You are visiting Montreal during its 375th anniversary! You can check out http://www.375mtl.com/en/ for activities and events.
Well if you are in Montreal on Friday night, pass by Bar A (or A Bar) on Rachel. I'm a regular there! It's a cheap neighbourhood bar, slightly hidden, and central to many things you might want to check out too. I wear a very worn-out Jurassic Park baseball cap.
Points of interests:
Romados is a very busy Portuguese-style chicken rotisserie place. You can see the chicken cook on spits from the window and the spicy sauce to go with it is great.
Big in Japan (the bar) is a red door at the corner of St. Laurent and Rachel. An actual hidden bar. Very beautiful inside with low lighting, candles, and people going out. The suspended whiskey bottle keep thing is cool to see.
Patati Patata is right next to the Big in Japan bar on the corner. It's a tiny fast food place that opens late and serves sliders, fish burgers, tofu burgers, poutine, roast beef and more. It also opens early for breakfast. I like their fries, but they are too thin to be used in poutine in my opinion. If it's too busy, Pitarifique across the street is also a good choice for their burgers and gyros. The poutine here is better too.
Darling is a new café/bar one block up along St. Laurent. It has a small terrace out front. This is a big place with a lot of people. The decor is kind of hipster with a lot of plants. There's a good list of things to drink. I think the beer is on the pricey side, but it's a place where you can get IPA du Nord-Est from Boréal, a local maintstream brewer, which is surprising.
Omnivore is at the kitty corner of Darling. It specializes in Middle-Eastern grilled meats and salads. Really good simple food.
Casa Del Popolo is a small bar on St. Laurent near St. Joseph. It's not fancy at all and kind of grungy, but the drinks are affordable, and the music is good. Sometimes there are live DJs. I saw a show there just a few days ago. I think they serve the best value nachos plate with guacamole, salsa, black beans, and cheese.
Dieu du Ciel is on Laurier, one block up from Casa, and is the most famous micro-brewery in Montreal. It is always packed. The beer here is strong.
Across the street is Datcha, a night club with access to Kabinet, a more intimate bar. The cover for Datcha was 5 bucks the last time I was there. If you feel like dancing, this is a place.
Chez Claudette is my favourite place for poutine and on Friday and Saturday, they open very late. The fries are way better than La Banquise.
Lawrence is very good restaurant on Fairmount. I'd say it is a very approachable kind of good food on the fine-dining spectrum. People will wait in line here for brunch on weekends. You can give them a number and they will text you when there's a table. They do a lot of things in-house, and even have a butcher shop nearby.
Right next to it is its sibling called Larry's. This place is smaller and is more casual. It opens very early for breakfast until late night. The meals are smaller and meant to be shared. I love this place. If you want to try some natural or biodynamic wines, there are many options here and the staff is knowledgeable. It's also really cool to sit at the kitchen bar and see them work. The coffee served here is from Heart, a roaster from Portland, OR.
On Fairmount, you will also find Fairmount Bagel, opened 24 hours a day.
Kem Coba might have a huge line of people waiting for ice cream and sorbets. If you were curious about durian ice cream, you could get to-go tub. Sometimes they have a salted butter flavour to try. I'm partial to their soft-serve twist: half ice cream and half sorbet. This week it is half vanilla from Madagascar and passion fruit sorbet.
Chez Serge is a trashy bar where the staff will dance on the bar once in a while. There's a mechanical bull. You must go here.
Across from Chez Serge is Snack N' Blues, a bar that has little cups of free snacks all around the bar. There's a grumpy DJ who will demand 5 dollars for any requests. The owner is very old, but still hangs out there to fill out the snack cups. There's a pool table at the back.
Café Olympico/Club Social are Italian styles coffee shops on St. Viateur. They have terraces and it's very lively during the day
Waverly is the bar across from the giant Ubisoft building. It's nice place to drink if you are in this area or another stop for your pub crawl.
Helm is a micro-brewery on Bernard. It's a fun place and they serve food. Sometimes there's a ping pong table in the back.
Near Helm is Nouveau Palais. It's one of my favourite places to drink or eat late at night. It kind of looks like a crappy diner, but the food is good. They even serve chicken waffle for brunch on weekends. The burger is great. After midnight, they change to the night menu, and kitchen closes late. There will be a DJ too.
Vices & Versa is a bar that serves Quebec micro-brewery beer and cider and mead. There's a great terrace in the back. They usually have up to 30 beers on tap.
Triple Crown is a good restaurant that serves southern US food. They do great cocktails too. What people often get here is they order food and ask for the picnic basket so they provide utensils. You walk across to the park to eat and bring the gear back after you're done.
Le Vieux Vélo is a small restaurant that has the reputation to serve the best eggs benedict. There's usually a line on the weekend, but you can put your name on the list, and go next door to Café Odessa to order some coffee. Once it's your turn, the staff from Vieux Vélo will come over to see if you are there. I also love their home fries.
Pho Tay Ho is a great Vietnamese restaurant. They specialize in chicken pho. The broth is great. And there's a grilled meat special swimming in fish sauce served with a mound of noodles and greens and herbs on the side.
The Jean-Talon market is a fun place to visit during the weekend. There's a lot of things to see and try. There's a Cafe St-Henri too for some third-wave coffee that's roasted in Montreal.
The Biodome is a cool place to visit just to see the penguins.
The Planetarium is also cool, but I haven't been to this one. It moved.
The McCord museum is a smaller one not far from McGill University. It tends to have exhibits pertaining to Canadian or Quebec history.
Rockette is a popular place to go dance in the Plateau area.
La Binerie on Mont-Royal is a local institution that serves traditional Quebec baked beans and other things like creton, which is ground pork meat mixed with fat and spices. It's eaten spread on toast.
Kouign Amann is a pastry shop on Mont-Royal. They specialize in kouign amann, a kind of croissant that's been folded onto itself and baked with sugar that's caramelized. It's a delicacy from the Brittany region of France. It's a bit too sweet for me.
Apartment 200 is a younger crowd concept bar that looks like someone's big apartment. It's in the lower St. Laurent area that gets pretty trashy with drunk young tourists or students at 3 AM. There's a few arcade machines and a pool table, but the music is always way too loud to talk. Getting in can be a hassle. It could be fun in a bacherlor party setting.
Across the street you can find Biftek, a sports dive bar with free popcorn and cheap beer. There are pool tables and foosball. I really like watching playoff baseball or hockey here.
Le Mal Nécessaire is a tiki bar in Chinatown. It is fairly small so there might be a line. You will notice the big green neon pineapple. It's a fun place to drink and could be a stop on the way towards Old Montreal.
Pho Bac in Chinatown is a place to get bun bo hue, a spicy Vietnamese noodle soup. Great for hangovers.
On Sunday if it's sunny, you can go to the mountain at the statue of George-Étienne Cartier. Just ask people for the "tamtams" and they will point you in the right direction. You will most likely hear the drums before you see the crowd or smell the weed. People will hang out here all afternoon in a large grassy park. Higher up the mountain, you can find the LARPers. It's possible to drink in the park if you have a meal with you. There are a few corner stores (dépanneur) not far where you can get beer and chips too.
I hope this helps!
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