More Than Just Poutine And Cathedrals - Coffee In: Montréal
“Un café, s'il vous plaît!” I say to the barista. One of just a handful of things I know in French. Thankfully, in Montréal, Québec that’s all you need to know if you simply wish to be served an espresso. However, the barista is feeling conversational and replies with a question in French. I can deduce what some of the words might be, but of course I can’t make any sense of them. I chuckle nervously and say in English, “That was unfortunately the extent of my French, sir.” He laughs. “No worries, my friend. I was asking who you’re rooting for,” he nods at the TV playing a Serie A match. He obviously noticed me watching it as I waited in line. I answer that I don’t have a preference in Italian soccer, but I do enjoy the league. He responds with a concise story of the café founding family’s love for SSC Napoli, the team from Naples, Italy. It was miraculous. In three short sentences the barista was able to communicate the entire history of a café in Montréal as it pertains to a soccer club in Italy.
I’m standing in Café Olimpico on a bustling Monday morning. The place is full of customers eagerly anticipating a delicious coffee from one of the world’s finest coffee shops. But it isn't loud inside, in fact it's pleasantly quiet. Although the pace of the café is quick, my interaction with the barista doesn’t feel out of place. Nonetheless, I figure I’ve already taken enough of his time, so I pay for my espresso, thank him for the story, and proceed. There must be two dozen people waiting behind me in the small space. I somehow managed to find a seat for myself, it’s a cushion in a window sill. Which sitting on felt a little too much like a fairytale, even for me. I sit there for some 40-odd minutes reading a book. The line has been cut down at this point, and the café is a lot less busy. I head to the counter in order to hand the baristas my cards and stickers, explaining that I’m a coffee roaster from Chicago. We talk a little bit about coffee, and the barista from earlier gives me a few postcards with pictures of Café Olimpico staff through the years. We shake hands and I head out the door. It’s my last day in Montréal, and although I started my day early, there is no time to waste.
Coffee came to North America a little bit before 1670. The first coffeehouses in Canada started popping up in 1801. For about 150 years, coffee culture in Québec was non-existent. While first wave coffee initiated the early beginnings of coffee culture in the United States, it did little for coffee culture in Canada. Even when the second wave of coffee was coming about in the late 1950s and 1960s, coffee still wasn’t being treated as an experience in Montréal. However that all changed in 1970 when Rocco Furfaro, an immigrant from Italy, opened Café Olimpico and the story of Montréal’s coffee culture began being written. Café Olimpico remains head and shoulders above any other coffee experience I have had in Montréal. It’s one of those places that should be your first and last stop if you are a coffee lover that finds yourself in the city. But, it’s still one of many impressive cafes I’ve visited on my trips to Montréal. I’d like to tell you about a couple of them here. There are a few coffee shops come to mind as must-visit in Montréal. Namely, I’ll highlight the following:
Pikolo Espresso Bar, Dispatch, Trillium Coffee Roasters, Marché Saint Laurent, and Tommy Café.
Pikolo Espresso Bar
Located in Montréal’s Quartier des Spectacles, Pikolo has one of the most incredible espresso machines I have seen. It’s a Sanremo Racer, volumetric, multi-boiler espresso machine. The baristas were also incredible, and seemed like they’ve been in the game for many years. When you taste the coffee, you can taste the quality of the people behind it. Pikolo struck me as a place where all the folks in the organization have experience in the industry. Which is really important if you wish to run a fine coffee establishment, as Pikolo certainly is. For a highly professional coffee experience, Pikolo is a must for you.
Dispatch
In 2012, Chrissy Durcak took a big step and started Dispatch, after working as a barista for over decade. I found that Dispatch had a more interesting start than most. It began as a cold brew delivery service exclusively. In 2013, after initially running deliveries on bike, Dispatch shifted to operating as a coffee truck. The truck, which made its rounds through the streets of Montréal, was the first ever coffee truck in Montréal, a feature that etched Dispatch into the history of the city. A year later, in 2014, Dispatch continued to grow and opened their first two physical locations, roasting their own beans and serving them on location. Dispatch developed over the next few years and now stands as a pillar of Montréal coffee and has stamped its own style onto Montréal’s coffee scene.
Trillium Coffee Roasters
A pretty new coffee brand, I want to highlight Trillium here because it is one of the fresh faces on the Montréal coffee scene. The project was started back in 2020. Since then they’ve put their name out there with two exquisite coffee offerings. The first is a washed single origin from the Huila and Tuiloma regions of Colombia: Choclito. The second is their espresso blend featuring coffees from Brazil and Colombia: Pavillon Espresso. To find Trillium while exploring the city you’ll have to look at Pavillon Snack Bar in Montréal’s Verdun neighborhood or Café Dreamy. I want to take a second here to highlight Dreamy. This coffee shop located in the Saint-Henri neighborhood is a spot that should be on every coffee lover’s list if they make their way to Montréal. Definitely head there to knock out both Dreamy and Trillium at the same time!
Marché Saint Laurent
Located next door to the beautiful Notre Dame Basilica in Montréal, Marché Saint Laurent has been serving delicious coffee to tourists visiting the Basilica and surrounding area for over 20 years. It was founded by Florence Girod and Olivier Miotto, in hopes to give something back to the city. Alongside excellent coffee, tourists can find various souvenirs and other trinkets to purchase in the café. The items in the store are of a higher quality than your typical cheaply made souvenirs, something that’s very important to the founders who always have visitors in mind. The shop itself is located in the Aldred Building, a very famous and historic building of the Art Deco architectural style built in 1929. This corner of Old Montréal is the ultimate Montréal tourist destination, and Marché Saint Laurent represents and contributes to its community immensely.
Tommy Café
When I was making my list of coffee shops, and then whittling it down to just a handful I had to make a lot of hard decisions. I wanted to keep Tommy despite it being a franchise for a multitude of reasons. Tommy Café is the largest coffee company to come out of Montréal. Tommy falls under the umbrella of restaurant franchise Foodtastic, a restaurant company with over 1,200 restaurants all around Canada. You might be wondering why a billion dollar company is being featured in Coffee Ramble, and rightfully so. The reason is that it’s impossible to deny Tommy Café’s presence in Montréal, it is a powerhouse in the city. There are five locations scattered around, each one is busier than the last. You can certainly feel that Tommy has its own energy different from the rest of the coffee in the city, and you shouldn’t miss it if you wish to understand Montréal’s coffee culture.
Before wrapping up, I want to specifically highlight and mention a coffee shop that is engrained in the very fabric of Montréal’s coffee culture. It’s one of the city’s finest coffee establishments. That place is Café Union in Montréal’s Little Italy (Mile-Ex). Union is the oldest place discussed in this journal. I mentioned earlier that there was little development of coffee culture in Montréal prior to the founding of Café Olimpico in 1970. Well, Union is a bit of an exception to that. Union was started in 1910 by llan Dowbiggin and Albert Lisbona. It was bought in 1964 by Nassif Kouri, and remains in the family, now run by Nassif’s son Eric, as well as his son’s James and Stephan. Since 1964, Union has created a unique experience that stands out from the heavily Italian-dominated coffee scene in Montréal. Today, Café Union’s calling card is that they supply coffee to some of the city’s most prestigious and highest quality restaurants.
The coffee culture that exists in Montréal is much more difficult to pinpoint and describe than in cities such as Chicago, New York, or Amsterdam. Which goes hand in hand with the type of city that Montréal is. Walking through the streets of the city is a complex and cerebral experience, and that is translated into its coffee. I recommend exploring each of these coffee spaces hand-in-hand with the city’s art and architecture sites, keeping yourself caffeinated as you explore the beautiful town.