ANNIVERSARY EVENTS

LIGHTS, MUSIC AND ACTION

There will be over 175 cultural events in 2017 to mark the 375 year anniversary. Here are some highlights.

Illumination of the JacquesCartier Bridge The city’s iconic bridge is the canvas for Living Connections – intelligently programmed illuminations that change according to the hour of the day, season and “energy” of the city, based on local news, traffic reports and weather. (From now.)

À Nous La Rue street theatre Throughout July, 60 street theatre troupes from across the world will take over the Quartier des spectacles performing over 800 shows in the largest event of its kind in North America (July 6-30).

Cité Memoire Vignettes of the city’s history will be projected on to buildings and in other public spaces across the Old Town. A Crack in Everything This muchanticipated exhibition is a multidisciplinary one which explores the art and legacy of Montreal’s very own Leonard Cohen. It will span visual arts, performance art, music, the written word and film. (November 9 – April 1 2018). Aura, NotreDame Basillica Light and orchestral music interplay with the splendour of the 19th century church to create a multimedia journey through one of the city’s most famous attractions. (Until September 30.)

For more information, see 375mtl.com/en

hamburger and even veggie pulled pork, made from bean curd. Finally, we swing by playfully titled beer-bar Alexandraplatz, founded by Dépanneur’s Bernadette Houde. “She’s awesome,” Carrie tells me. “She was in the band called Lesbians on Ecstasy. Everyone knows her.”

In fact, in this area, it seems everyone knows everyone. Despite being Quebec’s most populous city, Montreal’s more modest size gave it a distinctly villagey feel. (“It’s like a huge, gentrified village,” one local told me.)

But if it is a relatively petite metropolis, Montreal punches above its weight in terms of its culinary offering: the city boasts the most eateries per capita in North America after New York City, which makes for a fast-moving and competitive restaurant scene. “We are very spoiled for good restaurants,” Carrie tells me. “There is a high turnover – if a restaurant lasts more than a year, it’s doing all right.”

If a year is good-going, then Toqué!, considered by many to be the best place to eat in Quebec, is positively geriatric. It opened in 1993 and its owner Normand Laprise is credited with creating a new kind of Québécois haute-cuisine, characterised by a close relationship between chef and local producer (previously, high-quality ingredients would be imported from France). The freshness of ingredients is evident in the taste of the pan-seared mushrooms I sample there, drizzled with the most intense of smoky sauces, as well as crême brulée cheesecake, accompanied by a blueberry sorbet that tastes just-picked fresh.

After dinner, Laprise, a chatty and down-to-earth chap in a sweater and trainers, takes me on a tour of the kitchen which he delivers with a bouncy openness that belies his phenomenal success. The Quebec

Cité Memoire’s projection on the walls of the Court House

The Bota-Bota spa-sur-l’eau was a former river ferry

The finishing touches are applied to a dish at Toqué! restaurant