Chef Normand Laprise's cookbook regarding the beauty of New Quebec Gastronomy. Chef Laprise has also been honored with a James Beard Award for his work in the field of gastronomy (via Time Out). With its farm-to-table concept, Toqué! brings some of the best ingredients from the region into the kitchen. They offer a lunch menu, a dinner menu, and a tasting menu. The 7-course tasting menu will total $198 per person. All of these look incredible, let's dive into their numerous dinner menu options.

Starter dishes include cold pea soup with lobster and a mint granité, as well as marinated halibut, foie gras with strawberries, and grilled cucumber. For mains, a few featured dishes are the lamb with eggplant purée and a yuzu gel, a black cod on a bed of kohlrabi, duck with sugar snap peas, and trumpet mushrooms in a raspberry poivrade sauce. And those are just a sampling of the mastery at Toqué! For desserts, pick from crème anglaise over mousse with raspberry, tarragon sorbet, or strawberry salad with lemon balm syrup and chamomile gel. There is also strawberry mousse with terrine sponge cake, and lemon balm mousse with meringue, mascarpone, and pea pod ice cream. What's not to like?

Vin Mon Lapin

150 Rue Saint-Zotique East, Montréal, QC H2S 1K8, Canada

Vin Mon Lapin won a Laurier Award for Restaurant of the Year in 2019 (Via Eater). Similar to Toqué!, Vin Mon Lapin offers farm-sourced fare, highlighting the local ingredients of the region in their menu choices. A seasonal menu from 2022, had dish options like mussels with mushrooms, duck heart, and homemade gnocchi pasta. Desserts featured yogurt ice cream with apricot preserves, chocolate truffles, and a buckwheat cake with chilled cheese. More recently on their Instagram, they showcased a new dish of zucchini puff pastry, raw cheese, and anchovies. Whatever you'll find on the menu when you choose to get a reservation, it is sure to be a phenomenal dining experience.

Le Mousso

1025 Ontario St E, Montreal, Quebec H2L 1P8, Canada

Le Mousso is another Laurier Award winner, as recently as 2021, this restaurant was named as “Restaurant of the Year.” This prix fixe tasting menu is $250 per person and is named on Canada's 100 Best Restaurants List, as well as recommended by Bon Apétit. The menu changes seasonally, and often, as designed by Chef Antonin Mousseau-Rivard. Bon Apétit describes the experience as a flavorful twist on traditional Québécois cooking. Their tasting menu experience included beet cotton candy served over a cube of foie gras mousse, and sturgeon caviar with bone marrow consommé. There were fir-smoked scallops in wild plum butter, fermented vegetables, and slow-cooked halibut wrapped in pickled cabbage. For desserts, the writer enjoyed kefir pancakes with rose crème fraîche and cherries.

Hoogan Et Beaufort

4095 Rue Molson, Montréal, QC H1Y 3L1, Canada

Hoogan et Beaufort is another James Beard recommendation. Located not far from the waterfront, this restaurant serves contemporary New Canadian food in a stylistic, minimalist setting. They serve both lunch and dinner menu options, as well as a multi-course degustation option. Their dinner menu starts strong with fresh focaccia bread and butter, followed by opinions for hot oysters, trout, veal, and Prince Edward Island tuna. There are a number of sauces and patés that can be paired with these dishes.

Entrés include pork chops, steelhead with almonds, and duck with radish, among other delicate choices. For desserts, Hoogan et Beaufort offers a number of ice creams, fresh strawberries, and cold cheeses. When James Beard writer Mitchell Davis visited, he recommended the lunchtime beet and pistachio soup, as well as the haddock, served on a bed of ramps. This is definitely one of the deserving of a Michelin Star Restaurants in Montreal.

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