For our final dinner of our trip on this very frigid New Year’s Eve in Montreal, I made a reservation at Monarque. Monarque is ranked 16 on Canada’s Best in 2023. They have 2 sides of the restaurant: one is a brasserie and the other is a more formal dining room. We sat in the dining room, which offered a 4 course menu for the night. Our area was a corner spot, where we had plenty of room to also place our jackets and bags without having it coat checked.

Due to a last minute cancellation from Ile Flottante because they decided to shut down to give holiday break for their staff, I had to scramble to look for a reservation to book for our trip to Montreal. I had created a verbose document describing fallback plans on which day should there be problems. Montreal Plaza was one of the few for this day. It was ranked 21 on Canada’s 100 Best.

I stumbled onto this restaurant as I was looking for a special Montreal restaurant for my partner’s birthday. This came up as I was looking into gastronomy. The ingredients and menu looked interesting in that it had some whimsical tones to it, but also being a restaurant that had stood the test of time for at least a decade. In 2018 right before the pandemic, it was voted as the best Canadian restaurant.