Le Cathcart
Remember the old days when food courts meant fast food? Sloppy, unhealthy quick grab ‘n go… Well, the people are changing and the industry is thankfully keeping up! Fancy market-place food courts are popping up and I am loving the trend. I am always in search of a great place to grab a bite and we have no shortage of options in our city. It’s a testament to a new surge in our downtown area and the investment people are making to cater Montrealers’ love for good food.
Le Cathcart Restaurants et Biergarten at Place Ville Marie opened this past week and although I can and will find ways to describe it, my initial reaction is a clean and simple “wow!” Upon walking into the space you feel transported to a jungle (which is what they are calling it, by the way). Open-roof concept where we can feel the fresh feeling of the outdoors is the most unique feature allowing natural light to shine through.
There are 3 full-service restaurants, 9 food kiosks, two cafés with a total of 1000 seats and a biergarten making Le Cathcart the epicurean hotspot of the downtown core. A few of the chefs are familiar names in our city and have brought new flavours to Le Cathcart. There is Dirty Greens by Raegan Steinberg and Patzzi by Alexandre Cohen (both owners of Arthur’s Nosh Bar), there’s Akio (Japanese Cantina) by Antonio Park (from Park) and Oliver Vigneault (from Jatoba), there’s Café Veloce by Blake Mackay, and so many more other incredible foods and chefs. I mean the variety feels endless with the Asian spots, a brasserie, an Italian sandwich spot, you name it!
The space was designed by Sid Lee Architecture in collaboration with Menkès Shooner Dagenais LeTourneux Architecte, which should come as no surprise because they always deliver such incredible work. The space accommodates the ebb and flow of daily work life and is easily a lively meeting place for after-work hang outs where people can gather to eat, drink and enjoy!
Then, there’s Le Biergarten – a bar with a wide selection of wine, microbrewery, carefully curated beer, and sophisticated cocktails, oh! And sake! Mmm :) The perfect place for happy hour, and I have a feeling this space will end up turning into a multi-functional venue – or maybe that is the intention… I guess we’ll have to wait and see! They do have an entertainment calendar they’ll be putting out and I’m kind of excited to see what that’s all about.
I love how the space feels more like an outdoor space than indoor. Of course, we are inside and that is hard to escape, but the vegetation, the light, the garden feel, it was all so perfectly executed. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the space, which I think is a super important factor when dining. You want to love the environment, and I did!
Le Cathcart has something for everyone. A variety of international cuisine and some stand-out homegrown flavours. Each kiosk had the opportunity to portray their own unique identity in the way they designed their space and it created this really high-end vibe in the space. There’s so much to try and so much to look forward to trying – Le Cathcart is definitely somewhere I’ll hit up whenever I’m out shopping downtown.
Photography by Patricia Brochu