Every year Montreal hosts one of the world’s biggest winter festivals, Montreal en Lumiere, attracting close to a million people – visitors and locals alike – to bask in the winter wonders that Montreal has to offer. From inviting some of the world’s best chefs to take part in the gastronomy program of the festival, to highlighting the arts and music that acclimate to an all night bash in the Quartier des spectacles, for two whole weeks in the dead of winter, we Montrealers party with our snow pants on.
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brunch
There are a few famous Montreal icons that are synonymous with our great city. For example; smoked meat sandwiches, Caleche rides in Old Montreal, the Spoon Man in front of Olgilvy’s, our vibrant night and cultural scene, summer festivals, eclectic neighborhoods, and full contact titty bars. Then there are the not so glamorous things that lend themselves to Montreal’s notoriety but we take credit for and are just as proud of; the deteriorating eyesore of an Olympic stadium, corruption, collusion and the revolving door at city hall (Toronto has nothing on us, in the time their mayoral drug tape tried to surface, the GMA has gone through three mayors and a city bankruptcy; T dot, step your game up), failing infrastructure, and when Celine Dion curls her lips and pounds her chest in a dramatic and cheesy gesture during a crescendo of an adult contemporary pop ballad.
There’s a long standing statistic that says Montreal has the most cafés per capita in North America, and that we serve the most coffee and warm beverages south of the global 60 degree parallel. Actually, I just made that up because I can’t walk down the street without seeing some sort of cafe that serves fair-trade, local, organic, seasonal, homemade, cold-press, French-press, coffee shop, packed up the walls with jerkholes drinking a three-hour coffee mooching wifi, charging multiple devices and smoking cigarettes outside. If there’s one thing Montrealers do and do well (besides bitching and complaining about other people) is hitting up the cafe scene, supporting local entrepreneurs, sipping on dranks and watching people.