"Simple food travels best. Case in point: the modern bistro offerings from Toqué’s casual sibling, Brasserie T. As to be expected with Normand Laprise’s Montreal restaurants, the quality of the ingredients is beyond reproach and the kitchen is disciplined."

"Like so many other chefs and restaurateurs, Normand Laprise — co-owner of Toqué, Brasserie T, Beau Mont and Burger T — is withstanding the pandemic with a combined takeout-meal/grocery operation. His strategy is multi-pronged and ambitious. Run entirely out of the Beau Mont space in the Mount Royal suburb of Montreal, Signé Toqué invites customers to order wholly prepared dishes — say, a comforting whelk gratin or a delicate fillet of walleye with root vegetables and lobster sauce — that merely require heating."

"If freshness and seasonality are the core tenets of Italian cuisine, this intimate room, which opened in December 2019 in Vancouver’s de facto Little Italy, is an orthodox house of worship. Don’t look for a menu online. It changes nightly to reflect local produce and the whims of Oca Pastificio chef/co-owner Greg Dilabio (formerly of C100B entrant La Quercia)."

"For their initial pandemic pivot, sommelier Vanya Filipovic and chef Marc-Olivier Frappier turned Mon Lapin, their popular Little Italy restaurant and wine bar in Montreal, into a fried chicken take-away called Casgrain BBQ. Its sourdough-battered fried chicken, oyster-mushroom “popcorn” and other elevated fast-food offerings became so popular that the queue outside got its own Instagram handle. Then, to make room for the return of Mon Lapin, Casgrain BBQ moved into its own space a few blocks away on Saint-Denis Street."

"After years of delivering Christmastime treats like tourtières and foie gras terrines as far afield as Toronto, Martin Picard’s Au Pied de Cochon group began their pandemic pivot to takeout with the advantage of experience. Picard also combined his back-of-house teams from three restaurants into one core group of PdC all-stars, starting with Vincent Dion-Lavallée from La Cabane d’à côté."

"After closing his upscale Mediterranean restaurant, Miel, for lockdown last fall, Hakim Chajar — 2014 winner of Quebec reality-TV cooking show Les Chefs! — relaunched his Pointe-Saint-Charles space as Rubie’s, a casual gluten-free-fried-chicken takeout operation. It quickly garnered a following for its crispy free-range local birds in KFC-style buckets with skinny fries and array of sauces, from foie gras to barbecue to ranch."

"When a trio of Maison Publique alum opened their restaurant/food shop in Montreal’s Little Italy in December, they named it Salle Climatisée after signs in Parisian café windows indicating that the place has air conditioning. In Covid times, the promise of good ventilation and a great meal are almost equally tempting. But it’s the latter that lures the passersby — for morning coffees and apple-tahini turnovers, lunchtime roasted-rutabaga sandwiches lathered with creamy garlic confit and, at dinnertime, bronzed half chickens lined with ’nduja sausage, chicken hearts and Swiss chard."

"Chef Jae-Anthony Dougan was so busy running his first restaurant and catering company that he didn’t make it past week 6 of culinary school. But his television debut this year on Top Chef Canada should help establish that the self-taught chef knows plenty. So does the success of his two new pan-Caribbean restaurants — a pop-up in the Ottawa City Centre complex that sells takeout and freshly ground spice blends, and the far more upscale Tropikàl, on a restaurant-heavy stretch of Montreal’s Notre-Dame West, which Dougan calls “Joe Beef Street.”"

"Finding the right formula for delivering the best of Le Mousso in a takeout box has been very challenging, says chef-owner Antonin Mousseau-Rivard, but he thinks he’s getting closer to the answer all the time. Customers want that ultra-creative New Nordic–inspired Le Mousso style, but “without having to wash a TONS of pots and pans.”"

"The name of Montreal chef Simon Mathys’s new restaurant translates as “a big and husky person.” This makes sense when you see the affordable three-course, weekly-changing takeout menu of Mastard, which might feature braised lamb shoulder with parsley root, spinach and mint butter; pork cheek with capers, cauliflower and brown butter; and Quebec surf clam with local potatoes, herb-smoked yogurt and just enough coppa (though, truly, is there ever enough coppa?)."

"Alma co-owners and life partners Juán Lopez Luna and Lindsay Brennan started planning a convivial tapas space next door to their restaurant some time ago. At Tinc Set (which, in Catalán, literally means “I’m thirsty”), chef Luna’s Barcelona-style rotisserie chicken would be complemented with a list of sommelier-importer Brennan’s favourite Spanish and Catalonian producers."

"In June 2020, after a 14-year run, Montreal chef Fisun Ercan closed her beloved Turkish restaurant, Su, in Verdun and, the next month, opened Bika Farm an hour out of town on the Richelieu River."

"With their plans for opening Montreal’s first high-end omakase-only restaurant thwarted by lockdown, Okeya Kyujiro chef-owner Takuya Matsuda and chef Hachiro Fujise got started with takeout — offering an array of orizume and bento boxes packed with sushi, sashimi, kaiseki and chirashi."

"When takeout became the new frontier for established restaurants, chef Danny St-Pierre (Auguste, Le Central) opened a pizzeria named Danny Pan Pizza in the leafy Montreal suburb of Saint-Lambert. His unexpected inspiration was the deep-dish pies of Detroit but with a twist (or two)."

"When your cooking reputation hinges on the subtle, smoky flavours of a wood-burning grill and oven, what do you do for takeout? You add flame-kissed pita to your house-made feta with smoky red-pepper muhammara. And you carefully package wood-fired hanger steak with toasted flatbread with local ’nduja sausage, kale and anchovy."

"With his plans for an Eataly-style Middle Eastern food hall in the Montreal Forum put on hold by the pandemic, chef Fuad Nirabie has launched a 2,500-square-foot grocer/takeout counter — right across the street from his celebrated Syrian fine dining restaurant, Damas."

"It began with a veggie burger. The takeout-only, quinoa-based, fennel-laced patty (plus low-intervention bottles to go) got Montreal’s celebrated vegetable-forward wine bar Le Vin Papillon through the depressed spring of 2020. Come patio season, classic menu items resurfaced — charcoal-grilled sweetbread brochettes and house-made ham with Avonlea cheddar, scarfed from plates and takeout containers at their giant temporary patio “Joe Beach.”"