17 new bars in Montréal setting the city’s trends
Just like Montréal’s restaurants, the city’s new bars demonstrate constant evolution, pushing the fold with experimentation and offering a look into the latest local tastes and trends. Read on, and you’ll find every one of the latest places in town serving custom mixology, curated wine lists, freshly-brewed beers, zero-proof options, and more, as well as the uptick in versatile addresses that go from a restaurant or café one moment to a bustling bar the next. Whether you’re celebrating a milestone or enjoying a casual 5 à 7, these 17 wine bars, speakeasies, and cocktail bars have what you need.
Le Petit Dep (Le Plateau)
Whether you’re grabbing your morning coffee or unwinding with an evening cocktail, the Café-Buvette du Petit Dep truly captures the local vibe with its top-notch products. Nestled in the Plateau, it offers a fantastic selection of coffee, pastries, and groceries, with a standout array of drinks that showcase Québec spirits.
5125, Saint-Laurent Blvd.
Le French Line
This mixology attaché to the highly-anticipated Le 9e restaurant revived on the 9th floor of the Centre Eaton de Montréal effortlessly deals in the luxuries found in hotel bars around the world. Guided by Andrew Whibley of the Cloakroom, its cocktails—both classic and creatively inspired by classics—are all the more classy thanks to how they can be enjoyed among the address’s original furniture and interior décor, as well as live entertainment.
1500 Robert-Bourassa Blvd., 9th Floor
Maison Close
A self-described Italo-Montréal wine bar with a subdued punk rock atmosphere, Maison Close is serving up all the greatest hits when it comes to their selection. You have your dry and mineral varieties, lavish ‘gourmand’ bottles, fun bubblies, easy-to-drink or ‘glou glou’ wines, and a selection of vermouths and amaro. Couple all of that with an inexpensive snack menu and an interior of discreet black and red neon, and a night here should be more than enough to entertain.
4043 Rue Ontario Est
Mlle Rosa
Drawing on the success of their India Rosa restaurant locations, Mlle Rosa takes the Indian cuisine expertise of the Sandhu family and applies it to a tapas-style format with heavy emphasis on cocktails. Bursting with flavour, concepts, and presentations, there’s a lot of ‘wow’ factors to experienced when having a drink here, so much so that you’ll likely be ordering one or two more. While pulling many inspirations from Indian cuisine, you’ll find many other countries expressed here, too.
1233 Mont-Royal Avenue Est
Copilote
Located next to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve’s famed restaurant Hélicoptère, this discreet bar hidden behind thick, black curtains is a welcome experiment in focused cocktail and wine services accompanied by snacks from an accomplished kitchen. Start off your night with either classic cocktails executed with precision or wholly new creations, or select a bottle from their dépanneur fridge that’s been refurbished to carry tons of curated wines. Perfect for a date night and just right for a small group of friends, Copilote easily ranks highly for both special occasions and nights out on the town.
4263 Rue Ontario Est
Terrasse Alizé
Head on up to the 9th floor of Humaniti Montréal and you’ll find this four-season terrasse that caters to as many midday relaxation sessions as it does 5 à 7s and bustling nights out. An urban oasis dressed in plant life, they serve cocktails by the glass or pitcher, while chef Jean-Sébastien Giguère couples it all with a seasonal menu. If you’re looking for a party, you’ll find one just about every day of the week thanks to DJ performances, from Latin rhythms on Tuesdays to nostalgic 90s beats every Friday night.
340 De La Gauchetière Street West, 9th Floor
Bar Wills
A highly collaborative bar in Mile-Ex, Bar Wills may have started out as a microbrewery, but it’s grown to become so much more than that. Its principles Ethan and Alex Wills not only produce more than a dozen of their own unique beers, but their space is one that’s regularly activated by a bevy of events and collaborations with other local minds in brewing, distilling, and winemaking.
6731 Esplanade Ave
Buvette Pompette
Recalling the kinds of small, sociable bars one might find in Spain, this wine-forward Iberian buvette was designed to be a neighbourhood-forward spot from the get-go. A light and inexpensive menu of snacks and mains forms the foundation for a long list of wines (as well as magnums and fruit wines not often seen in the city) and refreshing cocktails on the cheap. Introduce yourself when you drop in here; we’re sure you’ll become fast friends with the service.
414 Rue Saint-Zotique
Bar Vivar
Chef Georges Greiche’s tapas menu that derives influences from the Basque region, Galicia, Asturias, Andalusia or Valencia are worth a taste to be sure, but this place can easily serve anyone’s thirsts thanks to sommelier Patrick Oakes. Enjoy an array of thoughtfully curated Spanish wines, vermouths on the rocks, and beers as you enjoy some delicious bites on a sunny Plateau terrasse.
533 Avenue Duluth Est
Badin
Head below Little Burgundy's SWANA restaurant HENI and you’ll discover this listening lounge that’s perfect for a contemplative evening of music and cocktails. Heading up the drink menu here is Émile Archambault, a veteran of Montreal’s cocktail scene, who treats drinks as though they were dishes: Balanced and refined, they’ll move through the seasons, with ingredients transformed through a range of clarifications, filtrations, reductions, and fermentations.
2621 Notre-Dame Street West
Spaghetti Western
As a project coming from the team behind Montreal’s Snowbird Tiki Bar and Taverne Cobra, one can expect no less than a good time at this cowboy-themed destination. Enjoy the party vibes fueled by honky tonk music as you knock back shots and bottles of American beer, or any one of their festive cocktails inspired by Americana. They’ve a lot of drink specials during the week as well.
6390 Rue St-Hubert
SavSav
Head inside the Brewster Building in Saint-Henri and you’ll find this café that turns into a swinging spot for drinks in the evening. Its malleability show how the bar scene in the city is changing ever so slightly, where both alcoholic and zero-proof options are both available throughout the evening. For the former, try their organic and natural wines, beers, or cocktails like the bloody mary with gochujang, a green curry margarita, or jasmine tea spritz.
780 Brewster Avenue
Le Marie-Louise
Enjoy some wine as you perch yourself up on this rooftop bar on the roof of the Studio-Cabaret lobby at Espace Saint-Denis. Their tidy menu of reds, whites, rosés, prosecco and champagne offered by both the glass and bottle can easily make for the main attraction of your visit, but if you need something in your stomach as you drink, there are bites available from the team behind Molière Brasserie Française as well.
1594 Rue Saint-Denis
Motel Ontario
This new wine bar in Hochelaga with a sleek, almost diner-inspired interior excels at serving up inexpensive wines available by both the glass and bottle in addition to cocktails made from ingredients both traditional and unconventional. Their snackable menu helps make this a spot you can while away more than a few hours at as well. Enjoy an evening here if you’re from the neighbourhood, and if you’re not, you’ll be feeling like a local in no time.
3325 Rue Ontario Est
Bar Dominion
Paying homage to the previous tenant of its historic downtown address, Dominion Square Tavern, this cocktail-forward bar focuses on serving expertly crafted standards and their variations alongside a snackable seafood-heavy menu. Headed by the minds behind the Cloakroom Bar and the city’s new-wave steakhouse Provisions, this bar’s equal parts good for a luxuriant 5 à 7 as it is for long nights with friends and something to celebrate.
1243 Metcalfe Street
Bon Délire
Blending the cocktail mastery found at their previous bars Atwater Cocktail Club and Milky Way Cocktail Bar with the atmosphere of an all-American destination dive, Bon Délire is the latest — and most unconventional — bar in Saint-Henri. Don’t let the fun of its front window resembling a pawn shop fool you, they’re making all kinds of signature cocktails in addition to classic boilermakers and frozen cocktails.
4855 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest
Magpie Magique
Inspired by time-honored hotel bars found around the world, this speakeasy-style establishment located through a backdoor behind an anonymous storefront, guests can be treated to sultry live jazz on calmer nights and more upbeat DJs on weekends. Focused on standard cocktails done well and a steady wine list with easy-to-drink options, its connection to the Magpie Pizzeria equips the spot with a range of inexpensive tapas and—of course—pizzas.
380 Rue Gilford
JP Karwacki
JP Karwacki is a Montréal-based writer and journalist whose work has appeared in Time Magazine, the Montreal Gazette, National Post, Time Out, NUVO Magazine, and more. Having called the city home for over a decade and a half, he regularly focuses on spreading the good word about the amazing things to eat, drink and do in Montréal. One half raconteur and the other flâneur (with just a dash of boulevardier), when he wasn’t working on the frontlines of the city's restaurants and bars, he spent his time thinking about, reading about and writing about restaurants and bars.