The house
A corner café by day, a small bistro when the globes come on.
08:00 · from behind the zinc
Mireille is thirty-four seats on the ground floor of a red-brick corner on rue Beaubien, with a zinc counter down one side and a leather banquette under the tall windows on the other.
In the morning it is a café: croissants out of the oven behind the counter, a café crème at the window, people on their way somewhere. At noon the card turns to soup and a croque; in the afternoon, the goûter. Three nights a week the globes come on, candles go out on the tables, and it becomes a small bistro that takes bookings.
One kitchen does all of it from one card, set once a season. What changes day to day goes on a slip taped over the card in the morning, so that what you read is what the kitchen is actually cooking.
— Élise Tremblay, who opened it
The day room
07:30 – 17:00
Daylight from the tall windows, the counter busy, the window seats first to go.
The evening room
Thu – Sat · 17:30 – 22:00
Globes on, candles out, the banquette laid for souper and booked.
The corner
A hundred years on Beaubien
1924
The corner is built
Red brick, a limestone base and an outside stair in black iron, like every duplex on the street.
1958
A grocer’s on the ground floor
The oak floor and the tall windows are from then; so is the hook the card hangs from.
2019
Élise signs the lease
The shop has been empty for two years. The brick comes out from behind the plaster by hand.
2020
The zinc goes in
The counter, the deck oven and the grinder; Mireille opens as a café, mornings and lunch.
2022
The first souper
Thursday nights at first, then Friday and Saturday. The globes and the candles arrive with it.
In figures
A small room with a long day
34
seats, counter and banquette together
5
services a day, from petit-déjeuner to souper
52
dishes on the autumn card
4
cards a year, one for each season
Up close
The things we kept
Five things a guest touches between the door and the table, and the reason each one is still here.
The red jugs. Enamel, on every table at lunch, refilled without asking.
The linen. Cream, with one red thread woven in.
The slip. Taped on each morning, gone at close.
The bread. From the oven behind the counter, by the door.
The card. On its hook since the grocer’s days.
Morning to night
Come in the morning, stay for souper
The door opens at 07:30 on weekdays and 09:00 at the weekend. Souper is Thursday to Saturday, and takes tables.