Cantine Dukana: A Sandwich Counter in Montreal’s Image

A tiny room, a team of five, a menu you can read in a single glance, and yet Cantine Dukana has pulled off what few fine dining rooms manage: making people feel at home. In Petit-Laurier, this Lebanese-inflected sandwich counter has quickly become a habit for the people of the neighbourhood, who would surely love to keep it a secret, given how good everything is.

“I was born in Lebanon, then I grew up in Montreal,” says Ali Sleiman, who founded the cantine with Lara Travers, a friend he met years ago at the restaurant Omnivore. The idea of opening a place like Cantine Dukana had been brewing for a while when he pitched it to her, about a year and a half before opening. A Lebanese-inspired sandwich counter, but without confining itself to strict tradition. The name comes from the Arabic word “dukhan,” which refers to a small neighbourhood market, Ali explains. “Montreal is a melting pot, there are a lot of cultures in there,” he says. “That was really the idea, bringing those two sides together.”

It’s Lara who took on, almost organically, the role of brains behind Cantine Dukana’s recipes. “She keeps the ingredients in her head, I don’t know how she does it,” says Ali.

Favourites no one saw coming

The Dukana, with shredded chicken taouk, was meant to be the house’s star sandwich, the one that carries the place’s name. But it’s the Walafel, a falafel sandwich, that ended up winning the public over, to Ali’s own surprise. It’s much the same story for the fries, which have also helped carve out the place’s reputation. “People tell me all the time that I have the best fries in Montreal,” Ali says. “We really didn’t set out to do that, but we’re glad it landed that way.” The menu stays deliberately small, but a special sandwich of the month regularly shakes it up, a way for the duo to keep their creativity alive.

The drink selection mixes Montreal’s trendy classics (Zamalek, etc.) with those of the Middle East, along with a house hibiscus drink, a Lara invention. It’s made from dried hibiscus flowers, pomegranate molasses and a touch of rose water, a choice you would be wrong to underestimate.

Bringing home to the Cantine

The decor bears the signature of Daniel Laforest, a graphic designer friend Ali had long dreamed of working with, backed on the custom furniture by another friend, a cabinetmaker. But the small objects, the plants and the trinkets that give the place its identity come mostly from Ali’s own home. “I want to feel like I’m at home,” Ali explains. And we couldn’t agree more.

That warmth spills out into the street. Ali speaks of Petit-Laurier as a community that adopted him as much as he adopted it: neighbours turned regulars, customers whose kids he watches grow up from one visit to the next. “There’s something special, especially in Montreal, about mom-and-pop shops like this,” he says. “It’s a bit of a dying breed. I stay close to that, I don’t want to see it go.”

It’s a counter with nine seats that gives as much as it receives. But above all, it’s proof that hospitality and a well-mastered menu, when they’re sincere, always end up getting noticed.

Written by Jean-Philippe Tastet
Photography by Alison Slattery

Updated on August 25, 2026

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