FIELD DAY: Sundays are for raving at Piknic Electronik at Parc Jean-Drapeau. (Miguel Legault)
Roule Ma Poule, one of the many food stands at Atwater Market. (
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The first notes of Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” boomed from the giant outdoor speakers, and the sweaty crowd on Montreal’s Jacques-Cartier Pier cheered and whirled their glo-sticks. On stage, dancers in neon Lycra pranced in unison behind the fluorescent pink-bewigged singer. Except it wasn’t Ms. Minaj. In fact, it wasn’t even a woman.
This was Mascara, La Nuit Des Drags (Night of the Drags), billed as the biggest drag-queen show on earth. The three-hour-long glitterfest, with female impersonators channeling icons like Marilyn, Liza and Britney, is the highlight of Montreal’s weeklong celebration of LGBT diversity, Divers/Cité. It’s one of more than 100 festivals taking place in the city year-round — with the season peaking in the summer. After those long, cold, dark winters, Montrealers are looking for any excuse to get outside and party.
On a recent visit, we couldn’t walk a city block without bumping into a festival-goer. Indie and emo disciples crowded onto subways bound for Osheaga, a three-day music extravaganza at Parc Jean-Drapeau; clothes-horses lined the outdoor runways of Montréal Fashion and Design to catch a glimpse of the latest “mode”; drumbeats signaled Land InSights, a celebration of Canada’s indigenous peoples; hordes of outrageously dressed teens were milling outside of Otakuthon, for anime and manga fans.
And those who weren’t on their way to a festival were on their way to eat — because if there’s anything Montrealers appreciate more than a good festival, it’s good food.
You’d have to look pretty hard to find a bad meal in the city; even in touristy Old Montreal there are several gems. At Les 400 Coups — which GQ’s Alan Richman named 2012’s Best Restaurant “North of America” — the menu is hyper-seasonal and hyper-local; summer specialties include a velvety chilled cucumber and avocado soup and a “green” dessert concoction of apples, pistachios and cilantro over white chocolate yogurt.
An even unlikelier culinary oasis can be found inside the TGI Friday’s-like Mechant Boeuf, steps from the Old Port on Saint Paul West. Skip the meat- and poutine-heavy items and grab a seat at the raw bar, where you’ll find young chef Jason Nagy whipping up an assortment of homemade cocktail sauces and mignonettes, including a sweet chili, ginger and cilantro and a raspberry and mint that pair unexpectedly well with freshly shucked oysters.
One of the newest (and priciest) hotspots on the culinary scene is Daniel Boulud’s Maison Boulud, part of the revamped Ritz-Carlton hotel on Sherbrooke Street West. The best tables are on the flower-filled outdoor patio, where you can dine on beautifully plated fare such as grilled octopus with piquillos and marcona almonds, and veal filet with delicately fried sweetbreads. Desserts here are architectural wonders, like the wedges of pine-nut biscuit topped with goat yogurt sorbet and finished with a triangle-shaped sliver of crystalized violet.
The more budget-minded can go straight to the source: one of the city’s many year-round public markets, which are stocked with delicacies mostly grown or made locally. Everyone has a favorite market, but we opted for the indoor/outdoor Atwater Market, in the newly christened hip neighborhood of Little Burgundy.
Under tents, produce of the season is displayed like jewels — tomatoes of every size and color, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, melons. Inside, there are more kinds of pâté and cheese than you could possibly sample in a month, let alone a weekend. And if you get there early — before 9 a.m. — you might score the bread of the day at the boulangerie. (On both our visits, the raspberry bread had sold out.)
As for boozing, Montreal is still very much a beer and wine kind of town — most cocktails are sweet and fruity and designed to get clubbers drunk fast. But there are a handful of bespoke cocktail joints, most in the groovy Mile End neighborhood. That’s the case at Sparrow, on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, where the basil gimlet with fresh lime juice (and my choice of poison, gin) was perfectly balanced and a bargain at just $8.
Perhaps the only place that can rival it is the nearby Café Sardine, on Fairmount Avenue, where drinks, cleverly served in a 5-ounce measuring glass, include a smoky Whiskey Smash, garnished with a grilled lemon slice, and the Bee’s Knees, a mix of gin, lemon, honey and bee pollen embellished with coltsfoot blossoms.
But our favorite spot for a cocktail wasn’t in a bar at all. It was on an old ferry boat turned floating spa, Bota Bota. Relaxing in a robe on one of the five decks, after completing a water circuit that alternated between dry saunas and warm whirlpools, we sipped Cryotinis (apple ice wine and vodka with lychee and apples) and soaked up fantastic views of the city and the St. Lawrence River.
In the distance we could hear thumping lines of a bass. It was the sound of — you guessed it! — another festival.
MONTREAL FESTS NOT TO MISS
Montreal’s biggest parties — the International Jazz Festival, Just for Laughs — have already taken place, but there are plenty more to look forward to through the fall, and even into snow-tire season.
1. Fierté Montréal Pride (Aug. 13-19) culminates in a massive parade through the gay village (easy to find, with strands of pink balls strung across the main street, Sainte-Catherine).
2. The International Reggae Festival (Aug. 17-19) will pay special tribute to Jamaica’s 50 years of independence.
3. Omnivore Food Fest (Aug. 17-20) features collaborative dinners of up-and-coming visiting and local chefs, including Michel Marek and Seth Gabrielse who hail from the hippest new spot in the city, Foodlab.
4. David Byrne, Deerhoof, St. Vincent and Gotye — these are just a few of the more than 600 artists who will play in venues across the city at Pop Montreal (Sept. 19-23).
5. Igloo Fest (Jan. 17- Feb. 2, 2013) presents live DJs and electronic music out on the quays along the St. Lawrence River in the dead of winter. Sounds fun!
For more information on festivals in the city, visit tourisme-montreal.org.