Toqué! is the restaurant that established modern Québécois haute cuisine as a serious category. Normand Laprise and Christine Lamarche opened it in 1993, and for three decades it has maintained its position at the top of Montreal's restaurant hierarchy while training a generation of chefs who have gone on to open their own significant restaurants across the province. The tasting menu showcases Quebec's exceptional local produce — Arctic char, venison, wild mushrooms, farmhouse cheeses — in preparations that are technically precise without being fussy.
The restaurant moved to its current location in Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle in the International Quarter in 2004, taking over a large space with a beautiful dining room. It is expensive by Montreal's generally reasonable standards but moderate by the standards of restaurants of this quality in New York or Paris. Reservations are essential, sometimes weeks in advance. The set tasting menu is the right choice.