Foodora Will Deliver You Food, Condoms And Lube — And Other V-Day Schemes

Valentine’s Day is almost upon this wintery wasteland, ready to either warm or chill your heart, depending on how you feel about the pseudo-holiday. Mercifully, the Montreal dining scene is reasonably relaxed about it, and many restaurants aren’t ditching their regular menus in favour of several nights of pricy prix fixe “deals” aimed at gouging lovebirds (a popular pasttime in various American cities).

But there have been a few attempts to drum up Valentine’s attention, and these are some highlights.

— Delivery operation Foodora is going to be adding non-edible Valentine’s treats to certain deliveries, in the form of condoms and cherry-flavoured lube from contraceptive giant Durex. The catch is that it’s only if you order certain specials that they’ve worked out with a few local restaurants, containing aphrodisiacs such as dark chocolate, pine nuts, and the like. It’s apparently based off V-Day spikes in orders for pizza and desserts from Foodora’s past February 14 sales. The specials and restaurants, which will be available for Valentine’s Day, are as follows:

Une Crêpe?

• Crepe with strawberries, dark chocolate, dried figs, pine nuts, and whipped cream

Pizzeria Magpie (Village location)

• Topped with fontina, coppa, marinated cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, and libido-boosting roasted asparagus and garlic oil

Lola Rosa (Parc location)

• “Amourancini”: Butternut Squash Arancini stuffed with a cashew cheese and served with an arugula salad and crispy sage
• “Topinambours à la Cupidon”: Sesame crusted Jerusalem Artichokes with Chiogga beets, citrus braised greens and Beluga lentils
• “Passion”: Chocolate biscuit topped with a banana, ginger and passion fruit ganache

— Restaurant reservation site OpenTable claims to have deduced Canada’s 100 Most Romantic Restaurants. Unfortunately, they only took their own clients into account so it’s not terribly accurate, given that many restaurants in Montreal use other reservation services like Bookenda. Common threads between several of the nine Montreal restaurants on their list include “white linen” and “an old-timey ambiance that reminds customers of a time before romance was dead.” The full list is below, right after this tip for creating a romantic vibe from Onoir.

• Downtown Italian restaurant Beatrice
• Old Port ode to hunted and fished food, Le Club Chasse et Pêche
• TripAdvisor favourite that Lesley Chesterman was only lukewarm about, Les Deux Singes de Montarvie
• Southern bistro food in Dollard from Bistro Nolah
• Big-name Jérôme Ferrer restaurant Europea
• Swanky Old Montreal French restaurant Bonaparte
• Dining in the dark destination Onoir
• Old school Italian classic Da Vinci
• Dollard Italian spot La Verità

— Maybe Europea don’t want to cater to the Valentine’s crowd as much as that OpenTable list would suggest: Jérôme Ferrer’s restaurant is offering a take-home box with six courses for two people at $130, DIY re-heating in the oven.