The 25th annual edition of the culinary and cultural festival has events running from Feb. 22 to March 10.
Published Dec 27, 2023 • 3 minute read
While Toronto and Vancouver have freshly minted Michelin-starred restaurants to boast about, Montreal will be importing more than a dozen Michelin-starred chefs to cook deluxe dinners at selected restaurants during the 2024 Montréal en Lumière festival.
The 25th annual edition of the festival, with events running from Feb. 22 to March 10, is front-loaded with four visiting chefs who each have three Michelin stars.
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They include Emmanuel Pilon from Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse in Monaco; Julien Royer from Odette in Singapore; Glenn Viel from l’Oustau de Baumanière in Les Baux-de-Provence in France; and Philippe Legendre from Le Cinq in Paris. As part of the festival’s Air France Finest Tables series, they will be cooking respectively with the chefs and brigades at the Montreal restaurants Mastard (Feb. 22-23 ), Monarque (Feb. 23-24), Maison Boulud (Feb. 23-24) and Commodore (Feb. 22-23).
Ten more chefs, each with a single Michelin star, will be coming to Montreal from as far as London, Brussels and Taipei to cook collaborative dinners during the festival. Eight of the invitees also have a Michelin “green star,” which recognizes a commitment to sustainable gastronomy.
In all, the festival is bringing in more than 150 chefs from elsewhere in Canada, as well as winemakers, to be featured at festival events. The visitors will pair with Montréal restaurants including La Chronique, Graziella, Sabayon and Mon Lapin, which this year was ranked first on the prestigious Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list.
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Julie Martel, the festival’s gastronomy program manager, says collaborations between Montreal chefs and their visiting peers have been a crucial component of the festival since it began.
“It’s that time when they meet in person, when magic happens and friendships are born,” says Martel.
In the early days of the festival, when there was no social media and cooking shows on TV were scarce, these collaborations were vital to connect Montreal to the larger world of gastronomy, Martel says. Since then, Quebec’s culinary culture has matured and grown more proud of its products, and Montreal chefs look forward to sharing what they know and love with visitors, Martel says.
While the costs for the special dinners can be as much as $350 per person, Martel says there are options at all price points. The festival is encouraging prospective diners to make reservations; during last year’s festival, 94 per cent of the restaurant tables at festival events were taken.
Also, during the first two weekends in March, the festival will offer more than 20 free culinary demonstrations and workshops at its Quartier Gourmand site. “The mission of this place is to democratize gastronomy and the culinary culture of Quebec, which sometimes can be seen as elitist,” says Martel.
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In addition to its gastronomy program, the festival, meant to make Montreal more attractive to tourists during the depths of winter, also encompasses 19 concerts including performances by Kid Koala (Feb. 29-March 3), Kronos Quartet (Feb. 25) and Bruno Pelletier (March 2). Also, on March 2, Nuit Blanche will take place, involving almost 100 free activities into the wee hours of the morning.
The festival’s outdoor site in downtown Montreal will also be home to a slew of free programming, to be announced in early 2024. Among its attractions will be an elevated and illuminated 1,000-foot-long skating loop and multimedia art installations.
For more information, go to: montrealenlumiere.com.
phum@postmedia.com
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