Local Montreal Tours

Ok, so I signed up for the food tour thinking it would be «food, food, food, thanks for coming.» It was so much more than that. Our tour guide was Steve and he was great. When you do the food tour, you also get a really in depth history of the Mile End neighborhood and it’s people. Tours like this are so much better when you have a guide like Steve who really cares about you getting the most out of this experience.
Anyway, the food: Awesome! The falafel, the Montréal bagel, the pasta sauce, the ice cream — all so good.
Mile End is near Mont Royal, so if you plan to see that, this tour is just a quick bus ride from there.

FABULOUS!
Francois was our tour guide and she was the most lovely, knowledgeable guide!
The Mile End is a must see and I wish I had more time to explore!
This tour is simple and delicious — not to be missed when in Montréal!

Our whole family loved our food tour of the Mile End. The food was wonderful but the tour was so much more than just food, as our guide (Marc) told us so many interesting things about the area’s history and recent transformations. We visited during a crazy heat wave (88 F every day) and Marc was careful to rearrange routes to maximize shade and indoor stops. We took our kids ages 7 – 12 on the tour and all of them loved it. The food was so incredible that we returned to every place again during our stay. We all agreed that from now on we will try to take a food tour anywhere that we visit.

We had a tour around mile end today with Steve, it was a great experience! Mile end was a super artsy, trendy area that we might not have seen otherwise. Steve was great and gave us a lot of interesting history and information not just about the food but the development of the whole area. We saw a lot of beautiful areas, ate a lot of great food, and met some really nice people from all over on the tour. I would definitely recommend.

One of the best walking tours I have ever been on. Lasted about 3 hours and we stopped at 6 or 7 food and drink places in the mile end, in addition to our guide pointing out other fantastic places to check out later. A great idea instead of finding a place to sit down to eat lunch. Would recommend this to everyone who visits Montréal.

My husband and I LOVED our food tour of the Mile End neighborhood. We tried lots and lots of eclectic food, learned a lot about the neighborhood, and really enjoyed our tour guide Marc Andre. This was a great way to be introduced to the city as brand new visitors– we couldn’t recommend this tour enough to others. Certainly a great value for the price.

The Brewpub Experience was excellent! Our guide, Phil, was interesting, engaging, and very helpful. All three of the pubs visited were fantastic! If you love microbrews this is a must when visiting Montréal.

I think the other reviews hit it on the mark.
This was a very intriguing and engaging tour. Our party of 14 did not know what to really expect but as we continued to walk and tour the neighborhoods, it just kept getting better and better. The variety of foods were all delicious and the stories behind each spot was great to hear. I love the fact that this tour was just not about the food. Culture and history were nicely blended in with everything.
Our guide, Marc Andre was very pleasant and very knowledgable. He tailored the tour to us, which was great!
It is safe to say that this went above my expectations.

Our tour guide, Marc Andre, was absolutely awesome! He was incredibly polite, knowledgable, and great to chat with. Not only was this a food tour, but also a lesson of Montréal’s culture and history. Marc told some great stories about Montréal’s rich history and culture, which we found very intriguing. Here was our agenda:
La Panthere Verte
Phyllo Bar Melina’s
Theatre Rialto
St-​Viateur Bagel & Café
Wilensky’s Light Lunch
Kem CoBa
Boucherie Lawrence
My favorites had to be Kem CoBa (amazing sorbets and soft-​serve) and Boucherie Lawrence. We met the owners of Kem CoBa, who were great and talked about how they got started. The meats at Boucherie Lawrence were delicious! And their beers were great too. We spent at least an hour here, if not more, ordering more and more meat/​cheese/​beer.
My least favorite was Wilensky’s and La Panthere Verte. While Wilensky’s has a great backstory and they still make soda by hand, the fried bologna sandwiches weren’t anything special. The falafel pita at La Panthere Verte was delicious, but not something I expected on a food tour.
I highly recommend taking the tour and can’t wait to visit again!

We were actually staying in the Mile End neighborhood (airbnb rental) so this tour was very convenient and so much fun. We aren’t big touristy «tour group» types, but decided this would be delish and worthwhile. Leah was our tour guide and she was fantastic, very charming and knowledgeable about each spot and history of the area as well. The butcher stop for charcuterie and beer was certainly a highlight, as was Kem CoBa for uniquely flavored soft serve ice cream!
This tour is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon for locals or visitors!

It was a really good tour. 100% value for your money. You get large portions, more than any other food tour we have done. It’s not a lot of walking at all… more standing than walking. Our guide was Leah… she was very knowledgable and a great guide. I recommend this food tour!

Great food tour! The tour lasted for three hours and I believe we stopped at 6 spots. Surprisingly, my favorite stop was at La Panthere Verte — a small vegan restaurant. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian but their Falafel sandwiches are hard to top — one of the best I’ve ever had. KemCoba — an ice-​cream place with exotic and seasonal flavors — was also great.
I loved that the tour was in the Mile End — a bohemian neighborhood I otherwise probably wouldn’t have ventured off to.

Good food tour and the tour leader was very flexible when one of the businesses was not open. The Craft Brewing tour however, was disappointing. We paid $ 75 each for less than 2 pints of beer with stops at 3 sites, plus a thrown– in library discussion on the history of the area. I would not recommend this.

We had a great time on our walking tour in May 2014. It was a beautiful day and the food was all delicious! Our guide was very knowledgeable about the area and many other things and gave us wonderful insight on the culture and history of the neighborhood as well as each place we stopped in to eat at. The Mile-​End area is so cute and close-​knit. Everyone is in good spirits there and you really feel a sense of community. This is well worth every penny and every minute.

I wanted to do a tour while in Montréal. After debating between the brewpub tour or the Mile End food tour, we settled for the food tour in the Mile End. Jeremy (Jay) was a great tour guide. He was very funny, but he definitely knew his stuff. He showed us all sorts of interesting things about the area and how it has changed in the past 20 years, which was a great history lesson in urban planning!
We went to 7 stops, with 6 of them having food. We were stuffed at the end, and we hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. The food was plentiful, and we even got to try some beer at one of the stops. The restaurants chosen were delicious and accommodating for the group.
Since we were staying the Latin Quarter/​Gay Village area, this was not a part of Montréal we would have most likely seen, other than maybe driving by for a bagel at St-​Viateur Bagel (and btw those were PHENOMENAL, and my favorite stop on the tour). It was nice to see a new and up-​and-​coming part of Montréal. I definitely recommend this tour. The price was very reasonable, and it was a lot of fun!

Food tour was great! Jeremy (our guide) was very informative and entertaining. It was cold so dress warmly! I also expected bite sized tastings from each place, but at the end of the tour, I was rather satisfied. I recommend you doing this tour if you’re not from the area and want to get to know it a little better while eating from local spots.

Wonderful !!
I grew up in Montréal and it was a real treat to rediscover the city. The tour was a great blend between visiting 3 brewpubs and talking about Montréal. The types of beer tasted were varied along the different places which kept it interesting each time and lead to some very nice surprises. As for our guide, Phil, was insightful, knowledgeable and charismatic!
It was also refreshing to meet all of those in the tour as well — Everyone was fun (who wouldn’t on beer tasting tour!) and it made for a chill atmosphere.
I would recommend this tour to anyone from the city or not. It gave a good feel for the city, its brewpubs, and its own charm…

There are many ways to discover a city, but Local Montréal definitely crafted an enjoyable formula. A blend of culture and liquid love, also called beer. I’m Belgian, and as such, half of my blood is made of beer. Good news! The brews from MTL harmoniously underlined the subject covered during the tour, and meeting & sharing points of views with other visitors proved interesting and insightful!
The guide was knowledgeable about his city and the beers we were tasting, although having a master brewer coming once in a while at our table explaining the passion involved in one of his draft would be appreciated. Nevertheless, I discovered new blends i never dreamt of trying, and got an insider point of view on a city that has much more to offer that what appears at first sight. I would definitely recommend this tour to any friend, couple of bunch of buddies that want to sink in this metropolis.
Thanks again Phil, Fred and Ismael!

The brewpub tour was definitely one of the highlights of a recent visit to Montréal — perhaps the only regret being that we didn’t plan this for the top of our trip. Being the last day of a four-​day whirlwind, it would have been better planned at the top, considering all of the great insight and recommendations made by the guide — who happened to be one of the company’s co-​owners.
That said, the tour definitely highlighted parts of the city we had not travailed to that point — and the breweries themselves were all top-​notch.

I am a college professor, and my colleague and I travel with groups of students. In Montréal I arranged two tours with Local Montréal Tours — Vieux Montréal (Old Montréal) and the Food Tour. The arrangements of the tours via email went very smoothly — Ismael was very responsive and helpful. The Vieux Montréal tour was with Annie, who has a Masters degree in History — it was chilly and our group was large, but we loved Annie — she was charming and funny and knew so much about the area’s history and architecture. She worked with us and was very gracious and flexible when we wanted to rearrange the tour to have a different end point.
Jeremie was our food guide tour — we spent 2 ½ glorious hours at the Jean Talon Market, eating and drinking our way through the market. Along the way, after a breakfast of crepes and while sampling artisan sausages and cheeses, we learned much about the culture and history of Montréal — the contributions of the Jewish community, while we munched breads — Little Italy and expresso!
A grand time — on my next visit to Montréal, whether it’s with students or my husband, I will certainly do another tour with Local Montréal. I’m thinking the Brewpub tour next time, although J would enjoy the neighborhood tours as well as the food tour. So much fun, and very high quality tour guides and information. Fascinating and fun. Can’t wait to do it again (and I love Montréal!!!)