2 Best Restaurants in The Plateau Mont-Royal and Mile End, Montreal

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Dotted with bistros and cafés, the Plateau has a bohemian edge that can't be found anywhere else in the city. Chef-owned eateries favor market cuisine served in a decor of brick walls and hardwood floors. Noisy French-style bistros, like L'Express, are local institutions, as are cafés populated by poets and academics with laptops. There’s vegetarian cooking, and Thai, along with sushi and stubborn little bakeries that refuse to mechanize.

Café Olimpico--Mile-End

$ Fodor's Choice

Ranked one of the world's best cafés by the United Kingdom's Telegraph, this unpretentious 1970s-style café is popular with locals for Italian pastries like cannoli and pistachio bomboloni and, of course, great espresso made from a secret blend of six different coffee beans. It's also a good place to get a feel for authentic Montréal. Families and suits alike head to Café Olimpico in the morning to kick-start their day, and the patio is overflowing with hipsters on sunny days. Baristas here know their craft, and the grinding of the espresso machine is a welcome melody to serious coffee drinkers.

St-Viateur Bagel & Café

$

Even New Yorkers have been known to (collective gasp!) prefer Montréal's light and crispy bagel to its bulkier Manhattan cousin, due to the dough of the Montréal version being boiled in honey-sweetened water before baking in a wood-burning oven. St-Viateur Bagel & Café is a great place to get them, especially with smoked salmon. For a novel experience, try the rosemary-and-sea-salt version. Be sure to check out St-Viateur's original location at 263 rue St-Viateur Ouest, where the bagel magic has been happening since 1957. That venue does not have a dining area, but you can pick up bagels fresh out of the oven until midnight.