Your 2024 guide to New Year’s Eve in Montréal

Old Montréal’s many luxury boutique hotels roll out the red carpet on New Year’s Eve and provide excellent jumping off (or staying in) points for the night. The chic W Montréal is offering Champagne & Celebration packages that offer varying degrees of cocktails and champagne in the W Living Room along with a performance by renowned house music singer/DJ/producer Sandy Duperval. Towards the Old Port, the stylish and contemporary Hôtel William Gray will host its lavish annual NYE Grand Ball soirée. The historic, amazingly old world, stone-walled Auberge Saint-Gabriel is renowned for its legendary parties, and on a night that’s famous for champagne, go to where they take the bubbly stuff seriously: the lively Maison Saint-Paul, a chic “sabering” champagne resto-bar where they’ll even lend you a sabre to slash open your bottle.

As is the custom, Montréal’s beautifully restored Ritz-Carlton Hotel — at its haute cuisine, in-house restaurant Maison Boulud — will be hosting their annual New Year’s Dinner soirée, offering a multi-course tasting menu. Getting in on the exclusive New Year’s action is also the esteemed (and imaginatively renovated and redesigned) Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel. The “Queen E” celebrates New Year’s Eve on two fronts: restaurant Rosélys will welcome you with a delicious kir, followed by an eight-course New Year's Eve menu with live jazz during your meal and a glass of champagne for the big countdown to the New Year, while Bar Nacarat never fails to impress with the kind of outstanding mixology that inspires new resolutions. Over in the Quartier des Spectacles, with its commanding views of downtown and Place des Arts, the DoubleTree By Hilton Montréal’s in-house resto Bivouac (equal parts social lounge, artisan bar and modern bistro) will be offering a special Québec-sourced NYE menu.

This year, for the very first time, epic winter-season, outdoor dance party Igloofest will take over the Old Port of Montréal’s free NYE festivities. Open to everyone, the snowy soirée will feature performances by approximately eight electro, pop, hip-hop and funk artists as well as a countdown and fireworks at midnight accompanied by a multimedia performance. The Casino de Montréal will ring in the New Year with a range of all-day New Year’s Eve entertainment experiences. They will throw an exclusive and immersive party featuring live shows and performances throughout the casino as it transforms itself into a one-stop fun shop (take note: only NYE party ticket holders will be admitted to the casino for most of the day). Le Balcon Cabaret Music-Hall on Sainte Catherine Street will be doing what they do best when they bring the house down with their New Year’s Mega Party featuring a selection of the best soul, Motown, disco and dance hits courtesy of Dorian Sherwood & Soul Tree. Their popular, annual New Year’s Eve party dinner-and-show ticket includes a multi-course gourmet meal and a toast at midnight.

Get the night flying at Jet Night Club, Crescent Street’s largest nightclub, which always promises the “ultimate VIP treatment” for you and 999 of your friends, music of the house/hip-hop/club anthem variety, and a live countdown on giant screens. Also keeping the Crescent Street New Year’s energy peaking is Club Electric Avenue with an ’80s and ’90s vibe. And just to make sure all bases are covered, Montréal institution the Sir Winston Churchill Pub Complex has all the things on three floors under one roof: a nightclub with a bangin’ dance floor, a live music pub space and a laid-back club lounge with glamorous décor, all decked out with NYE bells and whistles.

Over on Saint-Laurent Boulevard – or “The Main” as it’s known to the homegrown – there’s club scene action all along the strip, beginning on lower Saint Laurent. The ultra-modern Society for Arts and Technology (a.k.a., the SAT) is one of the more unique spaces in the city, and lends itself to a cutting-edge electro dance party every year. Further up Saint-Laurent, the two floors (one a lounge, the other a dance club) of party mainstay Rouge will be bouncing to the sound of hip-hop, club anthems and Top 40 hits. Over at Muzique, similar musical stylings will be on offer in multiple themed rooms for their annual, swanky Montréal Ball, “where the champagne never stops flowing, the music never stops playing, the jewels never come off and the party never ends...”  

Wholly unique Griffintown party palace New City Gas, built in the historic, industrial-age New City Gas complex that lit Montréal streets once upon a time, is a New Year’s staple for dance music partygoers. If you’re the kind of person who only gets their party started by the time most clubs are closing, the Gay Village has the answer at the iconic Stereo – which boasts the city’s best sound system – where they programme a marathon run of dance music DJ sets in their two spaces. And who wouldn’t want to eat, drink and dance in an enchanting underground forest? The completely unique Soubois (resto by day, woodsy party jungle by night) will host their annual event featuring an irresistible menu and an array of DJs. And it’s an open bar, buffet and bubbly at midnight at North Montréal’s Club L’Ami Temps, all to the sound of musical host extraordinaire, DJ Vlad Guzu.

Resolve to eat well this New Year’s Eve as Montréal’s many world-class restaurants get creative with their cuisine. To wit, let Maggie Oakes, where the finest Québec-produced foods are featured, offer you a luxurious environment, while the ever-popular Méchant Boeuf Bar-Brasserie is preparing a two-service offering that leans heavily into a couple of their specialties — dry-aged beef and seafood — with a DJ spinning tunes deep into the night. Pastis is king at Modavie (recently named one of the Top 100 Restaurants in Canada), where they’re putting together five-course and seven-course menus complete with live music. And expect an equally lively atmosphere at Bevo Bar + Pizzeria, where they’re preparing a special NYE menu inspired by Italian traditions.

Tuck into a multi-course menu of gourmet comfort food in Taverne Gaspar’s warm and rustic setting, while the elegant, Parisian pub-inspired Brasserie 701 in the prestigious Hôtel Place d'Armes will have two services to choose from. Also in the hotel, Kyo Bar Japonais has created an imaginative multi-course New Year’s Eve tasting menu over two sittings while offering a selection of over 25 sakes. Restaurants in the city’s Little Italy district are getting into the swing of things in a big way with inventive and outstanding holiday menus from Italian cuisine institutions such as Ristorante Pizzeria Corneli. And craving a Parisian New Year’s Eve? Look no further than brasserie Le Pois Penché, a Golden Square Mile dinner tradition. Expect a feast of original French flavours (created by chef Josserand Valiquette), a full house, Parisian atmosphere, warm hospitality and a DJ on deck.

Bonne année!