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Montreal
The Best Restaurant in East Canada 2025Low intervention wines and creative plates with casual brilliance
On the Pass
Marc-Olivier Frappier and Jessica Noel
Humble beginnings: Long a favourite on the Canadian fine-dining scene, Mon Lapin began life in 2018 as a 30-seat wine bar. The location, Montreal’s Little Italy neighbourhood of countless trattorias, was a surprise, as the cuisine offers a sophisticated French-Italian take on local ingredients, many sourced at the city’s famous Jean-Talon market a few blocks away. A hit since day one, Mon Lapin doubled in size in 2020.
Dynamic duo: Chef Marc-Olivier Frappier and sommelier Vanya Filipovic are a husband-and-wife team that understands the collaborative power that food and wine can have. Working alongside them is co-chef Jessica Noël, who joined forces with Frappier to put forward the creatively prepared small plates Mon Lapin is known for. The menu changes daily, offering dishes like honeynut squash with pig’s head and camelina, salt cod tonnarelli with courgette, cantaloupe, chartreuse and tomato ice cream and the signature croque-pétoncle.
A natural fit: Sommelier and wine importer Filipovic has assembled a winning wine list, filled not with pages of Pétrus and Cristal, but with sought-after natural wines from producers such as Jean-François Ganevat, Athénaïs de Béru and Giuseppe Rinaldi, as well as grower champagnes galore – wines that have won this restaurant a spot at the top of many sommeliers’ must-try lists.
Open to all: Montreal’s food scene is anything but pretentious, and Mon Lapin is the epitome of the casual-on-the-outside, brilliant-on-the-inside dining the city is famous for. Service may seem laid-back, yet everyone on the floor is schooled at pairing Frappier’s creations with Filipovic’s meticulously selected wines. Visitors to North America’s largest French-speaking city will not only eat well here but can also sample wines from the burgeoning Quebec oenological scene, making for a unique experience for local cuisine-seekers.
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Dining and Cooking