The 411 Over the last little while, Montreal has offered some Vegan and Gluten free menus. It’s a slow trend in general and for brunch, it’s even slower. Often people have difficulty seeing brunch without eggs or bread. There’s lots of dishes without meat but to be vegan and or gluten free is tricky. Also, to be clear – just because something is vegan does not make it gluten free and visa-versa. And there are some people who are both. So, where do you go if you want brunch and it has to be either something vegan or gluten free or both? Well, La Lumiere du Mile end is that place.

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The 411It’s been a while since we have done a vegan brunch review – the main reason being that there aren’t too many vegan brunches available in Montreal. In essence, brunch menus can be vegetarian friendly but to go one step further and make it vegan friendly is more difficult. Vegans need to avoid dairy and eggs, not to mention all meat. You can drop meat from a dish but eggs and dairy become much more difficult to substitute especially for brunch, so if you are a vegan and love brunch then you do not have many options available to you. Making brunch vegan is also tricky because you must be creative. Putting fruit on a plate and some granola on the side is technically vegan but it isn’t creative and over the years I have discovered that you can do many things to brunch to substitute non-vegan items. I have had some amazing dishes using substitutes like almond milk or tofu for bacon. When I heard that crudessence was offering brunch I felt it was a much needed addition to add to our not-so-long vegan brunch list.

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Delta Tour De Ville – Brunch with a 360 degree view

The 411All-you-can-eat Brunch Buffets, those few words can bring joy and pain to different people. Joy, because it’s all you can eat as much as you want, and you get value on food; pain because the quality of the food can take a back seat depending where you go. Delta’s has been offering brunch for as long as I can remember but I never had a chance to try it out since I generally needed a reason to go to an all you can eat brunch on account of the price being more than a normal brunch at a regular restaurant.

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Sheraton Laval – Restaurant La Piazza

The 411

All-you-can-eat buffets are something you won’t find much of on this site. It’s mainly because of two things: firstly they cost way more (remember I pay for all my meals and my guests meal as well) and secondly, I find that quality takes a back seat when you try to feed so many people. I have been going to brunch at the Sheraton for years, usually Mother’s day and or Father’s day is spent here and my family has liked it for quite some time so I know the meals there in quite detail.

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Sain Bol – A new favourite spot

The 411

Healthy, market fresh, vegetarian friendly, gluten free options, constantly changing… These are words you would never associate with brunch. In a world of bacon and eggs, healthy tasty options seem to be foreign. Often times, if you want something healthy and tasty, you will need to look really hard among a sea of options which tend to be one or the other : places that are healthy and good for you often do not come off as tasty, while places that come off as tasty tend to not focus on health. Sain Bol, on the other hand, is a gift; a rare gem where chef Frederic Houtin serves up some amazing dishes inspired by market fresh and in-season ingredients.

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Cafe Falco – Bento Brunch Experience

The 411

Bento Brunch: ever heard of it? Well to say that we have would be a little bit of lie. In reality, I have heard about some places that started offering it but, as soon as they would start they would close down or cease offering it. The word Bento has its roots in Japanese slang for “convenient”. Bento is associated with a single packed meal, kind of like brown-bagging for lunch but in Japanese-style. I know what you’re thinking and it’s true, one would not normally associate brunch with Japanese cuisine but that’s the beauty of brunch; it has the possibility to change and be adapted by multiple cultures. Bento brunch has recently made its appearance in town and seems to have finally stuck.

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Araucaria – Mile end day long brunch

The 411

One day we decided to get creative and try out an ethnic brunch. There were variables we had to keep in mind though: it needed to be a place I had not already been to; it had to have an ethnic influence and, it needed to be in or near the plateau-mile end. After some searching, I found Auracia which is a Chilean restaurant. To my surprise, 2 friends decided to come join us and both are Peruvian which prompted the line of never “bring a Peruvian to a Chilean resto”.

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Fuchsia Epicerie Fleur – Vegetarian friendly brunch

The 411

It’s been over a year since I have tried a vegetarian or vegan brunch spot. In fact, there are only 2 spots in Montreal that offer a vegetarian or vegan brunch so when I heard that Fuchsia did vegan and vegetarian brunch dishes, I was doubly curious. I had read some things about it online and felt that it was time to see if there was another good vegan brunch option in the city.

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Olive et Gourmando – A truly amazing treat

The 411

There is a spot in the Old Port where people willingly line up, no matter the weather or time of day, just to get a chance to sit down and eat the food at Olive & Gourmando. I had been once before just to grab some food to go, but never had an actual meal here. It is a place that has a loyal following and people know of it mainly by word of mouth since online resources for this places are scarce, which is cool, since it’s kind of like a little secret. So, when my friend took me here for my birthday treat, you can imagine how happy I was to finally get to check it out.

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Le Montrealais – A classy all you can eat buffet

The 411

All you can eat brunch buffets, often those few words can increase my anxiety more than hearing “we need to talk”. You may ask why would such a few tasty words cause so much grief? I will answer that with two words quality and quantity. Most buffets offer the latter quantity but when it comes to quality they are lacking. I have found that most all you can eat buffets have food that is too mass prepared and is not fresh enough let alone warm enough. Now le Montrealais has a reputation of excellence when it comes to brunch buffets I mean it is situated in the Queen Elizabeth hotel, which is a five star hotel so you can imagine what kind of food one would expect. So with the bar set nice and high lets see if we can take the edge off those six words.

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