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GuideUpdated July 15, 2026

8 Best small plate Restaurants in Montreal

The best 8 restaurants for small plate in Montreal — curated by TastyPals editors.

The best small plate restaurants in Montreal are The Coldroom, Mezcaleros Tapas & Cocktails, Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine Montréal, and more. Start with The Coldroom if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Sophie Laurent•8 ranked picks•Published July 15, 2026•Updated July 15, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
The ColdroomMezcaleros Tapas & CocktailsBootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine Montréal
8 Best small plate Restaurants in Montreal
Google

Top picks at a glance

#1The ColdroomBar • Montreal • moderate#2Mezcaleros Tapas & CocktailsSpanish • Montreal • moderate#3Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine MontréalBar • Montreal • moderate

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated restaurants for small plate in Montreal, sorted by Google rating and editorial judgment.

Quick picks

The Coldroom
Bar • Montreal
The Coldroom operates on a premise that still carries genuine romance in the age of over-tagged cocktail bars: there is no sign, no obvious door, no concession to the casual passerby.
Mezcaleros Tapas & Cocktails
Spanish • Montreal
Mile-End has a particular talent for rooms that feel borrowed from somewhere warmer, and Mezcaleros on Avenue du Parc appears to be the neighbourhood's most persuasive version of that fantasy.
Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine Montréal
Bar • Montreal
Up a flight of stairs on Saint-Laurent, Bootlegger leans hard into its speakeasy bit — 600-plus bottles of spirits, rare whiskeys, absinthes, and a team of mixologists who've apparently been haulin…
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Editorial details
Published: July 15, 2026
Last updated: July 15, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. The ColdroomView →
  2. 2. Mezcaleros Tapas & CocktailsView →
  3. 3. Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine MontréalView →
  4. 4. Atwater Cocktail ClubView →
  5. 5. Cloakroom BarView →
  6. 6. Escondite UnionView →
  7. 7. Le Bar DarlingView →
  8. 8. Ibéricos Taverne à Tapas EspagnolesView →

How the restaurants compare

Editorial restaurant image stand-in for The Coldroom
Google
The Coldroom
Montreal • Bar
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Cocktails and snacks
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Mezcaleros Tapas & Cocktails
Google
Mezcaleros Tapas & Cocktails
Montreal • Spanish
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
small plates
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine Montréal
Google
Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine Montréal
Montreal • Bar
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Cocktails and snacks
Mood
Casual
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for Atwater Cocktail Club
Google
Atwater Cocktail Club
Montreal • Bar
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
moderate
Best for
Cocktails and snacks
Mood
Casual

How we chose

We looked for restaurants that feel like a strong fit for the guide topic, not just the most obvious names in the city. The shortlist favors rooms with clear mood, dependable pacing, and enough distinction to help someone decide faster. Read our full methodology →

Room tone

Lighting, pace, and general energy all need to support the reason someone clicked this guide.

Food fit

We favored restaurants that feel best suited for the moment, not just restaurants with broad reputation.

Useful range

The final list tries to give readers enough variation in neighborhood, price, and style to compare real options.

8 ranked picks

The Coldroom — The Coldroom operates on a premise that still carries genuine romance in the age of over-tagged cocktail bars: there is no sign, no obvious door, no concession to the casual passerby. The entrance is unmarked, tucked into the stone-and-brick texture of Old Montreal, and you find it the way the bar intends — by being told. What waits inside is reportedly a narrow, dim room kept deliberately small, the kind of proportions that put the bartender within arm's reach and make the bar rail feel like a conversation rather than a transaction. The neighbourhood adds its own atmosphere: Vieux-Montréal at night has a weight to it, and a room this spare lets that weight in without fighting it. For a date, the geometry alone does half the work. The bar's reputation rests entirely on its cocktails, which is precisely how it should be. By consistent account, The Coldroom builds its drinks on classical structure — precise ratios, clean technique, house variations that know what they are riffing on. Regulars and reviewers alike point to the foundational classics as the honest measure of the place, and the consensus is that it passes those tests. The bar food is described as limited and deliberately so, calibrated to extend an evening rather than anchor it. No dish competes with the glass in front of you, which is, clearly, the philosophy. Come early if a seat at the bar matters to you — and by most accounts, it should, since that is where the pacing and the bartender access make the experience cohere. The room is too tight for groups of more than three or four without losing the intimacy that defines it. Couples are its natural audience. Arrive before nine on a weekend, speak quietly, and let the room do what it was built to do. View restaurant →
Mezcaleros Tapas & Cocktails — Mile-End has a particular talent for rooms that feel borrowed from somewhere warmer, and Mezcaleros on Avenue du Parc appears to be the neighbourhood's most persuasive version of that fantasy. The name says tapas, the menu tilts toward Mexico City, and by most accounts the contradiction holds without apology. This isn't fusion in the hedge-everything sense — the restaurant is built around the conviction that mezcal, small plates, and a room that hums past ten o'clock are sufficient conditions for a good evening. The cocktail program, developed by a mixologist named Ricardo, is consistently cited as arriving with genuine seriousness rather than afterthought. For a second or third date, where you need the room to do some of the atmospheric work, Mezcaleros is frequently described as exactly that kind of place — tables close enough to require leaning in, pacing unhurried enough to let a bottle of something extend the night. The Ceviche Tropical is reportedly the dish to anchor an order — bright, cold, and precise in intention, the kind of thing that signals whether a kitchen has discipline. Diners consistently return to the Patatas Bravas as the unpretentious workhorse of the table, known for a genuinely spicy edge rather than the decorative heat some versions offer. The Tacos de Pieuvre, built around octopus, appear to be where the kitchen stretches furthest — more technically considered than the surrounding menu. The Steak et Chimichurri reads as the dependable weekend register, the plate for tables that want something grounding after a run of small dishes. Practical matters: Thursday reportedly gives the room more air than Saturday, when the bar is closer to capacity and the pace tightens. The back of the room is the better seat if the front runs cold. The price point is accommodating enough that ordering across the menu — ceviche first, patatas immediately after, tacos to follow at their own pace — doesn't require calculation. Reservations are the sensible move. View restaurant →
Bootlegger Cocktail Bar & Cuisine Montréal — Up a flight of stairs on Saint-Laurent, Bootlegger leans hard into its speakeasy bit — 600-plus bottles of spirits, rare whiskeys, absinthes, and a team of mixologists who've apparently been hauling their cocktails to competitions. That's the headline. But here's what I respect: the kitchen isn't an afterthought propping up the bar. This is a cocktail joint that actually cooks. The pulled pork nachos — homemade corn chips, signature pulled pork, smoked BBQ sauce, that red cabbage slaw — get called the best nachos people have had, and I believe them. The beef tartare draws raves, and the Bootlegger burger is the kind people swear they'll reorder. Then there's the $1 oyster happy hour, which is the whole reason this place earns a spot in my back pocket. Yes, the cocktails run pricey — that's the cost of admission to a bar that makes its own syrups, juices, and bitters and runs damn near zero-waste. Come Sunday for live jazz, Friday or Saturday for DJs. Just remember to eat while you drink. View restaurant →

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Atwater Cocktail Club — Atwater Cocktail Club earns its reputation before you even get inside — the approach through a graffiti-lined alleyway, punctuated by a red industrial light, is the kind of entrance that filters out the ambivalent. The room reportedly delivers on the promise: dark walls, silver banquettes, and a glass ceiling that scatters candlelight in ways that make the whole space feel lit from within. Dramatic without tipping into exhausting. That balance, by all accounts, holds up on a Tuesday as well as a Saturday. The cocktail programme is what this place is actually about. The menu is built around techniques that stay deliberately invisible — fermentations, emulsions, house-made components — and the El Mono series anchors the list. The El Mono Highball is the lightest entry point, described as clean and sessionable for something with this much going on behind the bar. The El Mono Sour runs those same base flavours through a more textural format, and the El Mono Fashioned is the slow-sipper of the three — spirit-forward, for the crowd that wants to actually taste what they ordered. Diners consistently point to the programme's conviction: these are drinks with a point of view, not just a theme. Food comes by way of a shared kitchen with neighbouring Foiegwa, which means the menu leans into late-night territory — burgers, truffle fries — alongside a few items that reach further, like bone marrow and escargots. For the price level, the kitchen's ambition reads as genuine rather than performative. Practically speaking: no reservation anxiety, best experienced late, and if you're working through the menu, the El Mono Fashioned is reportedly the one that lingers. View restaurant →
Escondite Union — Escondite Union doesn't position itself as a formal Spanish dining room, and everything about its reputation suggests that's entirely deliberate. The room has developed a following in Montreal for something looser and more kinetic than European café convention — a Latin American instinct in the lighting, the pacing, the way tables apparently fill with people who look like they're staying longer than they planned. At a mid-range price point, it occupies a space that Montreal does well when it commits: the kind of place that makes the bill feel like an afterthought without ever feeling careless about what it's serving. The menu is where Escondite Union's personality becomes specific. The Ceviche de Coco is consistently cited as an opening move worth making — built around acidity tempered by coconut sweetness, it reads as the kind of dish designed to shift your expectations before the heavier plates land. The Papi Chulo's Pork Ribs are what the kitchen is known for in terms of staying power: slow-cooked, reportedly yielding, the sort of thing that anchors a table's order. The E'Steak Koreano & Nopal is the dish that diners seem to return to for its structural surprise — cactus alongside deeply savory Korean-inflected beef, an unlikely pairing that the menu commits to rather than hedges. Churros Con Nutella close things on terms that are warm and unambiguous, the kind of dessert that doesn't argue for itself. For atmosphere, weeknights are reported to hold the room better — weekend crowds apparently tip loud in ways that narrow the conversation. If the table layout allows, the back of the room is the practical call. The ordering logic that emerges from diners' accounts: anchor with the Ceviche de Coco and the Papi Chulo's Pork Ribs, bring the E'Steak Koreano & Nopal into the equation if there are two of you, and let the Churros Con Nutella arrive on its own terms. View restaurant →
Le Bar Darling — Le Bar Darling has worked out something that a lot of Montreal's bar scene is still getting wrong: the idea that a room can take its cocktail program seriously and run a real kitchen at the same time, without one apologizing for the other. It's a mid-price spot with a genuinely democratic spirit — the kind of place that makes sense for a solo lunch at the counter, a low-key second date, or a late stop on a Plateau crawl when hunger becomes undeniable. By all accounts, it doesn't perform cool; the ease is apparently just baked in. The menu is where the personality shows up. The smoked salmon bagel is the kind of thing that looks like a safe play on paper but is reportedly constructed with real attention to proportion — the balance between smoke, fat, and bread is what diners point to, not just the ingredient list. The shakshouka has a reputation for the kind of braised-tomato depth that most brunch spots don't have the patience for. The piri-piri chicken and avocado salad is known for threading heat against richness — a combination that's easy to mishandle — and the kitchen is said to keep it in check. Steak frites at this price point anywhere in Montreal is a leap of faith, and Darling's version is consistently cited for the frites specifically, not as an afterthought but as the actual point of the dish. The soupe of the day rounds out a menu that moves comfortably from morning through late without feeling scattered. Practical intel: weeknights are reportedly when the room is at its best, before it hits full volume. The soupe of the day is worth ordering as a read on what the kitchen is confident about that week — it changes, and that's the point. Two dishes and a drink is the format this place seems built for. View restaurant →

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