Montreal for a business dinner?

It is time for my annual client dinner at the conference, and this year it is in Montreal.

Anyone have a good rec for a nice, but not too, too expensive, place to handle 30 people? Near the convention center, or at least convenient.

Any other not to be missed places for me to explore on my own would be welcomed. I am going to be there for an entire week, and will have some time to wander (I always do, somehow).

Au Pied de Cochon
536 Av Duluth East
Montreal
514-281-1114

"Pig's Foot" great place, higher quality food with Quebecois origins. Try the poutine de fois gras. Lots of great pork dishes, not to be missed as a chow place, but unfortunately not so appropriate for a business dinner unless your clients would like to dine in a setting like Spoon Thai.

Queue de Cheval
1221 Boul. Rene-Levesque West
Montreal
514-390-0900

I cringe as I recommend this place, but it fits the bill as appropriate for a business dinner and near the convention center. It's an overpriced steakhouse (like you have to go to Montreal to find one!), but they also have good fish, and pretty reliably good food around. Popular, nice setting, in that touristy or night-out-on-the-town sort of away. Like a lot of places in River North.

Near the convention center is a teeny weeny Chinatown. Not too far a walk is Old Montreal, but we're getting away from your convenience criteria REAL fast.

Hi,

For some really dated and perhaps unreliable information, I was last in Montreal in 1967 for the World's Fair. I'm not sure if this was Montreal and/or Quebec, there was a local pizza called the 'Dressed' Pizza, which I recall enjoying very much.

You also have an opportunity to try the Canadian hockey snack: poutine. This is now offered in finer restaurants, which Maple Leaf on CH affirmed the last time this topic came up.

My last visit to Canada, I sat for a while in the airport in Ottawa, where I noticed people eating their french fries with vinegar and liberal amounts of pepper.

In my current reading, I learned there is a meat pie served every Christmas in French Canada called Tourtier. Maybe it is something available now that cooler weather is setting in.

In any Quebec (or Eastern Ontario) market, there are a number of meat pies - the usual steak and kidney and other steak and chicken pies. I wanted to try a lot of them when I was at Ottawa's Byward market in August but my conscience was standing behind me calculating the fat grams. (g)

Cathy2 wrote:You also have an opportunity to try the Canadian hockey snack: poutine. This is now offered in finer restaurants, which Maple Leaf on CH affirmed the last time this topic came up.

My favorite poutine-in-canada moment came as I was driving down Wyandotte in Windsor and noticed the "Pita Grill" restaurant. Painted in big letters on their window was: "Try Our Famous Poutine".

Which strikes me as kind of like ordering an Italian Beef at City Noor.

Or, perhaps, you really shouldn't stray from the poutine at the Pita Grill.

-ed

dicksond wrote:Any other not to be missed places for me to explore on my own would be welcomed.

David,

Let the Schwartz be with you. Yep, my one Montreal recommendation, a meal that still resonates in my mind and tummy after a number of years is Schwartz's for a smoked meat sandwich. Not only is the smoked meat incredible, but the roasted chicken, yes plain ol' roasted chicken, is the stuff dreams are made of.

Ok, that's not exactly true about the chicken. The stuff dreams are made of are the potatoes roasted directly under the chicken rotisserie, continuously basted by dripping chicken fat as they cook. Hummm, I wonder what a plane ticket costs to Montreal?

Have fun in Montreal, it's a wonderful city, and don't forget to bring your camera to Schwartz's.

Enjoy,
Gary

Schwartz's
3895 Saint-Laurent Boulevard
Montreal, Quebec
H2W 1X9
Canada
514-842-4813
http://www.schwartzsdeli.com/

Hi David--

I'm a native Montrealer and still regular visitor (my parents still live in the suburbs there) so I can offer a couple of tips.

1) Au Pied de Cochon, mentioned above, is great, a meat and fish lovers dream. All sorts of exotic cuts (like the eponymous pigs feet), many done on a wood-fired grill. However, it's not a huge space, so unless they have a private room I didn't notice, I think getting 30 people in might be tight. It's also not exactly near the convention center, but a couple of miles north. They have a website at

http://www.aupieddecochon.ca

2) One place that my wife and I have taken to visiting for lunch whenever we visit Montreal is Chez l'Epicier, in a beautiful old loft-like space in Old Montreal, which is walking distance from the convention center. The food is more precious (chocolate "club sandwich" on the dessert menu once) and more expensive than Au Pied de Cochon but very seasonal, creative, and well-executed. I would compare it to Blackbird here (in fact, L'Epicier's chef came to Chicago last year and cooked in Blackbird's kitchen for a night or two). Their website indicates that they can accommodate groups. Here it is:

http://www.chezlepicier.com

3) Schwartz's is, of course, fabulous, a must-visit for a true Chowhound, but it certainly would not be a place for a large business dinner (think a smaller Manny's). I don't think G Wiv was suggesting it for your business dinner, but I just didn't want there to be any confusion on that point.

4) Another non-business dinner but still worthwhile excursion is the Jean Talon marketm, ably described at this useful site:

http://www.montrealfood.com/jtalon.html

It's a very unpretentious indoor/outdoor food market. I've usually been in the summer, so many of the vendors will be gone in the winter, but there are a couple of permanent installations worth visiting in the shops that ring the square.

a) Fromagerie Hamel

http://www.fromageriehamel.com

is a fabulous cheese store and affineur. Don't forget: there is no ban on importing raw milk cheeses into Canada, or at least, if there is one it is much less stringent than the one here. They get all sorts of wonderful real, live cheeses from France and elsewhere at Hamel and store and mature them properly (that's what an affineur does).

b) Les Saveurs du Quebec

A wonderful store devoted solely to food products--cheeses, beer, wine, meats--made in Quebec.

Jean Talon market
7075 Casgrain Ave, Tel. 277-1379
Metro De Castelnau/Jean-Talon

C'mon Gary,

Everybody goes to Schwartz' for the special - 1/2# smoked beef, rib steak, half a loaf of Jewish rye, french fries and all the garlic pickles that you can eat. It is a meal that makes poutine, well, look healthy in comparison.

Darn shame that they had to change the sign.

dicksond wrote:It is time for my annual client dinner at the conference, and this year it is in Montreal.

Anyone have a good rec for a nice, but not too, too expensive, place to handle 30 people? Near the convention center, or at least convenient.

What I personally struggle to remember with regards to business dinners: Ambience, service, mien and the comfort of my guests far exceeds the primacy of chow when planning a business dinner. Sigh. Its a constant battle.

Its been five years since I was last in Montreal.

A site with which I have had good success to help evaluate places is http:/www.restaurant.ca . If a place has a large number of positives, its pretty good validation that it might be ok.

Pre-web chow communities, that's how I lucked into Casa Cacciatore whose back door opens into Jean Talon Market (which if you have time, you should not miss, along with the cheese mongers and bakers adjacent to the market).

Casa Cacciatore is a legacy red sauce Italian place, the kind I would recommend in a heartbeat to VI or Steve_Z who I know are fond of such places. Anyway I ate lunch there twice, between 1997 and 1999, and was quite happy. Very different from Chicago red sauce style, however.

Schwartz's? Absolutely, but don't push the envelope!. Get one smoked meat sandwich (NOT lean!), munch some pickles, buy your family some T-shirts; and beat feet. L'Express nearby is great for the scene and the hot chocolate, but the chow rarely delivers.

Another old line legacy place to hit for lunch is Le Paris--right on the downtown main drag (St Catherine?) , a couple of blocks from Montreal's best cigar tobacconist (been there 3 generations). Waitresses who call you 'Hon' (or the Quebecois equivalent), hearty lunches, not a bad cassoulet.

Bagels: well, you know, there are two--Fairmont Bagels and St Viateur. Fairmont are much better, and its open 24/7. Fairmont is a MUST.

Very interested to know where you wind up for the business dinner, and how the chow turns out.

If you haven't already read it, there's a terrific world class first novel by Trevanian set in Montreal in the '60's called 'The Main', which is what St. Laurent Ave used to be known as. Talk about mis en scene-the first chapter is unbelievable. Should be easy to pick up at a used book store or library. I would say if you are going to Schwartz's that your smoked meat will be a million times better for having read this.

>>Bagels: well, you know, there are two--Fairmont Bagels and St Viateur. Fairmont are much better, and its open 24/7. Fairmont is a MUST. <<

When I was in Ottawa last month, I purchased a "MONTREAL STLYE" bagel at Byward Market. It was different but good. It was flatter and less airy. It was also hearth baked. Really good stuff.

jlawrence01 wrote:When I was in Ottawa last month, I purchased a "MONTREAL STLYE" bagel at Byward Market. It was different but good. It was flatter and less airy. It was also hearth baked. Really good stuff.

I like Montreal Bagels. They are more like an old fashioned NY style pretzel rather than a bagel. They are baked on a wood burning hearth, and stay fresh for about an hour after they reach room temp. That's why you have to get them at the source.

The Montreal chow report starts with a confession - I also searched in CH and ended up using it as much as a resource as this. And I was working pretty hard while there (which went quite well, thank you) so my chowing was fairly limited. It did make me want to go back.

Arrived late on a Saturday night, and hit the nearby Dunn's for Smoked Meat and chicken soup with a matzoh ball. Quite good really.

The next day had a biz dinner at Cafe Ferreira, a Portugese place on Peel near Sainte Catherine. Good grilled sardines and potato cod fritters. Nice selection of green wine. For some reason I ordered the seafood mixed grill - lobster, shrimp, swordfish - which was predictably dry and lightly flavored. It also made it a pretty pricey meal. A good casserole - seafood rice, or chicken and sausage - that was genuine Portugese food would have been much better, and less pricey. My bad.

Did not get a real Montreal bagel sadly. Stopped at a place called the Bagel for one, but from what I have read, I do not think it was the real deal (way too light and fluffy).

The big business dinner ended up being 25 people at L'Actuel, a Belgian spot with a prix fixe menu between $32 and $44. Good beer and wine selections (though alcohol seemed expensive in Montreal, in general). Located on Peel between Rene Leveque (sp?) and Ste Catherine (convenient to the hotel). I started with a mussel dish that was in butter and pastis. Reasonably tasteful but for some reason they had removed the mussels from the shells which seemed to render them a bit too chewy and with less mussel flavor, for me. Main course of venison medallions in a lovely pepper sauce, and a dessert of profiterolles with Belgian chocolate. A very respectable meal overall in a lovely second floor space overlooking a park. They handled the crowd well, and everyone was quite enthusiastic about the food. Though we did buy a lot of alcohol. A success.

Ate in the next day, and sampled some Poutine, which I liked. But it also was not authentic - having been baked to provide a melted crust of cheese. I look forward to trying the real stuff.

The big dinner was at Anise on the Plateau. Had a 9 course tasting meal with matched wines. I was visiting, drinking and not taking notes and now my memory seems blurred . Middle eastern flavorings with more French technique. Nice space, complex foods. Started with Salmon Ceviche with lemon and seaweed. Fresh, with a great tang of the sea. Then a red lentil soup, pureed with middle eastern spices, garlic and citrus. Quite good. There was a foie gras pate course, a lamb course, a cheese course, and a dessert. All pretty good, none quite transporting, IMO. The menu on their site is not the current one http://www.anise.ca/en/menu.php. Worth visiting.

Finished up with a pilgrmage to Scwartz's for a meat plate. Will try to add some pics of the Schwartz a little later. Considered hauling a chicken home, but I was going to climb Mont Royal afterwards and decided this was too much to haul. It was about 10am on a Saturday and not too busy, so the guys were pretty sociable.

Oh, and I also picked up a couple of cans of dark(er) maple syrup as I always do in Canada. One Amber and one dark. Much better flavor for me than the clear that is the norm.

Thanks to all. Since it was such a cheap, short flight, I think I shall go back with the bride to tour and eat in a more focused manner. Darned business!