Damas
RestaurantTop Pick
Damas
Creative Syrian delicacies in a Persian-influenced space with a plant-trimmed terrace.
Opens Today at 5:30 pm
| Monday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
| Tuesday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
| Wednesday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
| Thursday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
| Friday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
| Saturday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
| Sunday | 5:30 pm - 10 pm |
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Info & Location
Come and join us for an enchanted Syrian evening located Montreal’s chic and gastronomic heart of Outremont, on Van Horne Avenue. At Restaurant Damas, a uniquely comfortable microcosm will greet you with warm colours, velours, carved wood, and multicoloured lights.
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Reviews often mention
Display Alltasting menu(59) lamb(55) recommend(48) syrian(43) wine(37) price(35) flavor(35) dishes(34) hummus(28)Page 1 of 2 - 38 Reviews
Jennifer
Finally trying Damas, the famous upscale Syrian restaurant in Montreal! I've heard about this place since I was still at McGill, but unfortunately never had the chance to try. I was surprised to see how big the restaurant was; it seemed to span the entire block, & seemed like it took up the space of three restaurants.
While the taste was good, I didn't think it was anything spectacular; nothing tasted elevated or luxurious. It was overpriced & tasting menu items were simply olives or salads or just something small. I wouldn't recommend this place simply because of the price.View more
APB
Insanely expensive for what it is. Don't get the'tasting menu' it's a scam. It's just a prix fixe family style menu & wildly overpriced.
$570 (incl tip) for 3 people 3 drinks. .
Salad, 2 dips, 2 cheese apps, 6 pieces of grilled chicken (nuggets) 3 pieces rack of lamb, ice cream dessert. Insane price for what it is.
Too many servers attending your table is annoying not nice. Go to Le Violon for a
beautiful meal & much less money.View more
Bhargavi
Service was excellent. Our server Emil was very knowledgeable & kind & provided great recommendations without us asking. We did the tasting menu & they were very accommodating of the vegetarian diet. My meal was just as elaborate & thoughtfully done as the meat dishes & they even accommodated the no egg requirement. That is usually not the case. Each course was excellent & better than the previous course…all up until the dessert. We had told them it was our anniversary & they brought a plate with a deconstructed panna cotta & lemon coolie of sorts, with some crushed up chocolate cookie on top. It was so basic & underwhelming compared to the other dishes in the tasting menu. It sounded like the desserts rotated so guess it wasn't our lucky day. Price is definitely on the higher end but I guess you're paying for the creativity & presentation. Overall an awesome meal & I would highly recommend this restaurant.View more
Pina
Hello, we went to eat Sunday for Mother's day the food spectacular like always but the bus girl that was working in our section wow she needs a lot of training we felt like we were bothering her didn't wait for us to finish before removing the dishes, clean the table with the rag like saying leave.
Very disappointed
Your restaurant it's not MacDonald neither is the price of the foodView more
Elissa
this place is most definitely overhyped, now the food is good but the price point is not justifiable & it didnt feel like authentic arabic food felt more like fusion. Would highly recommend the cheese puffs & the mouhamara, they give you unlimited fresh pita which is nice, service is very good, its a big restaurant with alot of room & is kid friendly, no parking thoughView more
Domenic
1st time there was hesitant on type of food being Italian but got to say it was excellent table of 4 we shared all the food service was outstanding & price was faiView more
Kathleen
Service was excellent - efficient, friendly, prompt & non invasive. Small hiccup when I asked for a latte at the end & they brought me a Turkish coffee.
Ambiance was nice - lighting, & music were peaceful. Adequate space. Not too loud. You feel very far away from the person on the other side of the table though.
Food was good, not great. Fresh & some plates were creative, but not remotely worth the price. Cost was straight up blasphemous.
Two tasters menues with a coffee costing almost 500 $ is beyond comprehensible to me- especially for the quantity.
My partner(who is Syrian), & I were underwhelmed.
Will not be returning.View more
Yanick
It makes me sad to write this but it was three years since my last visit & the quality & generosity seems to have decreased substantially. For the price of the tasting menu the portions are really disappointing & our group left feeling ripped off. For $500 including 2 cocktails & tip, we expected a lot more.View more
Hannah
One of the best meals I've EVER had & I travel a lot (& I'll try anything). Incredible dishes & impeccable service. I would highly recommend the tasting menu, as it's totally worth the price.View more
HFF
Too expensive for what you get
You can definitely find a better highend restaurant
The service was great & the atmosphere too, howerver the food was just ok…& prices are pretty high for what you getView more
Topcho
The place is more than amazing , the food , the service , the ambience & atmosphere . I really , really enjoyed the restaurant & it was totally worth the price . I will definitely come back . Thank you to all the Damas team !View more
Irene
First visit: Feb 2025. Great food, horrible pricing
The good: amazing food & service. We tried the 5 course tasting menu for 3. We had everything from salad, lamb, to fish & more.
Overall the flavors are really good & the staff was amazing.
The not so good: the olives were very salty & the kibe (?) Was mushy & not good at all.
The $22 drink was good but very small. The small pieces of rack of lamb were cooked well but not seasonsed too well.
the pricing was $160 per person. For the amount of food we were offered, this was easily 2x more than it should have been.
We understand the cost of running a business & the value of good food & service, but $22 for a very small drink & $160 per person when 1 course was literally & egg with cheese & a slice of charcuterie & the last course was a few small pieces of baclava. The pricing was not on par with what was served.
I am not usually this picky but for this price. I am going over every little detail...
Satisfied with the flavors & service but not for nearly $600 with the tax & tip.View more
Maggie
For the price point, this experience was extremely disappointing. The food was good, not great. The server was friendly but the overall service was not at the quality expected for the price point. Food took too long to come so by the second course we were too full & had to cancel our remaining order. The end of the evening was the most disappointing as their dessert menu was absolutely not up to par, no pastries or cakes, just ice cream ($20 ice cream!!!) or baclava. Absolutely shocking to be paying that much for what you get. I would never recommend this restaurant. You will eat much better food at a hole in the wall falafel place.View more
Sami
We had dinner for two here & were apprehensive about price when looking at their online menu. Every dish we had was beautifully presented & was made with fresh & savory ingredients. Service was very attentive & unrushed. Seating was comfortable & environment very inviting. Yes this meal with be more expensive than at the average middle eastern restaurant in Montreal, but this is most certainly not your average middle eastern restaurant by any means.View more
Claus
I realize that this review will not make a dent in the overwhelmingly positive reviews, but I wanted to share our experience to add another perspective. We arrived with very high expectations due to the hype & went for the tasting menu with the premium wine package. In total we spent around $750 for two persons, a price level which obviously comes with expectations. The meal was completely fine, but underwhelming. The highlights were the amouse bouche, shrimp, & the "kiwi" dish. The rest was quite average. We never got to taste the dessert. Wine is, of course, a subjective matter, but while the sommelier seemed knowledgeable, many of the wines were too untraditional & special for our taste. Perhaps the regular wine pairing would have been a safer choice. The restaurant itself was nicely decorated, but the noise level where we were seated was very high. It was a struggle to keep a conversation going, requiring us to lean in & often repeat ourselves, which is not what we expect when spending that much on a couples dinner. We saw multiple other groups of customers getting moved to other parts of the restaurant, & assume they might have asked for that, to escape the noise. In hindsight, we should have done the same. While highly praised in other reviews, unfortunately the worst part of our experience was the service. Every single employee we were in contact with seemed nice & friendly, but while the waiter on water duty was attentive, unfortunately our main waiter was not. He excused himself after the first serving, assuring us that he had not forgotten us, but as the night wore on, it seems that he did. After finishing the servings of grilled meats, we sat for 40 minutes with no one approaching us or making any attempts to move on to the dessert. When we finally managed to get the attention of our main server, we had spent more than three hours on the meal & were more than ready to leave, so we ended up forgoing the dessert as we simply did not have the patience or energy to spend more time in the restaurant. Other customers that arrived much later than us, had finished their desserts, before we decided not to wait for ours. I am convinced that most other customers do not have the same experience that we do, but unfortunately it feels like we just threw a lot of money at something very disappointing.View more
Andy
Damas is a famed Montreal restaurant that is hyped to be the best Syrian spot in town. The warm decor, beautiful lights, & upscale nature really makes this a place for special occasions. My friend was able to book us a table for a late night meal about a month in advance. They absolutely get booked up so if you want a table, be sure to plan ahead & make that reservation. Menu items are meant to be shared family style. As a vegan, it was admittedly hard for me to really justify ordering anything sharable that others would want given how pricy everything is on the menu. The two mezzes we had including the Fattoush Salad & their Hummus were already $50 for those alone, so you can imagine how high everything else would have been added up. I enjoyed the salad & its use of fresh ingredients, along with the hummus (which was by no means the best, but a solid hummus nonetheless). I really liked the circular pita that they provided with the hummus as it made for a great dipping mechanism for all of us. I don't think it's worth the price/value for someone that is plant based, despite them having options like grilled vegetables & what appeared to be a heartier legume dish. I think the price for these dishes is what get me so I can't in good faith absolutely recommend it unless you are someone that consumes animal products. With that said, the experience was great & I am very grateful to have even been a part of a meal with great company.View more
Adam
This place has a reputation & after all the hype we didn't feel like it lived up to it. Many if not most of the reviews talk about how excellent this place is if you're visiting Montreal - so, for a tourist experience or if you're not in the city often, it may hold up. But for these prices, & with so many wonderful options in this city, it was just way too much for too little. Good, solid tasty food, good service, a little slow, good cocktails, but with an atmosphere better suited for the'burbs. Overall should be half the price. Okay experience but won't be returning.View more
Bog
Everything was delicious! Price point is higher but the mains are shareable! The meat dish for 2-3 people is actually large enough for 3-4 people I would say.View more
James
This was our first experience at Damas as we were recommended it by friends & we were not disappointed. With this price point (It was a birthday celebration so we splurged), we had very high expectations. However, from my first phone calls to ensure a nice table, to the drinks, the incredible food & the impeccable service, we were truly overjoyed with our experience. We enjoyed the tasting menu & were so thankful for, not only the presentation of this truly gastronomic experience, but also the equally amazing service & explanations of each dish. (We ended up having 1 principal server & 3 other servers ensuring that our evening was unfolding well & that we were well taken care of throughout our evening!). They were very conscious of a dietary restriction & ensured that it was addressed at each tasting. Bravo to the service team & chefs at Damas! Highly recommended & looking forward to our next experience there soon!View more
Cynthia
I will start by saying that we've heard nothing but rave reviews about Damas & have had this restaurant on our list for a while. However, when you're paying over $500 for a meal, we were expecting to be wowed & were not. We chose the tasting menu & although the food was very good, it was frankly not worth the price point. Some courses were extremely simple with one dimensional flavour (ex: the olives, the fattoush salad) Also, we were charged for tea during the dessert, which we found odd to not have been already included in the tasting menu at $160 per person. The most disappointing part was definitely the service. The servers seemed very out of sync, always getting in each others way & knocking things at our table on two separate occasions. They also took our plates away while we were still eating, which completely surprised me. It felt very rushed & tarnished the experience. We were also not given bread when we noticed all other tables had, & had to ask for some. Overall, there was a level of refinement & depth of flavour missing for us, especially at this price point & compared to other iconic restaurants in Montreal. We will not be returning.View more
Julie
Back in the day, I would have given a million stars to this restaurant. In fact, it should have been almost Michelin level. We had tried the tasting menu, & every single bite was spectacular, & the prices were much more reasonable. Last night, we returned expecting that same level of deliciousness, but it was just good, not amazing, nothing special. We had 2 apps (Hummus & Mouhammara), & 2 mains (Sea bass - lacked flavor but was cooked nicely - & Lamb dumplings). The best thing was the Mouhammara, & the rum Polo. I was disappointed to find the taste extremely lacking compared to my previous experience, & the prices had skyrocketed. What you get for what you pay just doesn't add up anymore. I'm sorry to say, but that was my last experience dining at Damas.View more
V
Decent restaurant. Worth the first visit to try. Upscale Syrian restaurant, with reasonably tasty dishes, somewhat overpriced, & overhyped. Menu is quite rich, with great flavors. Many of the Syrian / mediterranean dishes can be prepared with different variations, & the variations they serve are made a bit more continental / American. Restaurant feels a bit stuffy. Does not have a relaxed feel to it. They have a nice outdoor patio. They have a CAD 150 / person tasting option, that has 10-12 dishes (probably smaller versions). We ordered 6 a-la-carte options, & price was a bit lower, closer to CAD 100 / person. Some items seemed overpriced, like 5 small lamb cabob for 44. Was worth the first visit, but won't return. Too far from the hotel areas, & a bit pricey for what you get. TYView more
Sam
Everything was a 10/10. The taste of the food here is so unparalleled. I think it was worth the price esp cause of the lovely atmosphere, decor & wonderful service. We had shish borek, mutabbal, cherry lamb kebabs & kunnafeh shrimpView more
Ayham
The food is usually excellent but this time something was a little off in all the dishes. It's not a big deal but for the price they charge I expect more consistency.View more
S
Been here several times. Recently, my perspective has changed dramatically about Damas. Once a top restaurant in Canada, now has turned into a cash grab. The prices here are outrageous, & nothing to justify it. The ingredients & meats are mostly all local products, not like they are importing seafood or getting wagyu beef. The food is decent, but honestly I likely would not be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test for a $30 dish at another restaurant. the menu has changed as well, & it is not as attractive as it once use to be. Only way I would go back is with a tasting menu, otherwise, just not the same... - Appetizers hummus & beet hummus were good, nothing out of this world - Meals - meat platter & chicken shish taouk, same were good, nothing out of this world. The lamb rack on the meat platter wasn't good, no one enjoyed it, same with some deep fried meat, that was extremely dry. - Had three of the desserts & they were all terrible, left a bad taste leaving the restaurantView more
Omar
Is it good ? SURE ! Is it the best tasting food ? No. The basterma bites were AMAZING & better than the mains. Is it worth the outrageous prices ? not at all. The staff were very professional & nice though !!!View more
Marty
We chose the prix fixe pescatarian tasting menu, which came with a lot of food. Salad, babaganoush, egg/pita, falafel, octopus, stuffed grape leaves, bulgur, fish & baklava. We enjoyed this feast with a refreshing white wine from Syria. The highlights were the babaganoush (truly a surprising flavour explosion), falafel, octopus & fish entree. The food was very solid with a few surprising stand outs. The service & atmosphere was typical for such a big space (reminded me a bit of Dishoom). However, the price was very steep & would have appreciated some guidance on our tasting menu choice. (Assuming this would have knocked a couple hundred $ off our dinner for two...making it more palpable)View more
JP
The service was very good as was the atmosphere & the restaurant. The food was perfectly executed Middle Eastern fare & very tasty but at that price point, I'd expect some kind of innovation or something you couldn't find elsewhere.View more
Jacob
EDIT: The owner reached out to me after I posted this, & was very apologetic & just wanted me to come back & give Damas another chance. I'm increasing the service rating as this was entirely surprising & made me feel that the ownership genuinely cares about the guest experience. I really wish I could rate Damas in line with the quality of its cuisine-if I could, it would easily earn five stars. However, high prices come with high expectations, many of which were unmet during our visit. A particularly notable issue was our water glasses being refilled only once over a two-hour tasting menu. My partner & I had eagerly anticipated this visit for months, considering Damas the highlight of our trip. Unfortunately, after our initial order was taken, our waiter seemed to vanish, & my partner's attempts to flag down another staff member were necessary just to get another drink. This incident exemplifies the overall lack of attentiveness we experienced. Despite these service shortcomings, the food at Damas is truly exceptional & stands out markedly from its competitors. The lamb in particular was the best bit of meat, I have ever had. For those who don't mind a struggle for basic customer service, Damas could still be a fair choice. For future patrons, I might recommend visiting during less busy times or for occasions where the pace of service isn't of consequence.View more