Montreal Is in the Midst of a Sustainable Metamorphosis

Montreal is known for many things: Beautiful European architecture, a Paris-inspired laissez-faire attitude and a bustling festival scene. And now, the French-Canadian city is carving out a community-minded niche at the intersection of style and sustainability. On the hunt for an ethical coffee shop where single-use cups are non-existent and you can try a yoga class after putting in some laptop time? Try vegan gem Café Des Habitudes, where you can shop gently used secondhand clothing after sipping your chai latte (I spotted a pair of Karl Lagerfeld loafers that were tragically two sizes too big). Looking to get involved in Montreal Fashion Week, which, incidentally, won the Tourisme Montréal Prix Distinction in 2023 for sustainable tourism related to its programming emphasizing local and ethical purchasing? Give one of their many workshops, from sewing and jewellery-making to clothing repair, a whirl.

Here’s your guide to a chic and sustainably minded trip to Montreal.

What to visit

One area that epitomizes this nouveau approach to fashion is the District Central, which is home to Chabanel Street. Once Montreal’s bustling textile district, Chabanel has been transformed from a cold, sometimes brutalist industrial area into a vibrant neighbourhood with the goal of becoming Montreal’s greenest borough by 2040. The urban development projects underway include community events, widespread greening and landscaping and La Prarie Louvain. This immersive urban garden in the middle of a concrete jungle is home to free programming like painting within the flora, educational talks on seeds and a Furoshiki workshop that teaches attendees the art of textile dyeing with plants harvested on site.

Last year, La Prairie Louvain was stacked with sunflowers and this year, there was a symphony of wildflowers as far as the eye could see. The setting for the next Jacquemus runway show, perhaps?

There are surprises behind so many unassuming doorways in the District Central. Take the gargantuan office building with the colourful hand-painted mural underway on its facade at 1401 Legendre West. Would you guess there’s a sustainable arctic char farm in the basement of this former textile manufacturer? Welcome to the Opercule within the Centrale Agricole, an urban agricultural co-op of like-minded entrepreneurs, including a succulent distributor and urban winery, whose goal is to reuse or upcycle each other’s waste in order to become a truly circular micro-economy. As the program coordinator Kevin Drouin-Léger told a group of journalists including myself, even putting waste into compost is considered a thumbs down. And how’s this for farm to table? The arctic char is so fresh, it was the actual fish served to us the next day at Lundi Au Soleil (more on that in a moment).

Where to stay

Would you guess that one of the most elegant hotels in the heart of the Canadian metropolis’s downtown core is a discrete green wonder? The Vogue Hotel Montreal Downtown, in Montreal’s Golden Square Mile and steps from some of the city’s best shopping, is certified Green Key Global, a sustainability certification program that measures a property’s impact on environment, community, cultural heritage and local economy. A side of eco-consciousness with our room service sounds pretty good.

Where to shop

One doesn’t often relate large-scale shopping with sustainability but that just means they haven’t been introduced to Montreal’s recently opened Royalmount yet. Meet Canada’s first-ever LEED Gold-certified shopping center, which means the sprawling complex has been awarded the international symbol of sustainability excellence and green building. Royalmount is a hub for shopping, dining and entertainment decorated with original art and designed with thoughtful touches like an outdoor terrace off of the upscale food court, Fou Fou. Outdoor space at a mall?! Actually groundbreaking.

Royalmount’s development of what will be the largest 100 per cent carbon-neutral private mixed-use development in the Americas is still underway so you can witness history being made while treating yourself at one of its many luxury flagship boutiques.

Where to eat

Montreal’s food scene is always one to watch, but you’re looking for delicious eats with community and sustainability as their core values, Outremont’s Alma, and the aforementioned Café Des Habitudes and Lundis Au Soleil in Villeray are must-visits.

Ancestral corn and nixtamalization (the ancient pre-Columbian method that allows the masa to take on an unmatched taste and texture) are at the heart of Alma, one of the first restaurants in Canada to work with nixtamalized corn. Honouring the richness of Mexico’s culinary history, the Outremont gem has a delightful natural wine list from Catalan and Spanish winemakers and *vibes* for days. Pro tip: The menu is seasonal and ever-evolving, but if they’re on offer, the élotes callejeros with queso fresco will change your life.

Over at Lundis Au Soleil, the approach to food is zero-waste with an emphasis on fresh local and seasonal produce. And when they say zero-waste, they mean it — as one of the chefs explained to us while we munched on delicious sweet corn cookies (just trust me), he even uses the corn husks to make a corn bouillon.

What to look forward to

Perhaps this is the native Montrealer in me, but in the decade since I left my hometown, I’ve come to think of its metro system with such fondness. Riding the metro alone was a milestone in every urban Montreal kid’s upbringing, after all, and the cerulean blue colour of the subway cars (yes, the same shade as Andy Sachs’ lumpy sweater) of my youth is intrinsically connected to my childhood memories. So when I heard that a pair of brothers was turning a bunch of vintage cars into a community hub, I needed to learn more.

Etienne and Frédéric Morin-Bordeleau are leading the charge of the MR-63 Pavilion, a centre for food and culture built out of the iconic MR-63 metro that will be erected in the heart of Montreal’s Griffintown. Partnering with local creatives and businesses, the community hub will have a variety of artistic and culinary programming for visitors in a variety of spaces, including a bar and performance space. Now that’s a commute we would look forward to.