I’m going to get right to the point: hockey’s back! I don’t want to take this lightly, so I’m making a serious list of my favourite places in Montreal to watch Habs games and eat fantastic food. As the weeks go on, I’ll be discovering and sharing new places to watch and eat. Enjoy my classic go-to list!
Osteria Venti
There’s nothing like rustic Italian food to mend a broken heart. After going through a temporary hockey breakup, it’s back at Osteria Venti, where Chef Michele Forgione and his team dish out plates to cheer for. They have a little bar in front of a low volume flatscreen, ideal for enjoying the game as you enjoy wild boar ragu, spelt flour pappardelle, and pan seared lamb chops with braised fagioli corona beans. Make your reservation for the bar, or else you’ll be following the game on your phone.
La Mauvaise Reputation
New on the Plateau block, La Mauvaise Reputation was built to serve good comfort food and show the game. Loaded with burgers, fried fishes, shrimps and chicken dishes, La Mauvaise Reputation has you hoping for OT. It’s a great place to end up at with a bunch of your friends. P.S. When you go, order the fish n’ chips and thank me later. Their poutine is crazy good too, and hockey’s back just in time to catch a game during Poutine Week MTL.
Pastaga
One of enRoute’s best new restaurants of 2012 and one of the my coolest spots in the city to watch the game, Pastaga offers more than you’d expect. To watch the game at this restaurant, you have to call and reserve the chef’s table! In the kitchen with Chef Martin Juneau, they have a long prep table where, if you’re lucky enough, you can eat and watch the game. The menu includes chopped liver and bison smoked meat, cheeses, wines you can pick blind, and oysters between periods. For a hockey watching and eating experience, this place is extremely unique.
Grumman ‘78 Headquarters
When the famous Montreal Grumman ’78 taco truck announces that they’re showing a hockey game at their headquarters in St. Henri, you get an agenda, book it, and go! Its industrial look really gives you an opportunity to lay back and enjoy the game on their massive projector screen. If I have to speak to their food for you, I’d ask, “where have you been all my life?” It’s delicious, different, fun and, most importantly, PLENTIFUL! Otherwise closed on Tuesdays, they do show the games. A great place to go with the guys and an amazing place to go to impress the girls.
Other notable places:
Diablos: Smoked everything and more.
Burger Bar: The best Burger Week MTL burger in the city!
Romeo Pizzeria: Pizza, hockey and your private little set up.
m:brgr: A burger party WITH the players!
La Mauvaise Reputation photo courtesy Ju.K Photographe; Grumman ’78 photo courtesy Shut Up and Eat.