Away Game: Montreal, Quebec

Sauna, cold plunge, massaman curry

Nov 24, 2025

Away Game is a format that showcases journeys as they unfold. Live dispatches from unfamiliar places. Notes, stories, and reflections on the thrill of discovery. Mostly photos, with some shorter-form writing intertwined.

Away Game: Montreal, Quebec

I’m parked at an audiophile café on the edge of Saint-Henri, sipping my third caffeinated beverage of the day, while the shopkeeper loads cassettes into a Tascam 112 and I listen through a very nice pair of Grado professional headphones. Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” is playing right now — a pretty silly song that sounds shockingly excellent in a high-fidelity setting.

I’m fending off a dull hangover to the very best of my ability. It’s hard to say if the condition I generally depart Montreal in means the city got the best of me, or if I got the best of Montreal. I think the truth lies somewhere in between.

Coffee numbers one and two today went down at the wonderfully simple Café Bosco — black filter coffee poured into a blue-rimmed ceramic mug with a perfectly spacious handle, sipped on the sidewalk as a gentle snowfall dusted the streets of Little Italy. I ran into Brendan and Alexe from Salle Climatisée just as I was taking my first sip — Montreal is a big city, but a small town.

A strong drip coffee will get you back on your feet after a long night out, but it’s not quite enough to replenish the strength needed to write a newsletter. A slice of an airy, zesty tomato pie will get you there, though. Luckily, just a block down the road from Bosco, you can parlay your coffee into a perfect square slice from Café San Gennaro (at ten in the morning).

It’s amazing that a one-hour flight from LaGuardia is all it takes to get you to a city where you can practice your “bonsoir” pronunciation without being looked at like a pretentious wack job.

Montreal has quickly climbed my list of favorite cities in the world. It tends to surprise people when I tell them how much I like it here — and confuse them when I choose to visit in the depths of Canadian winter. The explanation for the cold-weather trips is usually to watch hockey.

Place Bell is home to the Laval Rocket, the minor-league affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens. It’s a frequent opponent of my brother’s Belleville Senators. The matchups between the two — especially the ones taking place in Quebec — are the dates I’ve circled first on the calendar these past two years. To watch my bro, to hang with family, and to keep exploring everything good Montreal has to offer. It’s a world-class food scene, and the vibe — no matter the weather — is always right.

The weekend started with an epic meal at a big, round seven-top table in the front window of Mon Lapin. Considered by many to be one of Montreal’s best restaurants, Mon Lapin isn’t a hidden gem or a sleeper hit. It’s an often written-about, highly ranked, included-on-every-list kind of restaurant.

When you’re referred to, almost unanimously, as such a special place, you’d think the expectations would be impossible to live up to — and yet, Mon Lapin has found a way to exceed them across visits. The room is bustling: celebratory and grand-feeling, but also, somewhat surprisingly, unpretentious. The food is well-executed and interesting — an indulgent showcase of Québécois produce and producers. Meals here (and in Montreal in general) tend to be lengthy affairs: three-plus-hour journeys with plenty of time to breathe between courses, and space to linger over dessert and digestifs.

The unrushed feeling in Montreal is a really nice change of pace from life in New York. It makes me realize I’ve developed a mild dining anxiety of sorts — filled with worry about arriving at the bagel shops and lunch counters only to face a winding line; stressed about being perfectly on time for dinner reservations, fearing tardiness might result in relinquishing my table to an awaiting guest. In Montreal, I’ve never once felt like someone was trying to turn my table to squeeze in another cover. The economics must allow for this easygoingness — it’s felt and appreciated.

There’s also a distinct warmth to Montreal, even on the coldest of winter days. No matter how frigid your walk down Boulevard Saint-Laurent, you can expect to be greeted with a smile and an offer to take your coat in the foyer of the restaurant. It’s a small detail, but it really does feel like you’re being welcomed into someone’s home.

At Molenne, this was exactly the case. It’s another lively room — warm wood, exposed brick, and textured glass, and vintage tables, chairs, and fixtures give the six-month-old restaurant a nicely lived-in feeling. The best 50/50 martini I’ve had outside Dimes Square certainly helped settle me in and warm me up, too.

Alex and his wife, Kat — two of several owners — took care of us throughout the night. It’s a common theme I’m finding throughout Montreal: owners in control of the dining room. Over the course of yet another long, winding dinner, it felt like we developed a legitimate bond with them. I suspect this is a big reason people love a place like Ha’s Snack Bar back home in New York — it’s refreshing and compelling to have the owners running the show. With so much human interaction, the restaurants in Montreal end up having truly distinct personalities, rather than just feeling like different concepts.

Alex and Kat seemed particularly impressed by the way we spent our gloomy Friday afternoon: a sauna-cold plunge session at Bota Bota in the Old Port, followed directly by a hefty order of Thai food at Épicerie Pumpui. It’s a veteran combination — schvitz into spicy pad krapow. “We should do that tomorrow,” he said, turning to Kat.

The highlight of the long weekend was Saturday lunch. Pasta Pooks is a shop on the edge of Little Italy that’s been a few years in the making — a long-running pop-up turned storefront, a story you’ve probably heard before, but Pooks and the pasta they are churning out are different from the rest.

The restaurant is owned by two friends, Victor and Luca — better known as Coach Vic and Pooks. The latter — perhaps unsurprisingly given the name of the place — handmakes all the pasta.

In true pop-up-to-permanent fashion, Pooks is still a rugged operation at the moment. There’s a tiny storefront and a work-in-progress, makeshift dining room in the adjacent corner space. Wires hang from the ceiling, painter’s tape lines the doorframes, and I’m pretty sure I heard a drill running at one point during lunch. Interestingly, they had a TV installed, mounted, and college football on. Priorities.

Personally, I found the scrappy, build-the-plane-as-we-fly-it energy to be pretty endearing. I could see how it might rub some the wrong way to be dining in an active construction site. But once you’re served Pooks’ pasta — easily the best I’ve had in recent memory — I don’t know how you could have a worry in the world.

Bright yellow tagliatelle was coated in a hearty bolognese; marvelously al dente casoncelli were stuffed with a creamy dollop of squash; pillowy gnocchi sat in a funky cream sauce, dusted with nutmeg; and pipiriolos, or Sardinian macaroni, were tossed in a stewed lamb ragu and blanketed with creamy piave vecchio.

Victor came over to our table toward the end of our meal and explained the vision for the space. “Cocktail bar over here — maybe three-eighths of the counter. Then the other five-eighths we’ll make a special pasta area for Pooks and let him come up from the basement.”

I would eat here once a week, if I could. Based on how many friendly hellos Victor was dishing out to people walking through the door, it seems like many do.

For every great hit I find in Montreal, I seem to add two more to my bookmarks. That’s in large part because everyone here really, passionately loves food — and loves to talk about food. Servers, bartenders, baristas — everyone has an opinion, and a deep list of spots they’re eager to send you (everyone and their mom wants me to go to La Lune). It’s an endlessly repeatable city — one that always leaves me feeling banged up, but inspired nonetheless. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next iteration of Rocket vs Sens.

A few more standout shots from this week — Mile End, Little Italy, Mont Royal:

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