Le Boucan Smokehouse

COQCOR — the name is a contraction of *Le Coq Coréen*, Korean Chicken — commits to that premise without apology.

Philippe Guilbault and Laurence Théberge — a sommelier and a veteran pastry chef, respectively — opened Claire Jacques on what was, until recently, a forgettable Villeray corner, and by most accounts the room landed fully formed.

Montreal has no shortage of vegetarian restaurants, but plant-based Indian cooking done with genuine culinary ambition is a different category — and Tula is essentially the only room in the city occupying it.

Ethiopian cooking is architecturally communal — everything arrives on a shared spread of injera, the soft, tangy flatbread that functions as both plate and utensil, and the meal only works when the whole table leans in.

Saint-Henri has a way of producing restaurants that feel genuinely local rather than locally themed, and La Toile — sitting on Saint-Jacques in the thick of the neighbourhood — sounds like a textbook example.