Garage Beirut serves authentic Lebanese and Middle Eastern dishes that emphasize traditional preparation methods and bold, aromatic spice profiles. The menu showcases a variety of charcoal-grilled meats, savory mezze platters, and fresh vegetable preparations rooted in Mediterranean culinary traditions. Guests interact with an environment defined by industrial-inspired aesthetics that contrast with the warmth of classic Levantine hospitality. Each plate focuses on the balance of textures, utilizing essential ingredients like tahini, zaatar, and hand-pressed olive oil to ground the flavor experience. This establishment prioritizes the integrity of regional staples by maintaining consistent standards for authentic preparation and plate presentation. The atmosphere remains structured around casual communal engagement, allowing the robust flavors of the Levant to take center stage in every serving provided to the patrons.
Garage Beirut is widely regarded as an authentic gem in Montreal, celebrated for its high-quality Lebanese cuisine, cozy atmosphere, and exceptionally warm service. Many guests praise the freshness and depth of flavor in dishes like the dip platters, grilled meats, and traditional mezze, often highlighting the restaurant's ability to recreate the nostalgic, homemade feel of classic Lebanese cooking. While the majority of diners find the food outstanding and the staff highly accommodating, some visitors express concerns regarding pricing, noting that portions can feel small relative to the cost. Additionally, due to the restaurant's small size and popularity, reservations are strongly recommended, though a few patrons have noted challenges with noise levels during busy hours or inconsistent experiences with portion sizes and value.
This place is a hidden gem & has authentic Lebanese food. It's a small place, so make sure to make a reservation to secure a table.
The food. Incredible. We had the fattoush salad, dip tasters, the shish taouk, shish taouk chilli chicken & the garlic potatoes. Everything was delicious, but I do have to highlight the garlic potatoes! The best I have ever had! The garlic dip & fresh pitas are also good. I also recommend the red house wine or a beruit beer.
The staff was very friendly & attentive. Made our experience that much better.
I liked trying Garage Beirut, the food was good & the staff was great as well!
However, in terms of value for money, I did find it quite pricey for the portions served. We ordered the dip platter, which came with four individually sized dips to share, which was understandable. We also ordered one shish taouk & one kefta plate (+ 1 lemonade, +1 coke 0)
The kefta plate came with two skewers, some pickles, & a bit of onion & garlic sauce, while the shish taouk plate was basically the equivalent of two chicken skewers with pickles, half an onion & a bit of hummus. The portions were pretty small considering each plate cost around $25, which isn't insignificant.
In total, we ended up paying about $97, which felt like a lot for the amount of food we were served.
Really good place ! Very kind staff. We are vegetarians, ordered the dip taster & fatter hummus - both delicious & filling. Will be back when we are in Montreal :)
Small underground restaurant on the cozier side for sure. Best Lebanese food I've had so far! Their dip sampler is a must order & chicken was juicy! Reservations are highly recommended.
Food was incredibly bland & tasteless. The dips lacked a garlicky & olive oil taste. The rice lacked any aroma. The chicken & koftan were both bland, dry, & nothing special.
Had been meaning to go here for years. It did not disappoint. Had the dip spread, kebabs & fattoush salad & a lemonade to drink. Everything was excellent, highly recommended!
My friends & I traveled to Montreal for the first time & this was the first dinner location we tried. Lebanese food was new to most of us but we were excited to try! The atmosphere & interactions felt very cozy & personal, almost like we were joining someone's home for dinner.
The food was delicious! Being new to Lebanese, I was so excited to see many vegetarian options as well! I unfortunately did not get any pictures of the food! We tried the dip taster that allowed us to try lots of smaller plates of hummus, baba ghannouj, labneh, & muhammara. We had the tabbouleh & vegetarian kibbeh as well. But the star of the show for me was the fried cheese, rikakat jebneh!
Will definitely visit again if I come back to Montreal! Thank you for the wonderful hospitality!
Garage Beruit has incredible food! The depth of the flavor in everything we ordered was remarkable! It's one of the best meals I've ever eaten. We ordered the 4 dips on the appetizer menu & each one had a unique flavor drizzled with the best fruity tasting olive oil. We also ordered the 4 deep fried appetizers. The round darker colored one (sorry I don't speak French & I don't remember what it was called) was delicious! The spices in it complemented each other perfectly to create a warm bite of heaven. Then we got the chicken skewer as well. The chicken was perfectly well done, but not over done-juicy & well spiced. Compliments to the chef for a meal I will never forget!
The place itself is tiny. Tried to get a reservation on same day via website, & it was apparently fully booked... decided to go anyway hoping we may be able to sit if we waited a little bit; Lo & behold, the place was completely empty??? So no wait time for us (yay!)
Service:
Service was quick & courteous without more... exchanged maybe 15 words with the waitress from start to finish.
Food:
We ordered
- Fattouch salad
- Cold mezzes tasting plater (hummus, baba ganouj, labneh & muhamara for 22$)
- Hot mezze tasting plater (patries - for 24$)
- kibbeh neye (raw beef with bulgur)
The kibbeh neye was good; its price,quality & quantity in line with other good libanese/syrian restaurants.
The fattoush salad was a ~mess~:
For 18$ I expect more salad than the size of my hand or at the very least a good quality salad. The salad was extremely bland; aside from the fresh mint & overly generous pomegranate molasses drizzle on top there was no identifiable dressing. There were giant chunks of tomatoes (1 1/2' thick), & about 3 large pieces of libanese cucumber.
The cold mezze were ~VERY~ expensive for their price & the quality was frankly not there. This was the worst baba banouj we've ever tasted (doubtful they even put salt in there), the muhamara was... okay, the labneh was a complete bust (plain, store-bought quality labneh decorated with ~dried~ mint. There was about 2 table spoons' worth of dip in every tiny bowl.
The hot mezzes were really good - again, too expensive for the size.
