Wine bars are legion in Montreal, but often packed if you arrive after 5 p.m. With its 240 seats, the ideal bar & contents (in the former Mme Lee… or Jello Bar for the older ones!) can accommodate a large number of thirsty people. And to make sure it always attracts enough of them, the place run by a team of women also offers up-to-date cultural programming, with a state-of-the-art podcast studio, in collaboration with Moog Audio.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
Its location (rue Ontario Est, at the corner of rue de Bullion) makes it a place where students and young professionals can study or work during the day, with a café. “We put sockets everywhere! confirms one of the owners, Émilie Amyot. In the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles, the ideal is ideal for becoming a cultural hub.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The ideal bar & contents is first and foremost a wine bar, but not only…
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The ideal bar is very inviting.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
In the room at the back of the room, you can sit down and listen to the current podcast, recorded in the studio set up in collaboration with Moog Audio.
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We can expect very dynamic, all-out collaborations, orchestrated by entrepreneur and programmer Florence Gagnon. It was her that Émilie Amyot (also co-owner of the Ping Pong Club) contacted first when she decided that Mme Lee had had its day and that the “post-pandemic bar” had to be invented.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
It takes a large cellar to satisfy the thirst of a few hundred customers every evening! Here, some selected pearls.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
You can also quench your thirst with a cocktail.
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The kitchen opens at 5 p.m. with an aperitif menu and slowly shifts to the more refined “small dishes” formula, under the guidance of chef Julia Giraud (Buvette chez Simone, Perles & Paddock). The service and sommelier team, led by Frédérique-Anne Brosseau (Manitoba, Vin Oui agency) and Sydney Auger (Paquebot, Damascus), ensures that the glasses continue to fill with good juices until 1 a.m. weekdays and 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings.
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PHOTO NASTASIA FAIVRE, PROVIDED BY IDEAL BAR & CONTENTS
This little dish of Jerusalem artichokes, bacon, hazelnuts and pear sets the tone of the kitchen.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Émilie Amyot, Frédérique-Anne Brosseau and Florence Gagnon are part of the “ideal” project.
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PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
The ideal bar & contents is located in the former club Mme Lee.
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Perhaps the most distinctive offering of the ideal is the recording of podcasts in front of live audiences — and with booze! —, which takes place in the cozy room at the back. You can attend discussions on natural wine (in-house podcast entitled In residencewhich is also the name of the wine club that the place shares with the Ping Pong Club, on an alternating basis), listen to feminist discussions by Judith Lussier (podcast witches) or let yourself be surprised by an “Ideal Card” animated by various personalities. The Ideal Studio was co-founded by Florence Gagnon and “content beast” Eugénie Lépine-Blondeau.
Refurbished by Daniel Finkelstein (Finkel), the 3500 sq.2 has two large garage-style doors that will open onto Ontario Street when weather permits. Furniture and decor combine marble, brown leather and lots of plants with recycled wood from the previous decor. We are of our time or we are not!
151 Ontario Street East, Montreal