Best brunch spots in Montréal right now

An Old Montreal restaurant doing breakfast and lunch incalculable justice throughout the week, this one got popular like a bat out of hell. Be it the regular menu or its weekend brunch, Dyan Solomon’s offerings might seem run-of-the-mill at first glance, but everything here is immaculately tasty enough to draw long lines. Just be sure not to pass up the baked goods for a post-brunch snack.

Located in the heart of old Montreal, this bright, sophisticated space specializes in all-day breakfast and lunch. Dig into a stack of maple brown butter-soaked ricotta pancakes, the “endless summer breakfast” (a bowl of avocado, sourdough toast, fried egg, tzatziki, heirloom tomato, cucumber and charred pepper salad, currents and dukkah) or the insane buttermilk fried chicken sandwich (apple remoulade, chimichurri mayo and brioche bun for the win).

One of the hottest tickets in town, this restaurant in Saint-Henri from Raegan Steinberg and Alex Cohen has a small but serious brunch menu on weekends. Their menu’s a delicious salvo of Middle Eastern and Eastern European flavours. That, plus their regular menu with homeruns like the McArthurs (chicken schnitzel with iceberg slaw, mayo and pickles on challah), means this is the place to nosh on the regular.

Sure, there are breakfasts and lunches both healthy and luxurious to be had at Nadine Boudreau, Julie Romano and chef Jens Ruoff’s establishment, but all of that coalesces and congeals nicely in their brunches running from Fridays to Sundays. A glance at their dishes, from mains to sides, draws exclamations of inspiration. We’d tell you about what we love to eat here, but then it’d be just us reading off the whole damn menu.

This "fancy" snack bar with old school diner vibes on Wellington Street in Verdun is serving up breakfast and lunch, and covering all the morning classics. Expect fluffy stacks of pancakes, perfectly roasted home fries, gravlax, B.L.T.s and more. The menu is simple, yet rewarding.

Fois gras poached eggs? Croque Monsieur? Panko-breaded French toast so good it will make you cry? This Village classic with a cult following will have you on repeat, especially after you’ve tried their must-have ham croissant sandwich (a fresh croissant stuffed with creamed leeks, ham, baby spinach,cheddar, a light vinaigrette, sorrel sprouts, and topped with a sunny-side-up duck egg).

Beautiful, bright, airy and known for its brunches. Mélisse has all the look and feel of a Californian café, but earns that glamorous veneer through service and style. Sure, you’ve got your artisanal drinks and freshly squeezed juices for sale, but the choice of cocktails, egg and ham tart and shakshuka will cement this place in your mind as a worthwhile endeavour. Just maybe don’t show up in your sweatpants and expect to chug pitchers of mimosas here.

Every day of the week, Café Régine—and its Verdun counterpart Janine Café—continues to uphold its reputation as one of the finest brunch-focused restaurants in the city. They serve dishes from across the mealtime’s sweet-savoury spectrum, along with all the prerequisite Caesars, mimosas, hot chocolate and coffee you’d care to guzzle. With an atmosphere and service not unlike that of a high tea in London, line-ups run long at this spot.

Hélicoptère is already well known as an approachable, small-plate format hotspot opened by former team members of the heavy-hitting, ultra-soigné French restaurant, Bouillon Bilk. Hélico devotes the same love and attention to detail to its brunches as Hélicoptère does to its evening services. The brunch dishes there vary, with selections like a turkey sandwich, soup of the day, and breakfast potatoes. Also, one of the best breakfast sandwiches in the city.

Jessica Bégault’s café ownership savvy, combined with the work of chef Norah Paré, makes for a delicious combination indeed. Sure, there’s good grub to grab at breakfast and lunch during the week, but the brunch on weekends? Grand slams. With a vegetarian tartin and some of the best French toast in town (they dunk milk-based bread in a heavy cream bath), it’s all excellent, just like momma used to make.

It’s not unheard of to plan your entire travel itinerary around Michelin star recipient Daniel Boulud’s masterful creations, and his brunch is no exception. Housed in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Maison Boulud is a cultural touchstone wrapped into one perfect phyllo dough pastry. Dining al fresco in the renovated garden overlooking a pond provides even more of an incentive to pay the establishment a daytime visit (and half your salary for some well-worth-it bites, like arctic char with beets, or lef of lamb).

With all the cases to be made for wild takes on classic brunch dishes or healthy living options, where are all our straightforward bistros offering calming services, low volumes, and delicious eats? Leméac fulfills that need, the kind of place you can drag your hungover shell of a former self to and gestate at the menu with a wilting finger without taking off your shades. Then, the food comes, whatever hearty or sweet or sable thing your heart desired, and it’s so good. Classy and classic, it’s both endearingly basic while setting a high baseline with its French jouissance.

It's breakfast all day at this massively popular Mile End destination from Lawrence chef Marc Cohen. It fulfills spirits and stomachs on so many fronts, acting as much as a neighbourhood bistro as it is a swank hangout for kids who want to be seen. From its small but sturdy breakfast options to a wider range of savory dishes that easily figure in as a decent brunching dish, a taste of one dish yields a desire for another, and it’ll pain you once you realize that generally only a handful of them fits in your stomach.

There are a lot of great Chinese restaurants for dim sum in Montreal, but Kim Fung is the one doing it right. Centrally located, it serves a proper brunch service to a constant stream of hungry patrons by the cartload. As the tea flows, a choice of any of their fried or steamed goods is a sure bet, from dumplings to sticky rice, eggplant stuffed with shrimp to spring rolls. While not for everyone, we can attest to their chicken feet and beef stomach stew as well: It’s all awesome.

Bishop and Bagg is an English-style pub in the Mile End that’s knocking it out of the park with its weekend brunches. The menu is a mix of traditional and modern British fare, including a fried chicken Monte Cristo sandwiches (with French toast as the bread) and full English breakfasts alongside a curried lentil, poached egg, and cheese curd concoction cheekily named the “Dahly Parton”. The fun, eclectic menu combines well with the pub’s cozy leather and hardwood decor to make it a great roost for a lazy weekend meal.

Since 1942, Beauty’s Luncheonette has been serving up generous portions of their lovingly cooked Jewish-inspired breakfast and lunch fare in their timelessly cool retro 50s diner on the corner of Saint-Urbain and Mont-Royal. In fact, Beauty’s is one of the oldest operating brunch joints in town, and depending on who you ask, it might just be Montreal's first. Beauty’s serves all the classic brunch staples, including full breakfasts, fresh-pressed orange juice, salads, sandwiches, pancakes, and waffles, but also several unique specialties, including their coveted bagel lox platter and downright legendary mishmash omelette, loaded with salami, hot dogs, green peppers, and fried onions.

Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s self-titled restaurant concept in the Four Seasons Hotel has the whole city aflutter for jump-starting the dated hotel bistro formula. In addition to bold breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even high-tea services, Marcus also serves a stellar Brunch. Dishes include everything from a smoked salmon Benedict to fried chicken & waffles and a multi-tiered, build-your-own bagel platter. It’s certainly not the cheapest brunch in town, but it’s a great option when a special occasion rolls around.

A hip, lighthearted spot that hit the ground running when it first opened in 2010, Fabergé has since become a Mile End go-to for nourishing hangover cures. The interior is open and airy, which does well to accommodate the hordes of famished bunchers the restaurant receives on the regular,. And the menu has a distinct ‘turned up to 11’ character about it, featuring arrays of creative eggs Benedicts, breakfast sandwiches, omelettes, and more— as well as a bunch of wacky and decadent outliers. These outliers include a mythic breakfast poutine made with home fries and topped with a poached egg smothered in hollandaise sauce, as well as a waffle stuffed with candied bacon, blueberry compote and whipped cream, just to name a couple.

Part of a small but surprisingly robust cadre of Australian-inspired, Montreal restaurants, Café Melbourne has certainly cornered the market on brunch between them. Menu items include waffles, stacked salmon bagels, smashed avocado, and breakfast sandwiches. As a bonus, all of Café Melbourne's sunny, down-under-style dishes pair perfectly with their coffee, just what you need to bring a little Australian outback to your weekend, even in the depths of a Montreal winter.

The heritage building of Le Mount Stephen hotel carries itself grandly with vaulted ceilings, dangling chandeliers and plush seating. That forms a beautiful setting for a proper British brekkie and brunch, dishing out as many full English plates as they do poached eggs atop avo toasts—scones and duct fat potatoes on the side, of course. Given your surroundings, it won’t be long before you're tempted to add-on make-your-own mimosas or Aperol spritz packages either. (No wonder it features on our best boozy brunches list.)

A venture from the Burgundy Lion Group—the progenitors of spots like Bishop & Bagg, also on this list—has us hooked, and it's not just because they're doing bottomless mimosas: Their menu covers just about every base, including an avocado tartine, house burger, shakshukas and full English breakfasts. Surprisingly, not every one of the BLG's pub ventures can boast that, making this our top spot among them all. Brunch is served on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Sparrow is a well-established and much-loved gathering ground in Mile End and was an early pathfinder among the small but influential contingent of British-inspired restaurants and pubs that have sprung up in Montreal in recent memory. Sparrow’s interior is a lush mix of tasteful old-world design choices, including the requisite steamer trunks, old church pews, and antique light fixtures— all reminiscent of stately manor libraries lost  in the British Isles. Far from being only skin deep, the brunch menu is also a decidedly English affair. And while you’ll find tea and scones as well as  full English breakfasts, much inspiration has been drawn from the flavours of some of England’s former colonies, and you can expect shakshuka, breakfast banh-mi, and Turkish eggs as well.

This keep-it-simple neighbourhood restaurant puts Little Italy on the map with its two-page menu full of brunching goodness: Two-egg breakfast platters (vegan option available), pancakes, burgers, cocktails and a sturdy selection of Eggs Benedict keep folks coming back throughout the week. Built to support the working class and starving artists, no one can argue with its great value.

When it comes to classic Quebecois-style brunch, there’s really only one contender for the title of city’s best: La Binerie. The original location of La Binerie on Mont-Royal Avenue began operating way back in 1938, and they’ve counted city mayors, famous artists, and professional hockey players among their regular clients. These illustrious patrons came back time and time again for La Binerie’s classic Quebecois comfort dishes like tourtière, slow-cooked ham, and their famous fèves au lard. When they relocated to a brand new location (only a few blocks away) and adopted a range of new menu items, they didn't lose the charm or flavour of the fantastic homespun dishes that first put them on the map.

Hats off to anyone who reappropriates an old, disused space like a cheap diner and revivifies it with an elegant touch. That’s Foiegwa—having taken an old casse-croûte and given it the old tablecloths-and-crystal touch—but the brunch is still a modestly-priced affair that hits all the right spots. Imagine your favourite breakfast items infused with truffles, plus fluffy ricotta pancakes, Croque Madames, Bennies and cinnamon briochechia bowls. Oh, and you can add foie gras to anything for the princely sum of $8.25.

Chef Kimberly Lallouz spent months experimenting with chicken-frying techniques before opening this temple to the fried bird, and the results don’t disappoint: Their technique’s akin to a country-fry via pressure cooking, which maintains juicy meat with a crispy skin. Even better, it forms one half of an awesome chicken and waffles dish for weekend brunch services. There’s also gravlax toast, breakfast tacos, Eggs Benedict and breakfast cake, but come on. Chicken and waffles makes for finger-licking goodness.

It boasts rock & roll/hip hop concert vibes thanks to the graffiti-covered walls, a motorcycle dangling from the ceiling and restrooms that are straight up glow-in-the-dark-trippy. If you can bear the hour-long wait outside at one of its three Montreal locations, you’ll fall in love with the invigorating atmosphere. The portions are also downright massive. Have your leftovers for both breakfast and lunch the next day, if only to savour the inventive pancakes varieties, like peaches and cream, or berry matcha.

Lying low in an easy-to-miss side street in the Quartier des Spectacles, Café Parvis has long been a popular standard for fashionable office workers, and its bright, verdant dining room is often packed to the gills during the week. Come on the weekend, though, and you’ll be treated to the same playful Italian-ish cuisine with a focus on simple preparations and fresh ingredients that have made them so popular. Menu items include Oxtail terrine with potato salad, mascarpone stuffed pear on pound cake, poached eggs, and even a breakfast pizza with smoked salmon and trout, cream cheese, and a fried egg.

While not a brunch spot in name or by definition, Bertrand Bazin’s café and bistro is delivering all the necessary elements and makings of an excellent brunch restaurant. The menu here ranges from the ease of snacking on pastries—and pastries are an absolute must here—alongside hot espresso to savoury French classics like quiche and Niçoise salad. That said, options here feel like they’re strictly intended for breakfast or lunch, but together? You do the math.

When brunch calls for red velvet chairs and a black-and-white check floor, this downtown brasserie will bring the touch of Paris you seek. Order from a brunch menu that runs the gamut from French classics like moules frites and Croque Madame to Canadianized delights like French toast with strawberry coulis and chantilly cream. Don’t miss the home-baked pâtisseries, often still warm from the oven.

This Peruvian restaurant has none of the eggs-and-bacon brunch mainstays, but it’s got everything to please brunch-seeking palates. Go right in for proper food with an order of chicharrón or chicken tacos, arroz con mariscos—a heartwarming seafood rice dish that’s kind of like risotto—or the chickpea croquettes drizzled with creamy chimichurri. The one thing that’s more traditional is the salchipapa clásica, a dish mixing huachana sausage, roasted potatoes and coriander aioli with a sunny-side up egg on top.

Eggs Benedict and lamb shawarma are a heavenly fusion when you need hair on your chest for a winning day ahead. This Griffintown Lebanese resto turns blah brunch on its head with awesome spicing and inventive combinations—like the chicken & waffle, topped with an aleppo maple sauce, shatta (a hot sauce from the region), and pickles. Try the addictive breakfast sandwich, too, featuring halloumi.

The lineups for this classic all-day breakfast joint in Villeray are the only deterrent, but time it right (before 9 am) or go on a weekday and you’ll get to enjoy the peaceful good-morning vibes of the well-decorated space. Their menu stays fresh with regular changes and new items (try the bahn mí breakfast sammy if you can!), but some recurring faves include the halloumi sandwich (halloumi, butternut squash, tomatoes, pickled onions, homemade tzatziki, and cucumbers on an everything bagel) and their homemade banana bread, delectably smothered in creamy apple caramel. It’s okay to order dessert after brunch, right?

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It’s a perfectly sleepy sunny corner to come to for a relaxed morning experience, and not just on the weekends—Bloomfield (on the corner of Bloomfield and Van Horne in Outremont) doles out their delish brunch from Wednesdays to Sunday, and from 10 am to 3 pm. Middle Eastern flavours run through the sophisticated offerings, from the drizzle of tahini verde on the avocado toast to the garlic labneh in their Turkish and Palestinian eggs.

Heat up your wake-up at this Spanish restaurant in Villeray, where the bright, festive flavours brighten every dish, day or night. At brunch, reserved for weekends, look forward to dishes like the trout gravlax with poached eggs and whipped goat cheese, and the cassoulet with blood sausage, chorizo and beans, and topped with a perfect runny egg. The blueberry crêpes are a winner, served with salty Manchego cheese.

This traditional brunch restaurant near Jean-Talon Market does all the classics right, daily, whether it’s eggs Benedict, a stack of pancakes, or the hearty Jean-Talon: two eggs with bacon, ham, sausage, cretons, beans and toast. That extra sumthin’ at this place is the accompanying fruit—usually such a decorative afterthought at brunch joints, the fruit here is stellar, exotic, varied and always perfectly ripe. 

Leonard Cohen loved it, and he probably still would. This Plateau mainstay hasn’t changed in aeons, still serving up cheese blintzes and hot buttered bagels to students, tourists and local fixtures most mornings of the week, from early until 4 pm. The black-and-white tiles, brick wall and red vinyl booths of this diner feel like home at this point.