If Boulevard St-Laurent just south of Jean-Talon can be called Little Italy, then Montreal North should have the moniker of Big Italy. The businesses I chose to write about today are on the arteries of what is considered the heart of this neighborhood – the Madonna de Pompeii church – located on Boulevard St. Michel near Sauve St. When many of the immigrants settled here, they wanted to live nearby so that they could walk to church. Naturally, storekeepers tried to stay within that circuit as well. And stay they did.
Just calling the stores to interview someone for this column was a challenge, since I don’t happen to speak Italian. When you get into any neighborhood that is so ethnically saturated, then you know you are in a good place to find food that will taste more like their Mommas made them at home. So that is where I am leading you today To get to the first two stores, take St. Michel Blvd. For about ten blocks North of Metropolitain Blvd. and make a left onto Charland Avenue, a little street just before the underpass at Industriel Blvd. For the last store, Les Importations Giannini, go under the underpass, make a right on Mont-Joli St. and then another right onto Lausanne St., which is one way going south.
Italians are known for their attention to freshness and home cooking, so what you look for when you shop here are your basics – bread, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, great canned tomatoes, etc. The busier cooks who won’t be rolling their pasta from scratch will only buy very, very good pasta that has either been homemade by someone else or at least hails from Italy. For the heart of an Italian meal, pasta, you can start at La Maison du Ravioli, one of the first businesses in Montreal which dared, thirty-one years ago, to try to sell noodles to an Italian community.
La Maison du Ravioli, 2479 Charland Ave. at d’Iberville St. Phone: 514-381-2481. Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday and Friday 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 1p.m. Ask almost any Italian about pasta, and they’ll know this spot. Around since 1976, they have built up a following of more than three hundred restaurants that buy here. Their specialties include meat or cheese ravioli and tortellini, medaglioni stuffed with ricotta and veal/beef/pork, cappelletti, cannelloni, gnocchi di patate and tagliatelle, but they don’t stop there. Find your favourite, top it with their new house sauces (rose, arrabiata, bolognese, napolitana) and find out what pasta is supposed to taste like. Now you can take home their homemade lasagne too – meat or vegetarian.
Salerno, 2411 Charland Ave at De Lille St. Phone 514-384-9142. Hours: Daily, 24 hours. Why am I not surprised that at any hour of the day or night someone in this neighborhood can buy a loaf of fresh bread? Every day of the week you can pick up cold cuts and salads to stuff into crusty breads like the pagnotta or the corona with a hole or the di grano or a whole wheat and white bread combo. Make a stop for some specialties – the stuffed pizza (cold cuts inside), calzone (cold cuts with cheese, or spinach and cheese) or taralli, pretzel-like treats made with fennel. Do not leave without buying the to-die-for mezzaluna, a fried dough donut-like treat stuffed with sweetened ricotta (and buy one for me!).
Les Importations Giannini, 9821 Lausanne Ave at Industriel Blvd. Phone: 514-324-7441 Hours: Monday to Wednesday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Going wholesale is a way to catch Italian specialties before they run out of them in the shops. The first little food showroom has select items: Granoro pasta products, Pugliasena olive oil (from their home town) and Monari Federzoni balsamic vinegar, in business since 1912. They sell the Journal de Montreal’s contest-winning pannetone by Loison. With Easter coming up, you can now also score Loison’s Easter special – the dove-shaped sweet columba. The wholesale end of the business goes way beyond this showroom, so if you ask you might be able to get some by-the-pound products like rare black chick peas or ciccerci beans (funny looking white-yellow ones from the lupini family). Local restauranteurs have been beating a path to their door for their fig syrup – mixed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar it makes the yummiest salad dressing. Organic food chasers will find pasta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and flavored oils. Upstairs the local community makes a point of stopping here to choose from lines of Alessi and Calderone kitchenware, dessert sets, serving pieces, dishes, stemware, pasta machines, pressure cookers and heavy duty stainless steel pots and pans, as well as small gifts, frames and gift baskets. They are an authorized Jura espresso machine dealer (Saeco and Spidem) too. Note that espresso machines can be repaired here.
