Restaurant Alep: The Best of Syrian and Armenian Cooking Near Jean-Talon Market

Opened on June 15, 1976, Restaurant Alep sits a two-minute walk from Jean-Talon Market and has been a Montreal institution ever since — a timeless room that takes you somewhere else the moment you walk in.

From Aleppo to Villeray

Georges Frangié grew up in Aleppo, Syria. He met his wife, Jacqueline Frangié, when she came from Armenia to study in his city. Together they had two daughters, Chahla and Tania, and decided to build a life in Montreal, settling in Villeray.

In 1976, Georges opened Restaurant Alep on Jean-Talon East, at the corner of Avenue De Gaspé. It was tiny back then — four or five tables. He later bought the building and expanded the room little by little, and the restaurant became a fixture, first for the neighbourhood, then for the whole city. When his health declined, the late Jacqueline took the reins, and eventually Chahla and Tania took over both Alep and the adjoining address the sisters created in 1995: Le Petit Alep.

Round Arches, Family Portraits and Tables Built for Feasts

The dining room at Alep is one of a kind. Warm, almost spellbinding the second you step through the door. Rounded arches frame the space, the decorative pieces came straight from Syria, and family portraits line the walls — you feel like you’re eating at someone’s home, and the welcome only deepens that.

It’s a room made for a crowd. A few quieter tables sit near the windows, while the raised section at the back easily absorbs large groups. The tables themselves are sized for what’s coming: dozens of small dishes, all at once.

Each Dish Completes the Last

Sharing is the whole point here. To get the full Syrian and Armenian experience, let your server guide you and take the tasting menu, which the kitchen adapts to dietary restrictions and allergies without fuss. The service team knows the menu inside out, and even after a few visits it’s worth having the dishes walked through in detail — the description alone gets you hungry before the first bite.

The current menu closely mirrors the original, with one notable exception: lamb, which was absent for years. Quebec lamb — more delicate and more accessible — has since earned its place, braised for 24 hours with a mountain of spices.

Big tables, big portions. The tasting menu is built to deliver a feast, which is why the tasting menu comes so highly recommended: you taste everything, and nothing gets left behind. “Syrian and Armenian cuisines are both sharing cuisines. Just like the expression ‘the more the merrier’, it’s the same with food. Each dish completes the one before it. There’s something magical in that — it’s a true marriage of flavours.”

For the Love of Wine

Anyone who has eaten at Alep will tell you the restaurant holds one of the finest wine lists in the city. Real rarities turn up on it, and they make the meal that much better.

Alain Paillassard builds the list “for the love of wine.” The phrase comes from the moment the family had to decide whether to open a cellar inside the restaurant, when someone put the question to them plainly: “What do you want? A list built for the love of wine, or for the money behind it?” You already know the answer. Working with growers who put their heart into the bottle matters here.

 “There’s that cozy, quiet something in the space that we love at Alep. We can’t wait to seat the big tables again, to keep the restaurant’s story going, to watch the generations come through. The memories come back every night, and they remind us of our roots,” says Tania.

For all these reasons, this restaurant earns its place on our list of Montreal’s essential institutions!

Written by Inès Duguen
Photography by Alison Slattery — 

Updated on August 03, 2026

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