L’Arrivage

Excellent for lunch, nice view, food is delicious, price point affordable. Not for vegetarians or vegans. Meet lovers preferably.

A friend of mine brought me here for brunch on a rainy Sunday morning. I really like the concept of paying for a plate and getting a 3 course brunch included. I opted for the sausage crêpe meal and a cream of onion soup. Dessert was a pineapple meringue and raspberry smoothie.
The good:
Service was excellent. Our very attractive french waiter was super nice and explained the specials really well. He also kept up with the water refills and brought a new bread basket when were were running low.
The crêpe and soup were savoury and delicious. Just what I needed on a rainy morning. The flavours were a bit on the heavy side but I think that the meal was overall very filling and satisfying.
The bad:
The coffee here is terrible. Folgers coffee. Basically tasted like instant coffee. I couldn’t drink it.
The dessert was more lackluster than anything else. The smoothie was basically yogurt and the meringue was way too sweet to be edible. I think dessert here is a hit or miss.
Overall decent brunch place in Old Port. Interesting location and a fairly inexpensive place for the area.

The highlight of a visit to a very weird museum. We were starving and hesitant to eat here, but are so glad we went.
Yes, we had to wait a bit because it was a busy lunch hour, but they were friendly and attentive in their service once we were seated (well, except the waiter forgot to bring the mayo I requested, but I didn’t bother reminding him).
We had their version of a kir royal (sparkling wine with their ice cider) and it was a perfect start. Then I had the quesadilla (odd choice, I know, but I was in the mood) which came with fries and a small green salad. My boyfriend had the meat of the day, which was veal rib and was to die for. It came with a salad to start, then the rib which was meltingly tender, atop some garbanzo beans, pureed parsnip, and I think roasted eggplant. Then a dessert to finish – blueberry cake with blueberry cream cheese frosting and a peanut custardy thing with crushed peanuts on top. They also brought me one, even though I didn’t order the meal – so yummy! It also came with coffee at the end, a nice finish.
The pacing of the meal was relaxed and friendly, and we left there SO HAPPY.

L’assiette complète à la carte est parfaite pour un Brunch copieux. Excellent service.

Does someone on your team at work have a birthday or a special occasion and you’re not sure where to go? Situated on the top floor of Pointe-​à-​Callière, the Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History, L’Arrivage is a great spot for a business lunch if you’re not in a hurry. You’ll usually see several groups of office workers there. In the summer they have tables of two on the terrace with a great view of the Old Port. They’ve recently updated the décor slightly, and the result renders a bit more industrial chic.
Reservations are essential because the place generally fills up. Service can be slow once it gets full, so my colleagues and I usually show up at 11:45 so we can get our orders in and beat the rush. We’ve had lots of practice, you see — we’ve been doing birthday lunches there for several years. Sometimes I suggest trying someplace new, but no one will have it: L’Arrivage is too sure a bet, they say.
Their lunch menu is perhaps pricey for a weekday lunch but a great value for what you get. You start with a soup or salad, which is always inventive and flavorful. Today’s salad was a Nordic shrimp mousse with a fennel and orange salad. The selection of main dishes always includes one vegetarian option (and my vegetarian friends always seem to enjoy it), and a variety of fish, seafood and meat dishes. Their cuisine is rich, with purees and sauces adding a lot of flavor, and unusual grains and vegetables filling out the plate. Today I had the salmon and tuna tartare with a blini, some type of whipped herb cream cheese, and a sweet caramelized sauce drizzled on the side. My carefully prepared bites were worth the effort: so tasty!
Dessert is always a high point at L’Arrivage: they serve a plate with three mini desserts in one. Sorbet often appears, but today it was a parfait of dates, panna cotta and a caramel sauce, a meringue, and a tiny muffin-​shaped financier. Very good as always. I was stuffed, but it was too good to leave on the plate.

This was the lowlight of my trip to Montréal, a foodie city. Came here Saturday for lunch, and stood around for a good 40 minutes without anybody acknowledging my presence. The guy who should have been at the host stand was busy running around. I understand they are super-​busy around that time, but at least he could have came & gave me an estimate on the wait (especially since he walked past me numerous times). This was especially unforgivable when they had a small table available in the back of the dining room!
Nonetheless I stayed for the food. The price was decent, but the food didn’t make up for the neglecting service. The cauliflower curry soup was watery and had so much curry flavor it completely overshadowed the «cauliflower», if there was any. The broiled fish was cooked well, but lacked seasoning. So I guess the kitchen made up for that by making the sauce extra salty. The risotto it came with tasted only like chicken broth. To add insult to injury, the food looked like it sat under the warming lamp too long: a skin had formed on the sauce and the mashed sweet potatoes had a dried surface. Dessert (cinnamon & rum crème brûlée and rhubarb sorbet with baked meringue) was decent. The only thing good was my server, who took the time to introduce my dishes when they came out.
While the price was great, the food was only so-​so, and the service at the host stand completely turned me off. Definitely NOT worth returning given the wide selection of amazing restaurants in Montréal.