Restaurant D'Alma

1231 avenue Lajoie, Montréal

Alma is a 20-seat room tucked off the beaten path in Outremont, opened May 11, 2018 by Lindsay Brennan and chef Juan Lopez Luna, a couple who met working together in Jackson Hole before a year in Oaxaca redirected the project. The menu started Mediterranean-leaning but turned fully toward Juan's Mexican heritage in 2022, built now around house-nixtamalized heirloom corn and the flavours of his childhood, sourced against Québec ingredients rather than imported substitutes. The work has been recognized outside Montréal too — a 2023 Prix Lauriers Chef of the Year nomination and, in 2025, a "Best Mexican Restaurant Outside of Mexico" title from Culinary Mexicana.