Taverne Monkland, Montréal

“This is what a ‘local’ looks like in Montreal.  Stylish, great food and very, very comfortable! Monkland Taverne has been an institution in Notre Dame de Grace (NDG) since 1995 and the team of owners –  Josh Crowe, Barbara Irwin, Stephen Leslie, Boris Schweers and Donald Lovell  – have been focused on the great ingredients of Québec for years. They just get it! 

Chef / owner Josh Crowe is as forward-thinking chef as any Food Day Canada leader. It takes an unrelenting passion, not to mention a hearty appetite, to tattoo the phrase, “more food”, across your knuckles.  “Quality and locally-sourced ingredients are an absolute must”, Chef Crowe states stridently when describing the success he has earned after fifteen years in the industry.  He is involved in every aspect of the culinary process but believes that “patience is the ultimate tool in the kitchen.”

Josh started his career in Ottawa but looking down the river to Montreal he realized that a move was in order to expand his knowledge base.   His time with there with Chef Stephen Leslie at Taverne Sur La Square changed his career. Under Chef Leslie’s watchful eye, Josh began upon a path that would ultimately lead to him being moved to Leslie’s sister-restaurant Monkland Taverne as the Chef de Cuisine. “I’d have to say the biggest moment of my career was when [Leslie] addressed me as ‘chef’ for the first time”, – a titled which was very much earned. He goes on to write, “Cooking is very much a craft, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t without it’s artistic side. Plating different ingredients with various flavours and colours is much like an artist visualizing the paints on a palate before touching a canvas.”

When you head to Monkland for dinner or a late-night bite, you’ll be with an eclectic crowd… chefs and bartenders from other restaurants, business people, media-types and even the odd tattoo shop owner.  It’s a terrific, vibrant scene and he harvests our nation with great skill serving forth, in this great casual setting some of the best food in Montreal from B.C. humpback shrimp topped with a New Brunwick Beausoleil oyster bathed in vanilla-gin-infused sabayon and Gaspesie sea urchin (uni) risotto & trout caviar to a perfect Quebec rib-eye in a red wine truffle sauce, the food at Monkland paired with some pretty extraordinary Canadian wines.

It’s worth noting that Chef Crowe with the help Sous Chef Mischa Ozols-Mongeau has garnered FIVE University of Guelph / Food Day Canada Innovation Awards and cooked with our team of chefs at the venerated James Beard House in Manhattan. 

NOTE: To read this entire (and extraordinary) menu, please scroll through using the arrows at the bottom. And you can follow Monkland’s Food Day Canada playlist on Spotify by following user “tavernbarb”! 

Contact Monkland at the number below to reserve a Food Day Canada table.

Contactez Monkland directement, au numéro ci-dessous, afin de faire votre Journée des terroirs réservation.

Monkland Tavern,
5555 Avenue Monkland,
Montréal, QC  H4A 1E1
T: 514-486-5768

Head to Instagram: @monklandtaverne Twitter: @monklandtaverne Facebook: Taverne Monkland