My current favourite for the year? Café Hookah Lounge on St-Denis. You can catch me there every week or two enjoying a Green Apple + Mint combination, either with mint tea or a gin & tonic. The place is way too small, so make sure you go in early if you want to enjoy some hookah.

I haven’t been to every lounge on this list, so I welcome suggestions/corrections (including places I haven’t mentioned) to make this post up to date. In alphabetical order:

• Al-Dar
• Arabesque
• Café Al-Dar
• Café Boudoir (new)
• Café Gitana
• Café Hookah Lounge
• Café Le Notre
• Café Sphinx
• Chez Zaza
• Habibi Restaurant Café: I’ve been to this place once (first time). It was decent.
• Lordia (Laval)
• La Palma Resto-Café
• Les Mentheurs
• Les Nuits du Sahara
• Restaurant Adonisia (Laval)
• Rex Café
• Sequoia
• Sherazade
• Taouk du Québec (Longueuil)
• Toot Café
• Volluume (Laval)

The following places are no more:

• Kafein: I have no idea what happened, but they supposedly stopped serving shisha. If anyone has any news or clues, I would like to hear about it. My first guess is they weren’t licensed.
• Orienthé: mentioned in the comments below by Lauren, this place no longer offers shisha.

What is your favourite place hookah/shisha lounge in Montreal?

I currently have this little voting list going on in another post that you guys may want to check out. Currently, the best shisha place in Montreal (rated by Montrealers) is Sherazad. If you don’t like how the list looks so far, then you guys better do something about it (which is: vote). Owners, take note of the following criticisms I have of your places!

• Toot Café: My first downtown shisha experience with friends. It’s a cozy place (last I visited) and might need to be renovated here and there, but still an okay establishment.
• Sherazade: Right now, this is my favourite place downtown. The service and the quality of the shisha is great. They’re not cheap on the coals either.
• Orienthé: My second pick when it comes to smoking downtown. I don’t like the seating system that much and the fact that you have to take your shoes off inside (but I’ll let it slide for now). The outside terrace is much better, especially during the summer time. Sometimes, it’s way too hot inside and uncomfortable after extended seating periods. What’s better than the shisha here is the Moroccan mint tea. This stuff is gold.
• Café Al-Dar: Shisha is… ehh, okay. The tea is quite good. Plenty of seating for all your friends. The crowd can be quite sketchy sometimes.
• Kafein: Turn down the music already! I want to enjoy shisha with my friends, not by myself listening to loud music. The shisha bowls are either underpacked or not properly prepared (too many holes in the foil, too dry, etc). Right now at the bottom of my place. Only time you’ll catch me in there is if I’m somehow banned from everywhere else.

There’s also the following places, but I have yet to try them out.

• Café Gitana
• Chez Zaza: I haven’t smoked there yet, but when I asked to buy Al Fakher tobacco, I was promptly told they can’t sell it to me. Instead, they gave me dried up Nakleh tobacco and charged me 20$ for a small box. Only reason I bought it was because of an emergency (smoking at my friends’ engagement party). Serious. I ended up throwing the box in the trash since there was virtually no moisture in the packaging.

Am I missing any places here? We need to create a master list of shisha places in Montreal or something.

The birthday invitation said the party starts at 9:30 PM and ends at 3:00 AM. With a little bit of math and experience, I concluded I should hit the place up at 10:30 PM. Reason why I delayed by an hour was because I know middle-easterners like me always tend to be late. I was right again this time, as only half of the invitees arrived when I got there. Secondly, the appetizers (not to mention the main dishes) are always served late… always. There’s no point of going early to these types of places because you’ll go crazy while you starve. I recommend you curb your appetite with a little snack before you go to Lordia. You’ll thank me later.

Within twenty minutes of sitting down, the cold and hot mezzes were served (my timing was perfect) and they looked pretty good. There was the usual tabbouleh, hummus, basterma, soujouk, falafel, balila and stuff you would have no clue what they are judging by their names. I can assure you they all taste great, especially this one little dish that had an orange-ish cream with escargots floating in it. Escargots! At this point of my night, I was very pleased with the way things were going.

One thing people don’t know about these types of restaurants is that the main dishes are always served very, very late… I’m talking twelve o’clock here, sometimes as late as 1 AM. It’s best you feast on the mezzes as much as you can, because you might starve to death till the meat arrives.

One thing I highly recommend is the shisha [arguile] while you wait for your food to arrive. The tobacco tends to suppress your appetite just a bit and allows you to socialize with your gathering over a bottle of wine, relaxing you and all the while keeping your mind off the food. You will, of course, have access to the mezzes while you smoke and drink. When the meat and chicken dish finally arrived, everyone on my table attacked it at the same time. Both the meat and chicken were well cooked (via charcoal) and had plenty of flavour. The wait was definitely worthwhile.

I’d like to mention one thing in particular that really set the mood for Lordia. There is this one guy with a crazy-awesome moustache and red hat who walks around, making sure everything is up to par on your table and to your liking. He’s also the guy who brings you the shisha and makes sure your charcoal on the bowl is lit at all times. If he catches you touching the charcoal, he tells you to keep your hands off it and that it’s his job. I was told that he is the owner of Lordia, but I cannot verify this right now. Awesome service is all I got to say.

Pros

• Amazing shisha/arguile, one of the best smokes I’ve had
• Nice decor and atmosphere, very clean
• Professional & friendly staff members and waiters
• There is a belly dancer. Belly dancer.

Cons

• Washrooms a bit too small, no ventilation, steamy…
• Music a bit too loud sometimes, cuts through conversations
• Main dishes served a bit too late

The nicest lounge I’ve been to that definitely had some class was called Suite 3930 on St-Laurent boulevard. It was nicely decorated, the staff was friendly and the music wasn’t loud at all. You could actually sustain a conversation with a friend without having to shout in each others ears. The prices were decent too, and the shisha itself was the best I’ve had in Montreal (besides my creations…). The owner eventually made his business private and only approved certain guests to come in (basically a private shisha lounge, a first of its kind). Sadly, this place literally disappeared the following day when I tried to go for a second round of smoking after being 6 months or so open. Their phone lines were cut off, doors bolted shut, curtains over the windows… it was all tell-tale signs of abandonment. I suspect the owners fled the country for whatever reason(s), most likely avoiding taxes or they might not have had the appropriate smoking licenses in place to run such a joint.

For the longest time, a friend of mine and I discussed the possibility of opening up our own shisha lounge for kicks. We’d design the place to be comfortable, modern and overall be fresh. Comfortable couches and chairs would be the norm (ones with cushion at that) proper ventilation all around to keep the air circulated & clean, have a dress code in effect, and definitely serve the finest tobacco out there: Al Fakher of course. Montreal wouldn’t know what’s coming to them, and we’d seriously have a nice niche going, serving more mature and higher-end clientèle. Of course, this dream got shattered once we found out that we couldn’t get a smoking permit anymore. Too bad.