We recently dined at Canada’s new “best restaurant” Mon Lapin on our recent trip to Montreal. The dinner was fun and quite tasty, but it is not Canada’s best restaurant (or even Montreal’s – that honor goes to Damas. Come at me.).

Mon Lapin, or “My Rabbit” in English is a restaurant/wine bar in Montreal’s Little Italy. Mon Lapin has been open for several years but it has recently received a lot of attention due to topping Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants in 2023. I couldn’t resist a dinner here, so I made an online reservation right when they opened a couple weeks before our trip.

We arrived in Little Italy in a cool Friday evening in May for an 8:30 reservation. Mon Lapin was totally packed and we were not even let inside until 8:50, when Mon Lapin set up our party of four in a little corner to order wine while we waited for our table. Very busy! We didn’t really mind as we had poutine earlier, so we ordered an organic lambrusco while we waited. Outside of our little corner, Mon Lapin is a cute spot with wood flooring and tables crowded in the dining room. Its definitely a nice dinner, but with a cool and casual vibe. The kitchen is somewhat open in the bank of the restaurant, which was pretty interesting (I always love to watch the chefs!). For attire, I would suggest cool.

We were seated about an hour late, LOL, and were promptly brought the wine list, dinner menu and the standard amuse bouche – radishes in a sauce, local cured sausage, and a savory scone that was incredible (and I mean incredible!). As you can see, the menu, entirely in French, is small and consists of generally “Quebecois” fare. The wine list was also a bit small, very organic, and honestly not our favorite. We asked our waiter if there were any other options and he did bring 3 bottles from the back that fit our request. We drank two of them. Our waiter also explained every dish on the menu in detail.

Since there were 4 of us, we split a number of things on the menu, which is our very favorite way to eat. Along the lines of small plates, we began with the steak tartare, the asparagus, and the scallop sandwich. Of these three, 3 of us very much preferred the steak tartare, which was prepared excellently. It was served with a couple pillowly crackers to pair with the tartare. I would absolutely order this again.

The asparagus were 1 of our favorite and in my opinion, were tasty but not super duper exciting. The plating was A + though, and they were in season, so I’m glad we ordered them.

The scallop sandwich was interesting, but none of our favorite. This was too bad as this was the dish that I was most excited about trying! I had read a lot about this sandwich and was really expecting it to be incredible. The sandwich, called a Croque-pétoncle was a toasted white bread sandwich filled with a scallop mousse. The sandwich was served with to mayonnaise style dippers. The sandwich was certainly an interesting idea, but it was not as flavorful as I expected. It was much tastier with the sauces.

We next moved on to pasta, and tried both pastas on the menu at our waiter’s recommendation. First up, and one of my favorite dishes of the evening, tagliolini with lobster. And for those who haven’t been to Montreal in the summer, its lobster (or hommard) season and lobster is on a lot of menus. Highly recommend. This pasta dish was really great. A solid A rating.

The second pasta was a cannelloni stuffed with spinach with cheese and topped with a woody mushroom. Also very good, but the lobster was just better. We also order claims and bacon at this point, but I don’t like clams and cannot comment on the dish. It was very pretty though! My dining partners were big fans.

For our “main” course, we opted for chicken which is, I know, an odd choice. We usually never order the chicken at good restaurants. Our waiter, however, explained that this chicken is the chefs specialty and described the dish as Canadian fried chicken. Sold. This dish was huge and cut into 4 pieces for us. It was basically a chicken with fried skin on top of it – very good and likely not at all healthy. I would order again.

We ended our meal with a cute dessert that we had seen at several other tables. Very prettily displayed, this was basically an ice cream cake plastered with a cone like covering. It was very tasty and plenty to split amongst the four of us.

All in, Mon Lapin was a fun first dinner in Montreal. The food was really good, as was the service. I would certainly return, but its not at the very top of my Montreal list.

STEAL OUR DINNER

Vin Mon Lapin: 150 R. Saint-Zotique Est, Montreal, Quebec H2S 1K8, Canada. Open Tuesday – Saturday 5:00 PM – 10:30 PM.