I visited Montreal in what was described by the locals as the “ugly time of year” but\u00a0I found the city to be enchanting\u00a0(though colder than I would have liked). I was visiting Montreal for work but I managed to add a day at the end for sightseeing and\u00a0Jesse-and-Celine-style walkabouts, sadly without my “Jesse” in tow.<\/p>\n
As usual, I spent a good amount of time preparing for the trip by looking up gluten free food options near my hotel and along my walkabout routes. I try to use\u00a0the Find Me Gluten Free app<\/a> when I am already in the city to help find nearby food sources, but before the trip, I look at blogs and Yelp for help. No one source is perfect, but a combination of sources usually does the trick. I smartly (read: my husband reminded me) packed a bunch of gluten free protein bars and pretzels and those sustained me in between meals.<\/p>\n Here are the places where I found good gluten free options:<\/p>\n Fino Restaurant<\/a> (1616, rue Sherbrooke Ouest) – The food here was fabulous and the open modern ambiance made this a lovely dining experience. Our waiter was very knowledgeable about gluten allergies and made helpful recommendations throughout the night. I tried to visit again before I left but they were closed (caution—weird hours!).<\/p>\n Cookie Stephanie<\/a> (Old Montreal) –\u00a0On my walkabout in Old Montreal, I came across this adorable gluten free bakery. I resisted the VERY strong urge to go in and buy everything because I was between meals (they do serve sandwiches) and because I’m on a sugar diet this year. But believe me, if either of those two conditions was not satisfied, I would have stuffed my face there.<\/p>\n La Crepe 2 Go<\/a> – This place came highly recommended on Find Me Gluten Free and Trip Advisor, so I decided to check it out. The owner, a quiet but friendly man, talked with me about my gluten free options and, after much deliberation, I settled on an apple & cheese crepe. It was super tasty. I will\u00a0go back (now that we’ll be living so close) and try one of his savory crepes, made with\u00a0chickpea flour. Yum!<\/p>\n Arepara du Plateau<\/a> – I walked miles just to eat lunch at this place. Reviews were spectacular and I loved that everything on the menu was gluten free. It’s a tiny place and it’s clearly very popular, so look to go at off-times. I got there right after it opened (less than five minutes after) and it was very nearly full. The arepas were out-of-this-world delicious. Seriously, don’t miss this place if you’re ever in Montreal.<\/p>\n Bonus: Philly!<\/strong><\/p>\n On my way to Montreal, I stopped in Philadelphia for meetings and enjoyed delicious gluten free food while I was there. I’m going back this summer for a week and I plan to explore more options while I’m there. In the meantime, my recommendations from my short time in Philly are the White Dog Cafe<\/a> (lots of gf options & gluten free bread at the table, by request) and Hummus Grill<\/a> (cheap food, delicious, very knowledgeable staff, accidentally gave me the wrong food but it was still delicious and gf).<\/p>\n Stay tuned—my guy and I are headed to Italy next week. Bring on the gluten free pasta!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I visited Montreal in what was described by the locals as the “ugly time of year” but\u00a0I found…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[83,84,82,104,81],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happy-life","tag-dining","tag-gf","tag-gluten-free","tag-montreal","tag-travel","content-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redpincushion.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}