of stories to tell

The story of
Chez Alexandre

Alain Creton, owner.

It all started in 1976 when my brother and I wanted to open a restaurant. A friend of ours, François Keller, a well-known figure in Montreal, told me about a restaurant for sale at 1454 Peel Street called Dupont and Smith. It belonged to a group of businessmen operating under the name Québec Restaurant, owned by Mr. Bellehumeur, an accounting firm in Trois-Rivières, and Mr. Dione, owner of large grocery stores on St. Catherine and La Montagne streets, as well as Senator Giguère. He also owned the Jockey Club in Westmount, three restaurants in Old Montreal, and the Dorval Airport restaurant. Fifty leases remained. We met with them, the transaction went through, and we took possession of the restaurant on February 7, 1977.

We renamed it Chez Alexandre. As for the name Dupont et Smith, well, it was simply intended to be a French restaurant on the ground floor and an English pub on the second floor. We kept this layout for five years before bringing in two architects from Paris, Jacques Damas and François Côté. We asked them to design a beautiful brasserie like those in Paris. The project was brought to life by the Quebec City architectural firm Lemay Michaud. This beautiful brasserie, according to Hélène Rotchester of the Gazette: “This beautiful brasserie starts like a rocket,” and François Keller says: “The most beautiful décor in Montreal.” We've only had wonderful stories since then in this very beautiful brasserie...