An hour from Montreal, and the fire is already lit

The drive, plainly

Granby sits east of Montreal, at the foot of the Appalachians, in the Eastern Townships. The whole trip is highway except the last eight kilometres.

From downtown Montreal

81 km. About 1 h 10 with clear roads. Samuel De Champlain Bridge, then Autoroute 10 east to exit 74, then boulevard Mountain.

From the South Shore

72 km. About an hour from the Brossard end of the bridge. That is the number behind our "sixty minutes from Montreal": true from the South Shore, a little optimistic from the Plateau or Rosemont, which are closer to 1 h 20.

The MICHELIN Guide’s own entry says "90 minutes from Montreal." That is not wrong either — it is what it takes on a Friday at 4:30 p.m. leaving from the north end of the island. All three numbers describe the same road at different hours. Plan for where you are leaving from, and when.

Coming in by boulevard Mountain

Exit 74 off Autoroute 10 — not 68. Right onto boulevard Pierre-Laporte, then second left: that is boulevard Mountain. Straight on to rue Principale, then left. Four turns, no traps.

It takes the same time. More highway, less town — you gain the arrival and lose nothing on the clock.

Boulevard Mountain is a run of Granby’s old houses — Victorian architecture nobody associates with this town, and from the same century as the 1893 house you are driving towards. You pass the Miner golf club, named for the industrial family that built Granby. Then you come into town two minutes from the table.

Rue Court crosses rue Principale in the heart of downtown; we are at number 13, the coffee-coloured wooden house.

Your GPS will probably want to send you off at exit 68. Stay on Highway 10 and take exit 74 instead: exit 68 isn’t a mistake, it is simply a less beautiful way in.

When to leave

Our two seatings usually begin around 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Working backwards from downtown Montreal, on a weeknight:

On Fridays, Autoroute 10 eastbound thickens between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m.: add twenty minutes. On Saturdays the road is nearly always clear.

Dinner with us runs two to three hours. Le Signature, our five-course tasting menu, takes a little longer. If you have a train, a sitter or a last metro, tell us when you book — we pace the service accordingly.

Parking

It’s free, and there’s plenty of it. The City of Granby removed its parking meters in 2021: there is no paid on-street parking downtown any more. Nothing to pay, nothing to display on the dash.

Three places, in order of distance from our door:

• Right on rue Court, in front of the house. Like every side street, it carries a two-hour limit — 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. only.
• The Palace lot, forty metres away. A public city lot: ninety-five spaces, no time limit at all.
• The Saint-George church lot, a hundred metres away. Also public, maintained by the City: twenty-six spaces, no time limit.

The one detail left: rue Principale carries a one-hour limit between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Since the earliest seating is 5:30, that only concerns someone arriving early — and neither lot above has the restriction.

It’s a small thing, but it changes an evening: in Granby, you park at the door. The City keeps a downtown parking map, kept current.

Getting home

The kitchen closes at 10 p.m. A table seated at 7:30 usually leaves between 10 and 10:30, and is back in Montreal around 11:30.

One thing should be said straight: the cellar is the heart of this house. Private-import wines, pairings composed as the meal unfolds, rare spirits at the bar. If you plan to make the most of it, someone has to drive — or nobody does. We wrote a whole page about that, with the two addresses the chef would sleep at, and what the town itself has: Where to stay near Maison Boire.

And if nobody wants to drive: taxis run in Granby and Uber operates here. Taxi 3000 is the one we call.

As far as we know, there is no bus service that would get you back to Montreal after dinner in Granby. In practice, people drive.

Is it worth the drive?

Here is the honest answer — the one we’d give you on the phone.

If you want the best possible meal tonight, at any price, with no distance to cover — Montreal has extraordinary tables and you have no reason to drive an hour. The MICHELIN Guide awarded four new stars in Québec in 2026, most of them on the island.

If you want something the city doesn’t have, then yes, and here is what it is: an 1893 house where almost everything on the plate passes over maple embers, in the open, in front of you; a garden, a greenhouse, beehives and a henhouse behind the building, whose morning harvest signs the evening’s plate; a forty-eight-seat room where you are called by name; and a region — vineyards, market farms, cheesemakers, forest foragers — where nearly all of our suppliers are within an hour of the door.

And a position, which the chef puts in one sentence: Maison Boire is the gateway to the Eastern Townships. Driving out from Montreal, Granby is the first town in the region you reach. You aren’t driving an hour to a restaurant; you are going through a gate.

The drive is part of the thing. Nobody arrives here on the way home from the office: you decide to come. That is what makes the evening different, and it is also, in all honesty, what makes it demanding. We are aware of it at every service.

And if you make an afternoon of it, the region gives its best: a hike, a vineyard, a market, a museum, depending on the season. We made the list, season by season: An afternoon in the Townships before dinner.

“The fires are lit and your table is ready. We’ll see you tonight.”

Book a table

Wednesday through Saturday, from 5 p.m.

Distances measured by road routing from 13, rue Court, in free-flow conditions. Allow more at rush hour.