Le Cathcart
Food court · Downtown Montreal ·
Plant-filled food hall with glass ceiling, diverse kiosks
Plant-filled food hall with glass ceiling, diverse kiosks
"Le Cathcart recently posted a call for job applicants and might be the last of the city's new food halls to reopen." - Valerie Silva
"Opened in January as part of a broader revitalization of the Esplanade PVM, Le Cathcart is a large food hall settled beneath Place Ville‑Marie’s imposing glass skylight that originally housed multiple full-service restaurants and kiosks. After pandemic closures it reopened in July and currently maintains an east-side counter alley at limited capacity with five of the usual 12 kiosks (Dirty Greens, Chikin, Uniburger, Tulum Taqueria and Karma Poke) serving the downtown lunch crowd. The venue’s existing infrastructure and robust ventilation — built for very large numbers — allowed a quick reconfiguration for Piazza Sociale and, despite distancing limits that reduced potential capacity from roughly 1,000 to 250, its size makes it an attractive no‑reservations‑needed option for diners." - Valerie Silva
"Inside Place Ville‑Marie, I saw that Le Cathcart cancelled a 5 à 7 event and says on its Instagram story that it is still accepting customers while trying to prevent large crowds from gathering." - Tim Forster
"I noticed Le Cathcart offers a mix of mostly fast-casual counters alongside three full-service restaurants, and its counters shine (fried chicken at Chikin, salads and Italian comfort food from Dirty Greens and Patzzi) while two of the sit-down spots (Brasserie Mirabel and Antonio Park collaboration Akio) are fine but haven’t quite hit higher expectations yet. The space is the most visually appealing — an impressive central skylight and a biergarten-style layout with seating partially separated from the bustle — which makes for a pleasant quick lunch, though it can feel a bit claustrophobic at peak times; multiple entrances help dilute crowds. Placed in Place Ville‑Marie on the concourse level and directly connected to Central Station, it benefits from nearby office workers and commuter traffic, and it has drawn strong early crowds after modest PR and an Instagram-friendly design." - Tim Forster
"Opening on Thursday, January 23, it's a sprawling new food hall and beer garden on the Place Ville Marie Esplanade created as part of a $1-billion collaboration between Projet Nouveau Centre and Ivanhoé Cambridge to revitalize Montreal’s downtown core. It includes three full-service restaurants, nine food kiosks, two cafés and can serve up to 1,000 people at once; a covered rooftop beer garden will host events and serve a range of wines, cocktails, sake and microbrews. The drink program was assembled by notable talent: Vilains Brasseaurs’ Stéphane Pilonis curating the beer list, Jatoba sommelier Marc-André Nadeau heading the wine list, and Daphnée Vary Deshaies (ex-Foxy) handling the cocktail menu. Designed by A5 Hospitality and Sid Lee architecture, its large glass ceiling looks out onto the Place-Ville-Marie towers while the central dining area is laden with plants and mismatched-but-chic patterned furniture, and most of the space is open to anyone rather than restricted to diners at the three full-service restaurants (those restaurants sit off to the west side in full view of the glass ceiling). On the east side are the faster-service restaurants with a sizable thoroughfare to accommodate lunch crowds, and overall the layout feels less cavernous and more intimate than Time Out Market, with various nooks and crannies that make it a place you could return to repeatedly. It will open daily at 7 a.m., running until 9 p.m. Monday–Wednesday, until 11 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, and until 6 p.m. Sunday." - Tim Forster
