Every Montrealer has a list. The smoked meat that settles arguments, the brunch line you'll stand in at minus twenty, the giant orange you make out-of-town friends drive past at night. I'm a Montreal artist, and these are the six tables I kept coming back to until I finally painted them. Each one became an original mixed-media coaster. Here's the lineup, and why every spot earned its place in the box.
1. Schwartz's
The Main's Hebrew delicatessen has been hand-slicing smoked meat on Saint-Laurent since 1928, and the line outside is basically part of the architecture. Medium fat, rye, yellow mustard. There is no other correct order.
2. Beauty's
Hymie and Freda Sckolnick opened their Mount Royal luncheonette in 1942, and regulars renamed it after Hymie's bowling nickname. The Beauty's Special, lox and cream cheese on a Montreal bagel, is still the brunch by which all other brunches are judged.
3. Moishes
Eighty-three years on the Main, then a move to Square Victoria, and the steaks never flinched. Moishe Lighter's 1938 steakhouse is where Montreal has always gone when the news is big enough to celebrate.
4. Orange Julep
A three-storey concrete orange sitting beside the Décarie. You don't explain the Julep to visitors; you drive them there at 11pm, hand them a frothy orange drink, and let the building do the talking.
5. Joe Beef
Named for Charles "Joe Beef" McKiernan, the 19th-century tavern keeper who fed the city's dockworkers, and since 2005 the Little Burgundy room that put modern Montreal cooking on the world's map. Anthony Bourdain loved it. Montrealers just call it hard to book.
6. Arthur's
The Saint-Henri nosh bar Raegan Steinberg and Alex Cohen opened in 2016, where Jewish comfort food got its second wind. People wait an hour in the cold for the syrniki pancakes. They are right to.
(Prefer a different table? Swap any design for Milos or Au Pied de Cochon on request. Just leave a note at checkout.)
Functional art for people who love this city
Each design starts as an original painting and is finished as a durable drink coaster, packaged as a set of six in a clear acrylic display box. It's a gift for the Montrealer who has everything, the expat who misses home, or anyone with strong opinions about how to order at Schwartz's.
👉 Shop the Montreal Iconic Restaurants Coaster Set →
Also available: the NYC Iconic Restaurants set and individual coasters. New York fan? Read the NYC edition of this post.