Joe Beef
RestaurantTop Pick
Joe Beef
Relaxed restaurant & bar serving steaks & seafood in a compact, old-school setting.
Opens Tuesday at 5 pm
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 5 pm - 10:30 pm |
| Wednesday | 5 pm - 10:30 pm |
| Thursday | 5 pm - 10:30 pm |
| Friday | 5 pm - 10:30 pm |
| Saturday | 5 pm - 10:30 pm |
| Sunday | Closed Today |
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Info & Location
Old Montreal restaurant classics in the heart of Little Burgundy. An homage to Charles "Joe-Beef" McKiernan, 19th century innkeeper and Montreal working class hero. A drunken crawl away from the Historic Atwater market. Steaks and seafood.
Amenities, services & more
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Reviews often mention
Display Alllobster(108) steak(73) spaghetti(71) sauce(57) wine(56) recommend(48) dessert(46) dishes(38) attentive(35)Page 2 of 2 - 46 Reviews
Molly
One of the best restaurant experiences I've had to date! The food was truly amazing, worth every penny & truly lives up to the hype. Service was great, super personable & kind. Atmosphere was amazing & I will recommend this place to anyone looking for a special meal in Montreal .View more
Maddie
Intimate yet lively spot for an incredible meal. The perfect place to get a little dressed up, enjoy a few drinks, & splurge on some very high quality dishes. Hangar steak was tender, juicy, & flavorful all on its own. A true beef: what other beefs aspire to taste like. The optional mushroom sauce added a complex flavor profile, but I felt the steak could certainly stand on its own too. Veggie platter was large, filling, & tasted fresh off the farm. Not the mention, the generous helping of shrimp, fish, & cuttlefish. The raw tuna was aesthetically unorthodox, but paired with the tomato & caper sauce, was bright, tart, & surprising. I definitely recommend Joe Beef for a special dinner in a darling neighborhood!View more
Andy
Wowwwww joe beef did not disappoint. Heard great things before arriving into town. We were able to secure a same day reservation & arrived hungry. We shared the bread (which was insanely good, so good we ordered 3 orders for 5 people, & ate it all, & then talked about it on the walk home) Steak for two, was wonderfully prepared. The lobster spaghetti, also incredible. Oysters & veggie platter. Everything was amazing. I will return next trip to Montreal. Honorable mention, great NA beer for me & they had frozen olives in the martinis for my drinking friends. Highly recommend joe beefView more
Nadina
Really enjoyed our meal here - delicious, cooked & seasoned to perfection, beautifully presented. Staff were very attentive & knowledgeable & made us feel so welcome. Overall, great atmosphere, would recommendView more
Sarah
Highly recommend Joe Beef. The staff & management went above & beyond to accommodate my food allergy. I appreciate how easy they made it for me. The food was amazing & atmosphere was perfect. We went for dinner after a long day. If you have a food allergy make sure to reach out to the restaurant to give them a chance to prepare for your visit. Will definitely keep Joe Beef in mind for our next trip to Montreal.View more
Luke
One of the best meals I've had in a long time, definitely living up to its reputation. Cozy interior with wonderful staff, I would highly recommend taking them up on the offer to guide you through the menu as there were a number of dishes we would have not normally chosen that hit the spot. We'll be back, I can see why this place is such a staple.View more
Tony
A wonderful evening. Food was top notch & well worth the reputation; excellent technique & ingredients. Service was great given the type of restaurant. Wine recommendations top notch. Would recommend.View more
Melissa
I really wanted to love this place. The food was good but nothing special. The server assistant was good & the only saving grace. The Server however was awful. Not friendly, not attentive & body shamed me for eating the lobster pasta. Would not return or recommendView more
Jon
The most important thing, the food, was a disappointment. The raw tuna ($30 + tax) was seven small squares of thinly sliced tuna on quite average potato chips with tiny dollops of'dip,' a very insubstantial & underwhelming dish. In the next dish, the'clear borscht' was just a consommé, the smoked herring was like the tuna too insubstantial & the pommes dauphines were soggy (yuck). The famous lobster pasta, an eye watering $71+tax: the lobster was too small a portion (including a large decorative but empty shell on top) & had a rubbery texture, either not having been cooked or sourced well (but at least you know you're getting a famous dish circa 2005...). The pasta was tasty if far too salty, but more importantly, they do not mention on the menu that it's prepared with small pieces of bacon in the sauce; not very thoughtful for anyone who is pescatarian or doesn't eat meat or pork. The Cornish hen was succulent & excellent overall, the one good dish. The service was excellent, as you would expect. Overall, I would not return & cannot recommend.View more
Otus
Felt the food did not live up to the expectation & price point. Staff were nice & atmosphere was great. Would recommend going somewhere else though if you're looking for a great meal.View more
Miki
Amazing staff that are very attentive, even though the place is super busy all the time. Food is flawless, I would definitely recommend making resos well ahead of time.View more
Jude
Great good. We had the steak, oysters, clams, lobster spaghetti & the bloody ceasars....all items were top notch. The staff was great & friendly while service was fast. Prices are a bit on the higher side but well worth it & reasonable. Definitely would recommend. 10/10.View more
Mandy
Joe beef is the top rank Canada restaurant & certainly I have high expectation. However high expectation means high disappointment. We ordered scallop sashimi (features of the day), escargot, lobster spaghetti, hanger steak & dessert? I expect wow factor in this meal, but end up wow, very average. The scallop sashimi has nothing special & cost $24 for two little scallops sashimi. The most disappointment is the $75 half lobster spaghetti. It is their signature plate, but the lobster is not fresh at all tonight, the lobster meat has no lobster taste & the meat is not firm. Overall, I don’t recommend. Montreal is noticeable for nice dining, but tonight is an exception.View more
Victoria
this is going to be a more personal review. the food is amazing & so was the service. definitely worth the price. BUT, the food was a bit cold when we got it. additionally, the atmosphere wasn’t what you’d expect from such a high end restaurant. i went during the summer & fruit flies are expected near the bar & kitchen, but the amount of actual flies i noticed around the dining room was very concerning. i think i counted 10 flies just above our table. maybe this was just a one time thing but it was definitely a turn off while eating your food. i’d like to also add that all the doors that were visible to the clients were closed. small note but the music felt more like club music rather than fine dining music which also kind of makes the whole experience a bit weird. additionally, the restaurant is kid friendly (or at least, they accept children). this might not matter to some, but it really made our experience so so. there was a big family sitting behind us & they had 2 small children that would not stop crying & screaming. this is definitely not the restaurants fault, nor the kids (obviously) but i was a bit confused how the parents didn’t try to make the kids calm down. if you would like to have a calmer experience & are like me, i would recommend asking the restaurant to not sit you close to a family with small children if possible.
in conclusion, the food & service is just phenomenal. yet, the atmosphere & vibe weren’t the best.
definitely recommend coming but take my advice when reserving.
& i hope the whole fly thing was noticed by staff & resolved.
thanks for having us Joe BeefView more
Grace
We had high expectations given the title of former #1 best restaurant in Canada but we were very disappointed. We even wondered how this could have ever been even in the top 100. Given the price point, we were expecting a certain quality of food & level of service & ambiance that just wasn’t there.
For apps, we had:
- smoked eggplant: it was a cold dish, which was unexpected with eggplant (i prefer them warm but ok fine), flavour was great but needed a touch more salt, bit of crunch from the crostini was perfect, the olive oil was great
- foie gras entremet: it’s like a foie gras cake, which was a cool concept except the dish was so sweet you couldn’t taste the foie gras. It was like a foie gras dish for ppl who don’t like foie gras (but then why would you get it lol)
Mains:
- lobster pasta: seems to be what they’re known for but was sorely disappointed in this poor spin on carbonara with coconut milk. I like food that is out there but the coconut milk just made absolutely no sense here. Without the lobster, you would have never known it was lobster pasta. The lobster was also overcooked & you only get half for a small portion. It just felt so overpriced for what you get, & the dish wasn’t even good. I was really sad.
- guinea fowl: this daily special saved the dinner for us, the meat was crispy on the outside, perfectly cooked inside, super juicy, gravy was not too heavy. However, the lack of carbs from the dish was really noticeable. It would have been great to mop up the sauce with some bread even.
Service: Normally I don’t rate on service, but I think it’s reasonable to expect a $$$$ restaurant to have at least decent service. We did not feel welcomed the minute we walked in. We stood at the host table for a solid 5 minutes before a host even acknowledged us standing in front of them. It took almost a full hour for apps to come out. Mains took equally as long despite half the restaurant being empty (it was near closing, we were the last time slot).
Ambiance: It was way too loud in there. Music was very loud so everyone had to talk louder to hear each other. We ended up having to almost yell to hear what the other person was saying across the table. The tables were really close together & they were unstable - I almost knocked our table over several times because I leaned on the corner a bit trying to shuffle in & out.
Overall, very disappointed in our experience here. It felt like a mediocre diner charging fine dining price points but failing miserably on delivery. I don’t recommend coming here at all, save your hard earned money for better food, especially at this price point.View more
DanM-3338
1 Review
Food was hit or miss, we ordered 3 appetizers & 4 entrees that were shared. The service was great, it's just a shame that the food didn't live up to the hype. We would definitely not recommend, especially when you consider how expensive it is.