Canada’s Savoir-Faire Cities : Montreal and Quebec City are about as close as you can get to experiencing French style without crossing the pond

Habitants of this, Canada’s second-largest city, like to have a little fun at the expense of the largest, Toronto.

Sample joke: What would Toronto be called if it were in the Soviet Union? Answer: Retrograd.

Montreal wit may not go down all that well in Toronto, but it underscores the prevailing attitude of the people here, who know that their city isn’t the biggest in Canada, or the richest, or the fastest-growing--but who fervently believe it is the heart of Canada, its cultural and political center, the place where the bars stay open until 3 a.m. and where even a city councillor can steer you to an illicit after-hours club, the city where all the beautiful people meet and the interesting things happen.

In the bargain, Montreal is the world’s second-largest Francophone city, with all of the expressiveness, appetites and love of aesthetics which that heritage usually implies.

Montreal is the home of Le Devoir, a heavyweight intellectual French daily in the tradition of Le Monde. The city’s women dress with continental flair, and its men sport berets matter-of-factly. The majority speak French, boasting as they do that it is a purer sort of French, a French spoken as the Parisians spoke it hundreds of years ago. On summer nights, promenading crowds fill the streets of downtown, and a visitor here can even find himself in a Place-de-la-Concorde-style traffic jam at 1 a.m.

Montreal is French, all right, but it is also a North American major-league town. Even though the Expos-- quel horreur --are in the basement of the National League East.

When Montreal was building its subway, it took the trouble to make each station an artistic showcase, employing a different architect for each stop and installing paintings, stained glass and an occasional vaulted ceiling. The city of Paris even donated one of its turn-of-the-century metro entrances to grace thesystem; the verdigris gateway now marks a stop for historic Old Montreal.

Significantly, Montreal has grocery stores that sell wine--an unheard-of phenomenon in blue-law-dominated Toronto, where aspiring bons vivants must go to special government stores for a bit of the grape that pleases.

“Montreal is quite a libertine city,” exults Nick Auf der Maur, a Montreal newspaper columnist, politician and noted boulevardier . No-smoking sections in restaurants tend not to work here; smokers light up with impunity where they please. People joke that their rival city, Toronto, will never be able to pay off the crushing debt from its SkyDome indoor stadium by raising cigarette taxes; the goody-two-shoes there don’t smoke enough. And Montrealers proudly point out that their province is the only jurisdiction in North America that has not only never tried prohibition, but which--given the chance to vote on it in a turn-of-the-century referendum--reacted in utter horror.

Auf der Maur attributes Montreal’s whiff of license to the city’s Catholic traditions. “Catholics appreciate sin,” he says.

All of which makes Montreal an interesting place to visit--particularly now, when Quebec nationalists are passing up no chance to assert their brand of Frenchness, and civic boosters are preparing to make the most of Montreal’s 350th birthday in 1992. The city’s once-crumbling buildings are getting face lifts; the municipal tax man is giving rebates to shops that tear down their ugly neon signs and aluminum facades; les independentistes are happy as ever to lay out their hopes for Quebec nationhood before open-minded Americans, and there is a raft of fairs, concerts and happenings planned for the big fete.

Montreal isn’t Paris, but a visit here is nonetheless a good way to confront a unique French culture without making a transatlantic flight.

“Montreal is French in terms of language, and in terms of what people assume is metropolitan French culture,” says Auf der Maur. “But the city has developed its own quirky French personality.”

Dining, for example.

Montrealers are serious about food, and there is a wide range of restaurants in this city, many of them with pleasant outdoor terraces and hidden patios where patrons can laze away afternoons and evenings in the warmer months.

A diner in Montreal can sit down to authentic French fare, unsparing in foie gras and vin rouge , but the less classically minded might well try Quebec’s own “French” cuisine, the ingredients of which evoke the province’s rough voyageur days: fern shoots (known as fiddleheads), blueberries and generous applications of maple syrup on almost anything in the cook’s reach.

Traditional Quebec-style food worth sampling includes tourtiere , a rich meat-and-game pie; maple-cured baked ham; pea soup; pork and beans; eggs poached in maple syrup, and maple sugar pie. An attractive setting for such dishes is Les Filles du Roy, a popular Quebecois restaurant that also serves the “caribou,” touted as “the oldest alcoholic drink in North America,” and said to have been concocted by early French hunters. The modern recipe calls for grain alcohol, sweet local wine and other unspecified ingredients; in bygone years, backwoodsmen reportedly added a shot of fresh caribou blood.

French, too, in their own way, are Montreal’s neighborhoods. They may not look like the arrondissements of Paris, but neither are they to be mistaken for the streets of any other North American city. They must be walked to be enjoyed, so warm-weather visits are best. (Wintertime visitors to Montreal need not despair, though. They can cheer for the Canadiens at the Forum; attendance at an NHL game in this hockey-mad city is a quasi-religious experience. There is also good skiing in the nearby Laurentians.)

Montreal was born a missionary outpost, and even today its Catholic origins are visible in the hundreds of church spires, seminaries, monasteries, convents, Catholic hospitals, illuminated crosses and faded homes for aged priests and nuns that decorate its streets--many of which bear the names of saints. Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago is said to have made annual pilgrimages here, for the pleasure of struggling up the imposing steps of St. Joseph’s Oratory on his knees.

Today, though, most of the churches stand empty, their somber gray edifices contrasting oddly with the city’s party-ish feel.

The most interesting old-French churches are in Vieux-Montreal, Old Montreal. It spreads away from the northern bank of the St. Lawrence River, founded there when the French explorers hit a series of impassible rapids, beached their boats and built what was to remain for centuries the political and financial heart of Montreal.

Modern-day visitors to Old Montreal can easily orient themselves around Place Jacques Cartier, once a market but now converted to an agreeable pedestrian mall. The plaza slopes gently down from Montreal’s Second Empire city hall toward the St. Lawrence, at whose piers are docked oceangoing freighters and occasional cruise ships.

On a winter’s evening, Place Jacques Cartier and its Old Montreal environs can seem dark, windy and even sinister, what with their hulking old graystone warehouses, deserted cobbled lanes and minus-40-degree blasts. But in summer, the neighborhood explodes with pleasure-seekers, tourists, kitschy T-shirt vendors, flower stalls, portraitists, ambulatory clowns, jugglers, mimes and musicians.

“Montrealers, like no one else in North America, take pleasure in being with people,” says urban planner Annick Germain--and the patio restaurants of Place Jacques Cartier are one place they come to do it.

Here are ivy-draped courtyards where, say, a shaggy accordionist may be singing Quebec folk songs, and the Francophone locals merrily put away lobster and sing along between forkfuls. Americans who don’t speak a word of French need not feel out of place in such a setting, for the Montreal establishments that cater to tourists have English-speaking staffs and welcome American visitors. (It may be useful, though, to let it slip that you’re from the United States, since Quebec Francophones are far less forgiving of Canadians who don’t speak French.)

Those seeking privacy, peace and air conditioning, meanwhile, would do well to try Le Fadeau for dinner, where the setting is a Normandy-style house and the chef offers an ever-changing, eight-course “discovery menu” for about $50 per person.

A couple of blocks east from the lower end of Place Jacques Cartier is Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, a copper-roofed chapel immortalized in the minds of the ‘60s generation by Montrealer Leonard Cohen, who made of it Our Lady of the Harbor in his song, “Suzanne.” In years gone by, it was to this chapel that sailors came to pray for safe voyages on the sea lanes to Europe. Little wooden models of sailing ships hang from the ceiling even today.

To the west is another Notre Dame, this one a neo-Gothic basilica on the Place d’Armes, which boasts an interior designed in the high medieval style, but executed in pure Quebec pine and walnut. This Notre Dame’s windows depict French explorers, and its carved wooden pews show the faces of early parishioners. The vaulted ceilings are done in turquoise and 22-carat fleurs-de-lis. On Tuesday evenings in June and July, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal plays Mozart here.

A short walk southwest of the basilica is one of the most charming spots in Old Montreal, the 19th-Century Youville Stables, which stand about a courtyard of clipped lawns, twining ivy and gravel paths. Youville Stables was in fact a cluster of warehouses (it never boarded a single horse), and is the modern-day home of Gibbys, a deservedly popular Montreal steak-and-seafood house with the original 200-year-old stone walls and beamed ceilings.

As the fur trade began to supplant religion as Montreal’s raison d’etre, the city’s settlers burst out of the fortifications of Old Montreal and moved north. The rich headed for Mt. Royal, the low mountain that gives Montreal its name, but the working class stayed in the lowlands, building cramped, three-story apartment houses, with flat roofs to hold the snow for insulation.

For these blue-collar Quebeckers, who until recently routinely sired families of 15 children and more, space was at such a premium that builders usually put a row house’s stairway outdoors. These clanging metal steps--a terrible hazard in icy Quebec winters--have by now become a Montreal trademark. Composer John Cage once likened them to the notes on a musical staff.

They are to be seen on your way from Old Montreal to trendy St.-Denis Street, with its surrounding Latin Quarter, another good hunting ground for Francophiles in search of Quebec’s Gallic character. Here are rows of French and ethnic restaurants, bistros and cafes, many again with sprawling sidewalk terraces, frequented by professors, students and chess buffs from the nearby Universite du Quebec campus.

The eating places here tend to be less expensive than in tourist-oriented Old Montreal. St.-Denis is also the main site of Montreal’s acclaimed International Jazz Festival each summer.

“St.-Denis is the ‘in’ street of the east part of Montreal,” says tour guide Suzanne Bonin.

One subway stop west of St.-Denis is St.-Laurent Boulevard, known here as The Main, and the traditional dividing line between Montreal’s blue-collar, Francophone East End and its wealthier, haughtier, once-Anglophone--but now thoroughly integrated--west side. Admirers of the celebrated Canadian novelist Mordechai Richler may recognize this neighborhood as Duddy Kravitz territory, once the realm of Russian-Jewish immigrants.

Today, most of those immigrants have moved on and been replaced by immigrant Portuguese, West Indians, Italians, Greeks and Latin Americans--but for Richler fans, there is still Schwartz’s famous Charcuterie Hebraique, known before the rise of French nationalism as a deli.

Schwartz’s is a hole-in-the-wall that specializes in what is known throughout Canada as “Montreal smoked meat.” The dish is reminiscent of pastrami, but milder, the recipe coming from Romanian immigrants. (The Romanians are also credited with giving Montreal its unique bagels, which are dipped in honeyed waters before baking and taste “cakier” than the New York variety.)

Schwartz’s is reputed to have the most authentic smoked meat in Montreal, and diners can choose between plateloads ranked lean, medium and fat. The atmosphere is low-rent--and high-cholesterol--and noisy: fluorescent tubes on the ceiling, hunks of charcoal flying across the floor when the short-order cook stokes the grill; long, plastic tables where strangers jam in elbow to elbow. At lunchtime, the place is packed with appreciative cardiovascular daredevils.

Aside from such simple ethnic charms, The Main is becoming gentrified and is now home to some of the city’s slickest night spots. A few worth investigating this year are Le Shed, L’Oeuf (featuring a 90-foot bar), Lola’s Paradise, the Zoo Bar, Le Swimming (a nouvelle pool hall) and the popular Foufounes Electriques (translation: Electric Buttocks), a combination discotheque, bar and art gallery that is planning soon to open record shops and tattoo parlors in its basement.

Farther west still, and closer to the mountain, is the so-called Golden Square Mile, where the city’s barons of brewing, fur trading, shipping and lumber threw up their Scottish baronial piles. There was a time when perhaps 70% of all Canada’s wealth was concentrated here. Today, the rich scale the leafy heights of Westmount--a realm of privilege to the west--and mere retailers have moved into the ground floors of their old houses.

Today, the Golden Square Mile is a nice place to window-shop. Its side streets--Montagne, Crescent, Bishop and Mackay--are filled with stylish shops, cafes, small galleries and neighborhood bars. The area is also home to first-rate museums devoted to architecture, ethnography and the visual arts. There are some splendid renovations and good dining establishments around the Golden Square Mile, including, for the eccentrically minded, the riotously overdecorated Lutetia restaurant, in the Hotel de la Montagne. Lutetia is an uncompromised clutter of trickling water fountains, nymph statuettes, stuffed elephants and wrought-iron lamps that lend it the air of a high-class bordello in fin de siecle Denver. The effect is just this side of ridiculous, and the excellent food is served with great flair.

Overnighters who prefer intimate guest houses to faceless hotels can get bed and breakfast referrals from the Downtown B & B Network, run by Bob Finkelstein. He specializes in older houses--some filled with antiques--in the city’s core, and can place tourists in lodgings that welcome smokers and in those that would rather not.

A typical listing might be the renovated central-city town house of university professors Danielle and Alain Houdayer. For $57 per night, they will rent a comfortable room with shared bath, breakfast and plenty of cafe au lait and tourist advice in their sunny dining room.

GUIDEBOOK

Montreal

Getting there: Air Canada and Northwest fly direct, with one stop, from Los Angeles to Montreal. With 21-day advance purchase, round-trip fare is about $470 weekdays, about $520 weekends.

Where to stay:

Chateau Versailles, 1659 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H3H 1E3, (514) 933-3611; about $110 per room, double occupancy.

Hotel de la Montagne, 1430 Rue de la Montagne, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1Z5, (514) 288-5656; about $120 per room, double occupancy.

Le Quatre Saisons, 1050 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2R6, (514) 284-1110; about $210 per room, double occupancy.

Ritz-Carlton, 1228 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, H3A 2R6, (514) 842-4212; about $200 per room, double occupancy.

Where to eat:

Citrus, 5282 Blvd. St.-Laurent, (514) 276-2353. Innovative French; dinner about $30 per person (not including drinks or wine).

Le Lutetia, 1430 Rue de la Montagne (in the Hotel de la Montagne), (514) 288-5656. Whimsical French restaurant; dinner about $30 per person (not including drinks or wine).

Schwartz’s, 3895 Blvd. St.-Laurent, (514) 842-4813. Inexpensive deli prices; no alcohol or credit cards accepted.

Gibby’s, 298 Place d’Youville, (514) 282-1837. Steaks and seafood; dinner average $30 per person, without drinks or wine.

Le Fadeau, Rue St.-Claude, (514) 878-3959. Formal French restaurant; dinner about $25 per person (not including drinks or wine).

What to do:

The summer of 1992 promises more than the usual amount of revelry as the city celebrates its 350th anniversary; dates for some events are still approximate.

Sept. 5-14, 1991: Montreal International Music Festival; call (514) 866-2662.

Jan. 24-Feb. 2, 1992: Fete des neiges (Snow Festival); (514) 872-6093.

May 15-17: Free outdoor sound-and-light shows re-creating the history of Montreal, held in the city’s Old Port section.

May 16: Torchlight carnival parade from Old Montreal to Mt. Royal.

May 17: Gala birthday concert with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal.

Late May-early June: Annual international fireworks competition, with various countries firing off their wares from Ile Ste-Helene in the St. Lawrence River; (514) 872-6240.

Late June-early July: Annual Montreal International Jazz Festival, with about 2,000 musicians giving 350 performances over 10 days, many of them performed free of charge in the streets; (514) 289-9472.

July: Annual Just for Laughs Festival in which comedians from Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and France perform over 10 days at various indoor and outdoor sites; (514) 845-3155.

For more information: Contact the Government of Quebec Ministry of Tourism, Stock Exchange Tower, 800 Place Victoria, Suite 260, P.O. Box 125, Montreal, Quebec, H4Z 1C3, Canada, (800) 363-7777 or (514) 873-7977.