Mélanie Blanchette: Service and Hospitality at its Finest

Mélanie Blanchette is one of Montreal’s finest restaurateurs.
She is the co-owner of Bouillon Bilk, one of the city’s very best restaurants and a true staple of Montreal’s vibrant food scene; co-owner of Restaurant Cadet, located just steps from her first establishment; as well as Place Carmin, Oncle Lee, and Oncle Lee Kăo. This is the portrait of a hardworking woman entrepreneur we deeply admire—someone who has devoted herself for years to the craft of service and hospitality with passion.

“The restaurant business gives back what you’re willing to invest. At a time when people are seeking work–life balance, this industry really isn’t built for that reality. Holding hands with guests and laughing over wine—that’s not what it’s about at all. You give everything to hospitality, and it’s a lifestyle choice; it’s exciting and incredibly fun, but it’s also very demanding.”

Mélanie Blanchette’s early days

Mélanie Blanchette entered the restaurant world almost by chance. Looking for a student job, she was hired at Chez Ulysse et Pénélope in Sainte-Foy. She started with maintenance—cleaning bathrooms and the dining room, dishwashing, and other tasks—before being taken under the wing of two servers who taught her the craft. She later worked in an Irish pub, where, as she jokes, “My very first shift was on St. Patrick’s Day—can you believe it?!” She then joined L’Olive Noire, where “seeing the vision of a 26-year-old owner, living his stress and insecurities, was incredibly inspiring to me at the time. I had no idea I’d one day own a restaurant like that, but from an entrepreneurial perspective, it was fascinating.”

She later worked at the downtown Steak House at Gare du Palais, where she learned about meat cuts—“I was vegetarian!! We were selling 42-ounce steaks—do you know how big that is?!” (laughs).

During this time, Mélanie continued her studies in professional writing at Université Laval. Drawn to the arts and seeing more opportunities in Montreal, she moved there in 2004. Upon arriving, eager to be back on the restaurant floor, she immediately started working at Leméac—where, as she puts it, the stars aligned.

Leméac once again became a training ground for Mélanie in the art of service. “A good server is there for the guest, not for themselves. The customer isn’t always right, but the server isn’t there for their ego. I believe you can recover a situation with excellent service, but you can’t recover bad service with a dish, no matter how exquisite it is. If the service goes wrong, the guest feels personally targeted—and it’s almost impossible to fix that. That’s why great service is essential.”

Serving, she admits, is a tough job. “Yes—but it’s so passionate. What always shocked me was that people don’t see service as a real profession. But honestly, it’s a good thing they don’t realize how demanding it is. It means we’re doing our job well—we’re creating magic. And anyway, they’re not there for that.” And we couldn’t agree more. In an era where everything is online, service is, in our opinion, the most important factor in a restaurant experience.

Bouillon Bilk and Cadet

Mélanie then enrolled in finance at UQAM’s School of Management—“the best decision of my life.” She was working at Leméac while studying. At the time, François Nadon (chef of Bouillon Bilk) was working at Portus Calle. One of Mélanie’s close friends, Gabrielle Rioux (now Nadon’s partner and the mother of his children), introduced them. The three would finish work late and talk about restaurants on their way home. Mélanie stayed at Leméac for six wonderful years. In December 2010, she finished her university term, and she and François—without ever having worked together—decided to open Bouillon Bilk. The restaurant opened in March 2011.

Their initially improbable visions—François’s for the cuisine and Mélanie’s for service—weren’t always easy to reconcile in the early days, but they ultimately became the foundation of Bouillon Bilk’s resounding success.

At first, the restaurant was empty. Then people slowly began to understand and appreciate it; word of mouth did the rest. “We were in a somewhat overlooked area, and guests came in with an open mind, a favorable bias. People would say, ‘You won’t want to go in—it looks rough—but trust me.’” At the time, François and Mélanie had very little going for them. The restaurant became far more successful than expected, but “nothing was built for that! The dish pit, the electricity—everything broke constantly. I’d turn on the printer in the office and the mixer in the kitchen would explode! We were completely caught off guard and barely had time to react. But we were a tight-knit team and had so much fun: five servers, two maîtres d’hôtel, two bartenders, two runners, and one sommelier in 1,200 square feet. We almost had our full capacity just in staff!” (laughs)

Bouillon Bilk offers exceptional cuisine with rigorously crafted plates—high gastronomy served in a relaxed service environment. It’s an intellectual, original, imaginative cuisine, enjoyed in a setting where guest experience, attentive care, and generous, personalized service coexist. To adapt, the restaurant doubled its space by taking over the neighboring unit—not so much to add seats, but to function properly. Capacity went from 60 to 90 seats; guests became more comfortable, and above all, the restaurant finally had a dishwasher with consistent hot water, fridges that could properly store wine bottles, and a better coffee machine. Mélanie and François gave themselves room to grow—and the results speak for themselves.

“One thing is certain, though: being a restaurateur is not glamorous—not at all like on TV. You unclog toilets, you mop floors; I would never ask my manager to replace an absent busser—I do it myself. The restaurant business is complex; you can’t learn it all in school. A chef is more of a role model, an inspiring figure people want to follow. It’s leadership. Chefs do almost more than cook. Respect is earned over time, through achievements—not just a diploma. ‘Chef’ is a title that’s given to you, not one you give yourself. It’s the same for managers, bartenders, restaurateurs. That’s why it’s a profession driven by passion.”

Then came the idea for Restaurant Cadet. “We’re entrepreneurs. That rush of creating something—we felt it again. Everything in restaurants goes through the team. The exceptional team at Bouillon Bilk allowed us to move forward with Cadet; it felt like the right moment to have even more fun.” Mélanie loves the idea of allowing someone to fully run a restaurant. At Cadet, that person was chef Antonio Ferreira.

A team at the heart of everything

“With my projects, I’ve realized that what I love most is developing people’s careers. Watching people grow within the company is beautiful. At first, you do everything yourself, but then you hire people, guide them, and suddenly everything becomes more creative because everyone has ideas. I think I would’ve been very happy in human resources—understanding people’s profiles and ambitions, helping them grow, I love that. Honestly, I love what I do overall. But my team—that’s my greatest pride.”

Why open Oncle Lee? At the heart of the project was an immense talent: chef Anderson Lee. Highly motivated, rigorous, and deeply skilled, he inspired them to embark on a new venture. “We chose to support him by handling operations and providing strong backing behind the scenes so he could focus entirely on the food.”

From the very beginning, Marie-Alexandra joined the project and invested herself with remarkable energy—so much so that she became a partner when the second location, Oncle Lee Kăo, opened. She truly made the restaurant her own. “They’re incredibly talented people. Managing a restaurant business sometimes requires experience and structure that take time to acquire, and our role is precisely to support, guide, and help them shine.”

A quiet force

Mélanie is first and foremost a great restaurateur—but also a seasoned businesswoman, capable of making decisions, bringing teams together, and, above all, making things happen. A builder in the noblest sense of the word. “Like everyone in the industry, we’ve faced setbacks—the pandemic, of course. Then the Bouillon Bilk fire, a total loss. Yet two months later, the restaurant reopened two blocks away, with the same team. It wasn’t a grand gesture—it was instinctive: to keep going, together.”

Today, that same mindset guides what comes next. Projects evolve, spaces transform, places are inhabited patiently. There have been formative collaborations, necessary steps—sometimes imperfect, but always meaningful. And above all, the ability to recognize opportunity, seize it, and move forward with clarity.

Mélanie Blanchette is now one of the great figures of Montreal’s restaurant scene—not only because of the number and quality of the establishments she has co-founded, but because of how she has built them: with rigor, humility, and a deep understanding of the craft. She is a great restaurateur, yes—but also a great businesswoman. Mélanie knows how to decide, structure, and unite people. And above all, she knows how to make things happen. She moves forward humbly and steadily, guided by a clear vision and genuine respect for the people she works with.

With Mélanie Blanchette, nothing is ostentatious. Everything is authentic. And we love her for it.

Written by Élise Tastet
Photography by Alison Slattery