Montreal’s #1 Ranked Tripadvisor Restaurant Is Closing — And Other News

MILE END — St-Viateur Street French restaurant Les Deux Singes de Montarvie is soon to be no more — sort of. The restaurant is closing its doors Sunday August 13, “to make way for a new project we have been imagining for years”. It’s unambiguously the end for Les Deux Singes in its present form — on Facebook, executive chef Sean Murray Smith wrote “Les Deux Singes will end and a brand new future will begin this fall.” The restaurant occupies an odd spot on the culinary scene: it’s the number one ranked restaurant for all of Montreal on Tripadvisor (at a perfect five stars, that’s a lot of goodwill), but the critics never seemed as warm on it. In any case, it makes the new project, apparently named Ile Flottante worth watching. The closure sign is pasted on the storefront neighbouring Les Deux Singes (which formerly housed magazine and sneaker store Oxford), suggesting that the new project will be bigger.

Eater Montreal

PETITE-PATRIE — Eater announced the opening of new St-Hubert Street cocktail bar Idole on Monday, highlighting its Holy Grail cocktail, which is served with a communion wafer on the glass. Catholic news site Spirit Daily was not amused — they re-posted the article with the headline “Shame: New Bar Mocks Eucharist”, within just an hour of the original publication (apparently they had a Google Alert set for “communion”).

Spirit Daily

OUTREMONT — Cafe-and-lunch spot Soupesoup continues its expansion across the city, as a likely new location is spotted on Van Horne Avenue, not far from Outremont metro station.

TBA — “Secret picnic” Le Dîner en Blanc returns to Montreal this year on August 17. There’s a slightly unusual trio of chefs putting together a menu for some 5,500 people: Jérôme Ferrer (Europea), Antonio Park (Lavanderia, Park), and Lili Sirikittikul (of vegetarian Thai restaurant Chuchai). The location for the event remains a secret until about half an hour before the event, although there are only so many places a picnic for 5,500 people can hide.

OTTAWA (AND MONTREAL, SOON) — David Segal of tea store DavidsTea has a new fast casual chain in the works — DavidsSalads Mad Radish opened a few weeks ago in Ottawa and Segal pegged Montreal (as well as Toronto) as the location for the chain’s first expansions.

• Critic Snubs TripAdvisor's #1 Montreal Restaurant [EMTL]
• Occult Bar Idol Is Open and Is the Place for Haute Devil Worship [EMTL]
• Shame: New Bar Mocks Eucharist [Spirit Daily]
• DavidsTea co-founder targeting healthy eating market with salad restaurant venture [Montreal Gazette]