Olive and Gourmet

olive + gourmando is a bakery, a café, a restaurant featuring daytime fare that’s as inventive as it is generous. Dyan Solomon and Eric Girad opened its door in June of 1998. They met while working at Toque. She was a pastry chef and he was a baker. At the time, Eric convinced Dyan that they should to take the plunge and open their own place.

They were two decent cooks who were purist when it came to ingredients and preparation. They knew they wanted to make an exceptional daytime food. They wanted to start by opening a bakery, and then evolve from there with homey sweets and lunch items that would push the envelope.

They found a space in Old Montreal on the corner of rue Saint-Paul and Rue Saint-Pierre. Back in the days noboby wanted to be in the Old Port, especially not the west end. There was nothing there but dive bars, gritty lofts and old-school drunks sleeping in the alleys.

But they loved the Old Port. The space had huge windows, the streets were cobblestone and lit at night with gas flames…it was romantic. But there was nobody there.

Not your usual place for new business owners with zero reputation or experience to open their first restaurant. They could never have predicted what west end of Old Montreal would become: a literal hub of tourism (the good kind)!