Pizzeria la focaccia

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.

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.

Masakali Indian Cuisine on Sherbrooke West is the fifth location of a kitchen that built its reputation in Ottawa — and that track record matters.

Let's be clear about what this is: a tiny Plateau bakery that has done one thing since the late '90s, and a slice of seating that doesn't pretend to be a room you'd linger in.

Le Chaska on Avenue Lincoln is built on a premise that has no right to cohere: a North Indian kitchen operating under the same roof as a live brick oven producing old-style pizza.