This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
Do you have 24 or 48 hours ahead of you and want a getaway? The first instinct is often to want a change of scenery. We rarely think about staying in this city near the home we think we know, and it is even rarer for Montrealers to take the time to (re)visit their city. One or two nights allow you to see the metropolis differently. What if we had fun playing tourist — and giving the experience as a Christmas gift — in this city which has several attractions of which we can be proud?
To ensure a pleasant stay, the first thing to do is to choose the right refuge: that place that will make us feel at home. This is what the Four Seasons Montreal hotel in downtown Montreal seeks to create. “We can put up a tree in the room if people ask, we have all kinds of special touches for children, we can organize something special if it’s the guest’s party,” explains Lisa Kauffmann, marketing coordinator. of the hotel. We know that, sometimes, these are the only vacations of the year for the client, so we try to carefully meet their needs so that everyone leaves with good memories. »
On site, we feel this intention: as soon as we exit the vehicle, we are accompanied by the friendly valets. At reception, we are greeted with broad smiles. In the room, a pretty tent will have been installed for the child, who will be delighted. In restaurants, you are called by your name.
It is certainly for this extraordinary welcome that the Four Seasons Montreal hotel has made its place among the 10 best in Canada on the list of Readers’Choice Awards 2023, from the renowned travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler. It’s perhaps also because we manage to make people feel in this Montreal hotel that we are… in Montreal. This is not the case for several anonymous establishments elsewhere in the world. In this hotel on rue de la Montagne opened in 2019, we did business with Atelier Zébulon Perron, a design firm which has designed several Montreal restaurants, to imagine the “ social square », an open space that occupies the entire third floor and which represents “the characteristic social ecosystem of the city”. There is the reception, a lounge, a bar, a restaurant, a dining room and a terrace which present “distinct universes which complement and overlap”, we can read on the firm’s website. “The third floor is intended to be a meeting place, and it works,” reports Lisa Kauffmann. The restaurant is one of the most successful among the Four Seasons hotels outside of the clientele. This means that our customers and Montrealers meet there. » On the walls of the restaurant, we find the collection of photos of Margaret Trudeau. In the bar, the tapestry is made from photos taken on Mount Royal. And on the menus created by the famous chef Marcus Samuelsson, many local ingredients; no doubt, this hotel is Montreal. This is without mentioning the view that certain rooms offer of the Leonard Cohen mural or the work of Pascale Girardin, which occupies eight floors in the middle of the hotel and which lets the weather pass through, allowing you to feel the four seasons (four seasons) from Montreal.
Montreality
After this dive into the heart of Montreal, we continue exploring outside. With this idea of seeing the city from a different perspective, the new Montreal port tower is ideal. Since May, we can observe the metropolis from a height of 65 meters. Coming out of the elevator, a multimedia exhibition presents capsules of Montreal and its port. A spiral staircase allows you to go a little higher, to the glass cage, which offers a superb 360-degree panorama.
We can then return to the heart of this city that we have just observed to walk about twenty minutes to the new MEM, or Center of Montreal Memories. There, at the corner of Saint-Laurent and Sainte-Catherine, illuminated signs of long-gone establishments (like the legendary cabaret 281!) set the tone. Here, we highlight the symbols of Montreal that make it unique. In the public spaces accessible free of charge, we have recreated a convenience store, we find the multicolored balls of the landscape architect Claude Cormier which have become the symbol of the Village and we have recreated an alley decorated, of course, with washing lines. Thanks to small and big stories belonging to the city, we want, with the MEM, to expose what makes “Montreal”. Speaking of stories, we will want to take the recommended 90 minutes in the room of the temporary exhibition Détours (paid, for its part), created in partnership with Urbania and which, through videos, immerses us in the universe of Montrealers with unique backgrounds.
Through the windows of the MEM, you can watch athletes doing laps on the refrigerated ice rink on Esplanade Tranquille, which is entering its second winter. When we talk about embracing its Nordicness, the place ticks all the boxes: modern architecture that highlights the ice rink, festive music, skate rentals and a pavilion including a café, microbrewery, fireplaces, library, game rentals and heated terraces.
To conclude this tour, you must cross Sainte-Catherine Street again to get to Central. This festive food fair is the kind of place that makes you proud to be a Montrealer. If the city is renowned for its gastronomy, we find here a concentration of excellent addresses which summarize all the gourmet variety that Montreal offers. You can order oysters and bubbles at a counter, continue with tapas, choose a bowl of ramen or pizza at another kiosk and finish it all off with hot churros. The problem at Central is choosing.
Back home, after this trip made without a passport and without jet lag, charmed, we say to ourselves that the destination was well chosen and that we will certainly return to play tourists in Montreal.
The journalist was the guest of Tourisme Montréal and the Four Seasons Montréal hotel
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Duty, relating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.