Beet gravlax sandwich with pickled vegetables at Marcus Restaurant
If it seems strange to start a hotel feature with a photo of a plate of vegetables, then perhaps you haven’t visited the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal and its Marcus Restaurant.
This link in the luxury hotel chain, home to the first Canadian restaurant by New York-based celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, opened in April (2019) in downtown Montreal. And based on my stay during the property’s opening week, it’s worth booking whether you’re in town to eat, drink, or get a good night’s sleep.
Here’s the scoop:
Four Seasons Hotel Montreal
Facilities and Services
On a side street in downtown Montreal’s “Golden Mile” district, the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal occupies the first 12 stories of a stylish glass tower, with four floors of private residences on the upper levels.
From the street-level entrance, where fish artwork over the revolving door hints at the specialty in the seafood-centric Marcus Restaurant, valet staff direct guests to different elevator banks, depending on whether you’re heading to the restaurant and lounge or to the hotel reception, which occupy different sections of the building’s third floor. In the lobby, with pink velvet walls, staff greet arriving guests by name.
Marcus Lounge
Around the corner from the reception area, Marcus Lounge is very much a social space, with lots of areas set up for casual meetings or conversations. TIP: If you’re visiting the lounge with someone special, ask to sit in the “lovers’ nook” — a hidden booth for two, with private access to the bar.
On the 6th floor, the hotel has a huge 24-hour fitness room, with a large selection of cardio machines and weights, as well as a stretching area. There will be an indoor pool with a skylight, although it hadn’t yet opened during my stay.
The full-service spa, which has a stone “reflexology footpath” to stimulate the acupressure points on the bottoms of your feet, as well as a hydrotherapy experience designed to promote relaxation, is on the first floor in a serene, almost cave-like space.
Guest room, Four Seasons Hotel Montreal
Guest Rooms and Amenities
The 169 guest rooms in this newly constructed property have all the modern technology you could want, from electrical outlets and USB ports by the bed and at the desk, to individual reading lamps on both sides of the headboard, to fast Wi-Fi. They’re also designed with energy-saving features that automatically adjust your thermostat when you leave the room and return it to the previous setting when you come back.
Despite all the high-tech features, the rooms feel a bit whimsical, too, with pink glass lamps, mauve chaise longues (or sofas in the larger suites), and round mirrored shelving set up as a bar.
Guest room bar
The night tables, desks, and bathrooms are done in white and grey marble. In about half of the guest rooms, there’s a deep soaker tub, in addition to a rain shower, with folding doors that open between the bath area and the bedroom.
Bathroom, with doors to the bedroom
Other room amenities include thick robes, slippers, safes, umbrellas, tea kettles, and Nespresso machines. Among the products in the mini-bar is gin from Cirka, Montreal’s first craft distillery.
Rooms come with yoga mats, and there’s plenty of space to use them.
Marcus Restaurant, Four Seasons Hotel Montreal
Marcus Restaurant
Chef Marcus Samuelsson, who previously helmed New York’s Aquavit Restaurant and now runs Red Rooster in Harlem, has drawn on elements of his diverse heritage — he was born in Ethiopia and raised by an adoptive family in Sweden — in developing the menu at the hotel’s Marcus Restaurant.
The dinner menu emphasizes seafood, served primarily in small plates designed to share, from scallops in a hibiscus tea broth, to robata-grilled salmon belly, to a surprisingly excellent seafood sausage.
The breakfast menu is equally interesting, with selections like beet-cured gravlax served as an open-face sandwich piled high with pickled vegetables, or “hoe cakes” — thick corn meal pancakes layered with fresh berries and whipped cream.
I’d come back to Montreal, and to this stylish new Four Seasons Hotel, just for these excellent morning meals.
“Hoe cakes” with fresh berries and cream
Rates
Double room rates at the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal start at about CAD$425/night. You can also go to Expedia or other booking sites to compare rates.
Hotel feature by Vancouver-based travel, food, and feature writer Carolyn B. Heller. Photos © Carolyn B. Heller. The Four Seasons Hotel Montreal and Tourism Montreal arranged my stay for review purposes.
