Toronto vs. Montreal-who's got better restaurants?

[SYoung]

(Just a note that I've already posted this on the Toronto board)...

OK, I have a friend who swears that Montreal has better restaurants by far compared to Toronto. On the other hand, I met a Francophone Montreal expatriate now living in TO who says very much the opposite. He supports his opinion by saying that chefs and restauranteurs go where the money is and the money left Montreal for Toronto in the Eighties, thus his vote is TO by a landslide.

I haven't been to Montreal since I was a kid in the 70's, but I tend to believe the TO is better because it's got more money story. I say this because I think New York has some of the best restaurants in the world and there is a lot of money in NYC.

So, to those in the know, what's your opinion? Should I go to Montreal to try their restaurants or would it just be a waste of time because TO is better?

[Thesorus]

this is a question that is nearly impossible to answer.

I don't know much about Toronto, so I will not directly answer; but maybe one discussion lead is to look at the full spectrum of restaurants, not only high-end restaurants.

[Lesley C]

Is a good restaurant a matter of money? No way. Montreal has homegrown talent, superb locally produced ingredients, an excellent hotel/cooking school, signature dishes, and plenty of young chefs opening wild and wonderful restaurants.

Can you even name one up-and-comer in TO. Think not. It's all Mark McEwan, Jamie Kennedy and Susur, Susur, Susur. Don't even get me started on those Rubino brothers!

You want million dollar restaurants that serve the same high-end food you'll find in any major city, head to TO. You want Asian food, no question, head to TO. You want something unique, head to MTL.

End of story.

(and, hey, I didn't even touch on the whole Montreal sommelier scene)

Edited April 12, 2005 by Lesley C (log)

[GordonCooks]

It's still a mystery to me why this topic gets so much attention. Why can't both cities have excellent restaurants with talented chefs? The market is cleary geared to the needs and desires of their individual consumer base - both cities serve theirs quite successfully.

[malcolmjolley]

Is a good restaurant a matter of money? No way. Montreal has homegrown talent, superb locally produced ingredients, an excellent hotel/cooking school, signature dishes, and plenty of young chefs opening wild and wonderful restaurants.

Can you even name one up-and-comer in TO. Think not. It's all Mark McEwan, Jamie Kennedy and Susur, Susur, Susur. Don't even get me started on those Rubino brothers!

You want million dollar restaurants that serve the same high-end food you'll find in any major city, head to TO. You want Asian food, no question, head to TO. You want something unique, head to MTL.

End of story.

(and, hey, I didn't even touch on the whole Montreal sommelier scene)

←

Ouch!

Maybe it IS money, though. Cheaper rents, costs, etc encourage young chefs to go off on their own.

[jamiemaw]

Is a good restaurant a matter of money? No way. Montreal has homegrown talent, superb locally produced ingredients, an excellent hotel/cooking school, signature dishes, and plenty of young chefs opening wild and wonderful restaurants.

Can you even name one up-and-comer in TO. Think not. It's all Mark McEwan, Jamie Kennedy and Susur, Susur, Susur. Don't even get me started on those Rubino brothers!

You want million dollar restaurants that serve the same high-end food you'll find in any major city, head to TO. You want Asian food, no question, head to TO. You want something unique, head to MTL.

End of story.

(and, hey, I didn't even touch on the whole Montreal sommelier scene)

←

I enjoyed what James Chatto of Toronto Life said in an article in The Globe last Saturday: ‘“I’m not surprised at the vibrancy of the Vancouver restaurant scene,” he says, “ There’s an eager, concentrated population and a thriving sense of civic pride that stops just short of the smugness of Montreal and the nail-biting angst of Toronto.”’

Should be interesting to see these two old-school cities duke it out for second place. Or does that honour now rightly belong to Quebec City?

[ademello]

Is a good restaurant a matter of money? No way. Montreal has homegrown talent, superb locally produced ingredients, an excellent hotel/cooking school, signature dishes, and plenty of young chefs opening wild and wonderful restaurants.

Can you even name one up-and-comer in TO. Think not. It's all Mark McEwan, Jamie Kennedy and Susur, Susur, Susur. Don't even get me started on those Rubino brothers!

You want million dollar restaurants that serve the same high-end food you'll find in any major city, head to TO. You want Asian food, no question, head to TO. You want something unique, head to MTL.

End of story.

(and, hey, I didn't even touch on the whole Montreal sommelier scene)

←

What's wrong with the Rubino brothers? Too successful?

I'd love to hear more about our "signature" dishes that are different from "the same high-end food you'll find in any major city." I assume you're not talking about gourmet poutine; TO already has us beat in that dept. where they routinely out-poutine us to such an extent that zuzzed-up poutine is already passé in Toronto! What are our other signature dishes? Smoked meat?

To even raise the spectre that Montreal sommeliers are somehow superior is hilarious to me. I've yet to see a truly inspired wine list that highlights value-oriented as well as cult wines, or a place other than Bu that grasps the concept of flights.

We lack the access and ability to pay for the best ingredients so I don't think we can really compete with either Toronto or Vancouver. We do our own funky thing here and it makes people happy which gives us our own particular sassy vibe which, as Lesley puts it, makes us unique. Dining at Club Chasse et Peche is exemplary of that, and how purely based on talent and a small amount of money, something special can be had. Unfortunately we are also unique in the fact that we have an overblown reputation as a gastro-destination of choice that somehow can compete with the likes of many other cities.

[cookatlarge]

i was told by a chef in mtl from Nice, France that montreal is the Paris of Canada and from other cooks i've worked with migrating from TO to Montreal to work here have said the same, so i have reason to believe MTL.

[sf&m]

Yes, cookatlarge, the 800 gorilla in the corner is the fact that Montreal is the 2nd Largest French speaking city in the world!!!!

Whether Montreal and Quebec has the bucks or not is immaterial. It was dirt poor and suppressed for 100s of years and still survived. It sits on a unique North American Culture - older than any other European Culture in north America. Is it smug? I don't get that feel as a visitor and guest to Montreal. Is it vibrant, different and important, YES!

Far as I am concerned let Vancouver and Toronto can be what they can be in terms a cultural Melting pot - make the best of it, I know it well from my native San Francisco. You should do well. If you're lucky, you might be covered by Gourmen magazine as the latest...whowhoa.

But don't even compare yourself to Montreal's 500 year old blend of North America and France... ok, call me in 200 years - we'll check how you are doing.

And TO, please stop copy lame gourmet "poutine" ... as if you had a clue ..... and who the f.... needs "signature dishes" when you can enjoy dishes perfected by french culture over 100s of years served up to perfection in any number of bistros. Using local ingredients that "we" can raise, grow and ferment right here. ROUTINELY! Pass me that Duck Confit, please!

[GordonCooks]

i was told by a chef in mtl from Nice, France that montreal is the Paris of Canada and from other cooks i've worked with migrating from TO to Montreal to work here have said the same, so i have reason to believe MTL.

←

Lyon is considered by many to be the culinary heart of France moreso than Paris.

[maxanon]

I think that question is so subjective that its difficult to answer. On who's opinion is it? I don't always agree with critics (or even familiar suggestions), so I take it with a grain of salt.

They all have some great restos and seom stinkers. Its a fact for all cities. Just because there are more restos available doesn't make it a mecca, just a highly populated city (or a city with higher dispoosable income).

[malcolmjolley]

...It was dirt poor and suppressed for 100s of years and still survived.

Montreal was the commercial and financial centre of Canada for 200 years and, without question, the top city in all matters, including gastronomic.

That there would even be a rivalry between Toronto and Montreal in anything other than hockey is only a 30 year old phenomenon.

If the best dish in Canada is plated in Montreal, it's probably because the city has retained its cosmopolitain character and sophistication from those glory days. Toronto (and I'd venture Vancouver) are still relatively young rubes learning how to be big cities.

[jamiemaw]

...It was dirt poor and suppressed for 100s of years and still survived.

Montreal was the commercial and financial centre of Canada for 200 years and, without question, the top city in all matters, including gastronomic.

That there would even be a rivalry between Toronto and Montreal in anything other than hockey is only a 30 year old phenomenon.

If the best dish in Canada is plated in Montreal, it's probably because the city has retained its cosmopolitain character and sophistication from those glory days. Toronto (and I'd venture Vancouver) are still relatively young rubes learning how to be big cities.

←

As someone whose ancestors lived in Montreal for five generations, it is wonderful to see the city refreshing itself and its financial infrastructure recover from the travails brought on in the 70s and 80s.

But if Montreal is “the Paris of North America” and Toronto is “New York-but- managed-by-the-Swiss,” what is Vancouver?

Well, even if it's throwing its culinary weight around, Vancouver's certainly not a young rube trying to become a big city. That’s because—contrary to Malcolm’s amusing assertion—it has actually had to learn how not to become a big city. Simply put, our parents’ generation learned a good deal from some of the urban planning disasters of older, mainly eastern cities. (There has been, in fact, an advantage in getting to go last.) In turn, that has influenced the food service industry in Vancouver in no small way.

Because they consciously disallowed freeways near the city core, which discouraged suburbanization and encouraged urban densification, Vancouver is a compact city that is less dependent on the automobile than Montreal, and much less so than Toronto. In neighbourhoods such as Coal Harbour, Yaletown, the West End and Kitsilano, arterial groups of restaurants flourish at all price-points because the local population is immediately adjacent to support them. So there is a concentration of restaurants unknown elsewhere in the country. As James Chatto of Toronto Life put it in The Globe last Saturday, “There’s an eager, concentrated population . . .” and “Vancouver enjoys a large and diverse Asian community with a tradition of everyday-restaurant going.”

Those points, combined with a more casual approach (“more a sense of taste than one of occasion”, as I said in The Globe), might be one explanation as to why small-plates dining began in Vancouver in 1997, long before its advent in other North American cities.

Add the heavy tourism factor, and you might understand why there are, for instance, 315 Japanese restaurants alone in the city alone, and also why Vancouver has been labelled 'The New Sydney' or 'The New San Francisco'.

But the city’s culinary DNA—"that GPS that tells you exactly where you are dining", as I also said—is what truly sets Vancouver apart, year-round. Toronto does not enjoy a regional cuisine, and Montreal’s is seemingly limited to the summer months when the larder south of the river and from the Charlevoix move into high gear. But a longer growing season here, and the front-door provender of 82 species of Pacific seafoods, lend an obvious advantage, especially now that local chefs have rediscovered them.

These factors may account for just some of the reasons that Vancouverites spend substantially more in restaurants than Torontonians and Montrealers.

To this you might add the burgeoning Okanagan Valley, where the product of more than 100 wineries and an increasing number of cheese-makers land in Vancouver and Victoria every day.

Interestingly, perhaps, if I were to spotlight two cities that ‘punch above their weight’, I would place Quebec City and Victoria—proportionate to their small populations—at the very top of the national list for exciting cooking: Messrs. Vezina and Boulay are at the top of the class and we even had an exciting Asian fusion meal in QC that defied where we were.

In closing: Because culinary chauvinism is at least as strong a growth industry as the food service business itself, I would argue—in lieu of discussing ‘good, better, best’—that we should celebrate our differences. And that if profusion and diversity are the bellwethers of good dining, most of the major cities of Canada now offer them galore.

[Lesley C]

But the city’s culinary DNA—"that GPS that tells you exactly where you are dining", as I also said—is what truly sets Vancouver apart, year-round. Toronto does not enjoy a regional cuisine, and Montreal’s is seemingly limited to the summer months when the larder south of the river and from the Charlevoix move into high gear. But a longer growing season here, and the front-door provender of 82 species of Pacific seafoods, lend an obvious advantage, especially now that local chefs have rediscovered them.

These factors may account for just some of the reasons that Vancouverites spend substantially more in restaurants than Torontonians and Montrealers.

To this you might add the burgeoning Okanagan Valley, where the product of more than 100 wineries and an increasing number of cheese-makers land in Vancouver and Victoria every day.

Hey Jamie,

Ask Rob Feenie where he gets his vegetables and his fish in the winter, and his foie gras and cheese all year long. Then ask him where his last two chef de cuisines are from. Then ask him what city he thinks is the most exciting restaurant destination in Canada.

Chances are he'll have the same answer for all the above questions. I'll give you a hint: it isn't Toronto.

[GordonCooks]

Hey Jamie,

Ask Rob Feenie where he gets his vegetables and his fish in the winter, and his foie gras and cheese all year long. Then ask him where his last two chef de cuisines are from. Then ask him what city he thinks is the most exciting restaurant destination in Canada.

Chances are he'll have the same answer for all the above questions. I'll give you a hint: it isn't Toronto.

←

Well, I'm guessing Rob would say ..um.. err... Vancouver? That's not Toronto, right?

[malcolmjolley]

SOB - can't we all just get along?

Look: if someone gave me a choice between a gastro weekend in Mtl or Vancouver, I'd have to flip a coin. Same with SF or NYC, for that matter, or Chicago or New Orleans. Or London or Paris, etc.

TO, Mtl and Vancouver (need a 2 to 3 letter abbreviation!) all have great, interesting restaurant scenes because there's a critical mass of diners to cater to. It's population more than anything...

...oh, wait. Which is bigger?

[GordonCooks]

I would add that I think that Vancouver's scene is the Hottest at the moment.

[Lesley C]

From an interview I did with Fennie last year when he was in town for the High Lights Festival:

“I love Montreal,” says Feenie, “If you ask me, Quebec and Montreal have Canada’s best products. The chefs are equally talented. But at the top level the difference between us is who can get their hands on the best ingredients. And Quebeckers not only have the best products, they have the most consistent as well.”

Of course, Feenie also champions B.C.’s unique foodstuffs. For the Montreal event, he’ll be serving sablefish, sea urchin, sockeye salmon and duck, as well as beets, butternut squash, and Okanogan apples and pears. Quebec ingredients will also play a role in the lineup, as they do at Lumière, which he describes as a Canadian restaurant. “I start with the best from my area, then search outside. For instance, when it comes to cheese, my choice in B.C. is limited to a dozen varieties. In Quebec, I can chose from close to three hundred.”

Besides cheese, Feenie’s Quebec favourites include deer, foie gras, vegetables of local organic farmer Pierre-Andre Daignault, and fish from Poissonnerie La Mer. “People associate the West Coast with great fish and seafood,” says Feenie. “But in the winter, when I can only get sablefish at home, I can get excellent seafood in Montreal from La Mer.”

Feenie’s trip to Montreal will include visits to his favourite suppliers as well as dinner at Toque! to check out the new digs of friend Normand Laprise. “I’m coming with my restaurant chef Montrealer Marc-Andre Choquette, and we’re both excited about our trip.”

[Lesley C]

Thing is, we Montrealers are so tired of hearing everyone shit all over our city, saying all the business and rich people left for Toronto bla, bla, bla. So it's nice to cut us some slack for the things we do well. And yes, there is an interesting restaurant scene here and some pretty amazing chefs, and a load of interesting up-and-comers who can actually scrape together enough money to open their own places.

What Montreal fails miserably at is the slick, professional restaurant. We have all these 40 seat restaurants with good food but we really lack solid professional restaurants where everything is impressive and has food to match. Here everyone is always cutting back on the stemware, the plates and cutlery, the decor and often the staff. The food is usually the strongest element of a Montreal dining experience. As for the rest, I do agree Toronto and Vancouver have us whipped.

Whatever...

[GordonCooks]

Thing is, we Montrealers are so tired of hearing everyone shit all over our city, saying all the business and rich people left for Toronto bla, bla, bla. So it's nice to cut us some slack for the things we do well. And yes, there is an interesting restaurant scene here and some pretty amazing chefs, and a load of interesting up-and-comers who can actually scrape together enough money to open their own places.

What Montreal fails miserably at is the slick, professional restaurant. We have all these 40 seat restaurants with good food but we really lack solid professional restaurants where everything is impressive and has food to match. Here everyone is always cutting back on the stemware, the plates and cutlery, the decor and often the staff. The food is usually the strongest element of a Montreal dining experience. As for the rest, I do agree Toronto and Vancouver have us whipped.

Whatever...

←

Lesley,

Although I've only visited Montreal twice, I have read your reviews and noted your suggestions made in other posts. Whatever the place, NY, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, I always enjoy and appreciate a good meal, prepared well, with great ingredients - no matter the locale. Must be the foodie in me

[Marlene]

The three main culinary centres of Canada, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver each have something to offer. The three cities are as diverse as Canada is large.

It makes visiting each city a special pleasure knowing I can get something in Toronto that I can't get in Montreal or Vancouver or something in Montreal that I can't get in the other two etc.

Rather than saying one city is better than the other, I would prefer to celebrate our differences and applaud them. How boring if the food were the same in all three cities. I'd be less likely to visit any of them.

And frankly, the cities don't get all the credit. While they may be in the culinary spotlight, there are lots of places in Quebec, Ontario and BC, and the rest of Canada that offer outstanding food. It's all a matter of your tastes and what you're looking for.

Vive la difference.

[sf&m]

Anthony Boudain has a column in the last issue of Gourmet Magazine where he rails against

pretentiously extravagant restaurants heavy on the stemware and cutlery. He talks about the chef-driven, open kitchen, no thrills trend that precisely puts the food and local ingredients front and center. Sounds like LC's Montreal, right?

He gives us four examples of this trend from Paris, New York, Chicago and yes, Montreal. That would be Au Pied de Cochon. And he missed  Le Club Chasse et Peche , the most recent, sophisticated and prominent member of this approach in Montreal. (So I am told.)

All the power to the hard work and ingenuity of chefs, staff and investors who brings us locally produced foods, prepared with new approaches, new inventiveness yet an understanding of place, time and culture - wherever that may be. Good food is not a zero sum game, but Montreal's unique French and (for North America) old culture is very special asset.

I wish best of luck to Toronto and Vancouver and everywhere inbetween, by my heart is in Montreal right now - the potential there is just extraordinary.

[malcolmjolley]

And frankly, the cities don't get all the credit.  While they may be in the culinary spotlight, there are lots of places in Quebec, Ontario and BC, and the rest of Canada that offer outstanding food.  It's all a matter of your tastes and what you're looking for.

Great point Marlene: this needs a new thread!

[jamiemaw]

Lesley C  Thing is, we Montrealers are so tired of hearing everyone shit all over our city, saying all the business and rich people left for Toronto bla, bla, bla.

  Jamie Maw  In closing: Because culinary chauvinism is at least as strong a growth industry as the food service business itself, I would argue—in lieu of discussing ‘good, better, best’—that we should celebrate our differences. And that if profusion and diversity are the bellwethers of good dining, most of the major cities of Canada now offer them galore.

I didn't notice anyone pooping on Montreal on this thread, Lesley, but rather I think folks were attempting (with a little good-natured teasing thrown in) to explain differences between the cities and their sense of regionalism. For instance Vancouver, my home port, has much more in common with cities such as San Francisco and Sydney than with Toronto or Montreal, which is to be expected given the similarity of pan-Pacific ingredients, climate, relative (shortish) history and culinary provenance, and the demographic composition of their populations.

Therefore, and because restaurants are acute barometers of both excess cash flow and in-migration, in Vancouver you might reasonably expect to eat especially well right now in pan-Asian casuals (Indian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, and Japanese etc.) although their are also many good Italian and French-influenced rooms as well. The biggest trend now is in izakaya and Korean, small-room, low overhead spots offering kitchen food, comfortably. Regional restaurants, such as West, C, and Raincity Grill are in some ways the most interesting, because they borrow from many culinary mothers and describe more accurately the merged culinary DNA of where we live. That can be viewed here by clicking on '16th Annual Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards', which attracts about 800 industry folks each March.

In my opinion, there are several areas where Vancouver needs some serious bucking up. Greek cooking of quality and love is virtually non-existent; the Greek restaurants of West Broadway have enshrined the green bell pepper as the Kelly Bundy of all high-margin fruits. South American cuisine, with the exception of a bright light called Baru, is also tough.

And, compared to the older cities of the east, we don't enjoy the defining architecture of characterful, interesting spaces. Many new restaurants, with the exception of Coast and Chambar (a Belgian-Congolese restaurant that’s the toughest ticket in town right now), are often shoe-horned into the podia of modern condo towers: the rectangles are often too linear and do not admire the classic proportion of intimacy: 1.4 to 1. Lastly, some interesting math: Real estate prices are the highest in Canada but menu prices are not; Vancouver has the highest number of restaurants per capita only because its residents spend substantially more money in restaurants than other Canadians.

Lesley C   Hey Jamie,

Ask Rob Feenie where he gets his vegetables and his fish in the winter, and his foie gras and cheese all year long. Then ask him where his last two chef de cuisines are from. Then ask him what city he thinks is the most exciting restaurant destination in Canada.

Chances are he'll have the same answer for all the above questions. I'll give you a hint: it isn't Toronto.

Lesley brings up some interesting questions regarding Rob Feenie, the proprietor-chef of a French-influenced restaurant called Lumière, and Feenie's, his downstream brasserie. Feenie is prodigious at sourcing nationally, and patriotically employs Montreal’s La Mer as his eastern Canadian broker to access the same New York fish suppliers that his mentor Daniel Boulud utilizes. (for instance, Feenie uses a lot of dorado and walleye in the winter).

His chefs de cuisine Marc-Andre Choquette (he has been a marvel at sourcing Quebeçois product—especially quality cheeses) and Wayne Harris are from Montreal and Kelowna (the centre of our Okanagan Valley wine country), respectively. Of the approximately 20 cheeses Lumière will offer on its spring trolley, their provenance will be roughly divided in thirds: Quebec, BC, France. O Canada.

Feenie uses about 60 per cent Quebec (hot house, obviously) vegetables for about seven months of the year. In the spring and summer, that figure drops to about 20 to 30 percent, beginning right now with the arrival of early herbs such as mint, bay and rosemary.

Finally, Feenie uses Quebec foie gras de canard because it is a superior product than US-grown (Hudson Valley or Sonoma), but also because Quebec is the only province in Canada where it is legal grow it. It is grown south of Montreal; I personally prefer the Quebec City product (450 gram lobes—both more humane and less grainy in my opinion) but they are not approved for inter-provincial sale as of yet.

To my knowledge, chef Feenie is one of the few chefs here taking such full advantage of Quebec’s producers, brokers and suppliers (which also suits his cooking lexicon well), however because of his celebrity we can only hope that others would choose to follow suit--we'll trade you for some wine.

As I so frequently take advantage of your hospitality, in closing let me extend an open invitation to all of our eastern friends to visit us this summer, whether on lower Vancouver Island, in the Wine Country, or right here--on the edge.

Edited April 14, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)

[malcolmjolley]

Ok, now that I've had some time to mull this over, I think an argument in favour of Toronto's restaurant supremacy (a silly idea, but bear with me) would be broken down as follows:

1. Size: not money, but sheer numbers. There is a greater critical mass of diners and a corresponding greater number of restaurants, of all kinds to serve them. This breeds competition and differentiation. Especially on the high end, since there are more expense accounts to cater to (OK, I guess money does factor into it);

2. Immigration: we have more people from more places who bring their food traditions with them. This goes beyond mom & pop ethnic operations. We also attract more well-trained pros. Look at our top chefs: Stadtlander, Lee, Thuet, etc. Also, the real fruits often come a generation or two later, as in the case of the Italian and Portugese communities. The story of Toronto as a gastro-centre really starts with the first major wave of non-Anglo immigration of hungarians n the 1950s who brought garlic to Hogtown. This sped up in the 70s and 80s when Italo-Torontonians started opening high-end places; and

3. Character of the City. Let's face it: Toronto is a prime contender for Bourgeois Capital of the World. "Downtown living" often means owning your house, having a garden, a station wagon (imported, of course) in the garage. It's not like we're windsurfing in the morning and skiing in the afternoon. Nor are we out on St. Laurent until 4AM on a Wednesday. We're boring, so cooking and dining out is pretty much our biggest urban thrill. It only makes sense we'd be good at it.