Cantina Concha: A Tribute to Mexico in the Old Port

In Mexico, the cantina is something like a neighbourhood tavern: affordable, and often open for decades. Its real purpose is social. People sing out their joys and sorrows there, and everyone does it together. Montreal didn’t have a single one, and the question became unavoidable for Cantina Concha co-owner Daphnée Vary Deshaies, who has been going to them for years: “Why is there no cantina in Montreal?”

She brings 16 years in the industry, including a decade working the floor in fine dining restaurants before discovering cocktail bars in Vancouver. Then came the drinks program at Foxy, six years as beverage director for the A5 Hospitalité group, and the publication of a cocktail book of her own. She later left the group to work as a consultant, but quickly found herself looking for a new challenge. “I felt limited. I wanted to do something that resonated with me,” says the mixologist, who was already spending half the year in Mexico.

Cantina Concha: Agaves You Won’t Find Anywhere Else in Montreal

“I work really hard to have a traditional, artisanal spirits menu, with Mexican owners,” she says, pointing out that most agave brands today belong to American interests. The resulting tequilas and mezcals are practically impossible to find elsewhere in the city. Each cocktail is named after its Mexican ingredient and tells a story, like the fermented cacao brought back from a market in Oaxaca. “There’s poetry in the menu,” she sums up.

The same care goes into the glassware. “I buy it directly in Mexico, from artisans. I’ve met the families, and I don’t haggle over prices.” The art on the walls also comes from Mexican creators. The owner even takes her team there to taste what she serves. “I don’t cut any corners,” she says firmly.

The food stays modest, anchored by crispy quesadillas filled with meats bought from a taqueria in Lachine. The old building rules out a commercial kitchen, but the bites are more than enough to go with the cocktails, from smoked olives to chicharrones and a few other snacks. The salsa comes from a Mexican ex who showed it only once, at the opening, with no written recipe, measuring with her heart. Its taste shifts slightly from one visit to the next, and that’s part of the charm. Bonus: the kitchen stays open until closing, enough to keep the dance floor regulars fuelled.

A Décor That Doesn’t Play Dress-Up

“A bar in Mexico doesn’t dress up as Mexican,” she says. No skulls here. The stone walls and wooden bar do the work. At the back, a candlelit altar pays tribute to the women who opened up access to these spaces, and a projector screens old black-and-white Mexican films. None of it went through a designer: the space was put together by hand, over months, and keeps evolving.

The name distills the same idea. Concha is the diminutive of Concepción, a woman’s name chosen deliberately, and the word also refers to the seashell and to the sweet bread dunked in coffee in Mexico. In the slang of several Spanish-speaking countries, it refers to female genitalia, and the logo hints at the same thing without ever spelling it out.

The rest comes down to the atmosphere of a bar owned by a proudly queer woman. That matters, given that cantinas long barred women, who were only admitted around the turn of the 1980s. The welcome extends as much to the clientele as to the team of six. “Everyone feels truly welcome, with mutual respect.” There’s dancing on weekends and popcorn to snack on until closing. “What got me through the opening was my team,” she says. Cantina Concha is a love letter to Mexico in all its facets, and every visit leaves you with a new discovery.