Butcher shops in Montréal’s Mile End and Plateau

By Marlene Heloise Oeffinger April 24 2014

If Montréal is not your indigenous home, chances are you are occasionally craving some dish from your native country. Just like me. But often the ingredients for those dishes can be a little harder to source here in Montréal, and don’t come pre-made or pre-cut at your local grocery store. Which often means you may have to get al little creative and make them from scratch

In my case, some of my country’s culinary specialties include offal – anything from kidney, heart, liver, tripe, even brain – not something that can be easily found at your local supermarché. So one of the tasks I put myself to after moving to Montréal, was to find butcher shops in my neighborhood that carry these somewhat unusual ingredients for my homemade Austrian dishes. Luckily, I discovered that the Mile End and Plateau offer a number of excellent places to choose from – since any of those ingredients are also used in French and Quebecois cooking.

Boucherie Lawrence (5237 St-Laurent) is a neighbourhood butcher shop in the Mile End. The large airy space makes it unusual yet inviting and the layout gives the shop a market feel. Boucherie Lawrence offers locally raised meat and tries to make use of the whole animal – if not in the shop for custom-ordered cuts, sausages, jerky or terrines, then a few doors down at the Restaurant Lawrence. And while offal may not be openly visible in their display case, it can be ordered or may even be available in the walk-in fridge visible at the back of the shop.

Just a few blocks further is Chez Latina (185 St-Viateur Ouest). The European-style épicerie offers an superb and unexpected meat selection. Prime aged beef is found next to calfs liver, lamb racks and smoked duck breast. But the biggest surprise was the brain I saw one day on offer in the display case. And what is not out front can be ordered any time, even by phone.

If you are looking for a little more obscure ingredients such as pig’s blood for your homemade Boudin, La Maison du Roti (1969 Mont-Royal Est) may just be the place you need. A little further east on the Plateau, Maison du Roti offers a wide variety of different cuts and unusual meats, including bison, wapiti and kangaroo. You can even order sausage casing, and the staff is always ready with advice.

Another good place to source speciality meats is Boucherie Charcuterie Chez Vito (5180 rue Saint-Urbain). A family run Italian butcher shop, you may not find brain or pig’s blood, but a large variety of meats (think steaks, pork chops, oxtail and homemade sausages), as well as rabbit and different game birds. Chez Vito has all the hallmarks of an old-style butcher shop, always ready with friendly advice on the best cut of meat for your recipe.

Photos: Marlene Heloise Oeffinger