Montreal’s No. 1 restaurant on Tripadvisor didn’t really exist

UncleScoopy

I’m not even sure Montreal exists. I’m thinking that Quebec is pulling off some kind of tax dodge.

Le Nouveau Duluth has 85 reviews, all of them giving five stars. “In the features, they do everything: they deliver, they do takeout, reservations, outdoor seating, buffet, private dinings, private parking, they have a full bar, wine and beer, waterfront, live music, jazz bar, it’s a drive-through, they’re on the beach, they have a playground.”

“Le Nouveau Duluth does not exist. The ease with which it rose to the top of a travel advice site is a clear example of how easy it is to create buzz with no substance behind it”

Here is the story of the comedian behind the prank.

11 thoughts on “Montreal’s No. 1 restaurant on Tripadvisor didn’t really exist”

  1. You dare to deny the existence of William Shatner’s hometown?

    Have you no shame?!?!?!

    1. Y’know, it never sank in that he was from Montreal. Has anyone ever heard him speak French?

      1. William Shatner was born in 1931 and lived in Montreal until the early 1950s. At that time, much of the the west of Montreal was English speaking.

        According to wiki, Shatner lived in the neighborhood of Notre Dame de Grace (NDG) which, despite the name: NDG plays a pivotal role in serving as the commercial and cultural hub for Montreal’s predominantly English-speaking West End.

        I don’t know if he can speak French or not, but until the ‘Quiet Revolution’ in the early to mid 1960s in Quebec, it was easy to live especially on the West side of Montreal in Qubec and not know how to speak a word of French.

        There were also some fairly English dominated areas of Quebec at that time including places like Hull on the other side of the river from Ottawa and an area directly north of Maine known as the English Townships.

        My father lived in a worker class area of the mostly wealthy west Montreal area of Westmount, although he learned some French, he spoke English. The Westmount neighborhood is the area Pierre Trudeau represented in Parliament. I don’t know if the name means anything to you, but in 1965, the renowned philosopher and public intellectual Charles Taylor ran against Trudeau in the general election and my father voted for him.

        Montreal was obviously the business center of Quebec and it was dominated by the English who practiced discrimination against Francophones. The archconservative Premier of Quebec from 1942-1959, Maurice Duplessis, made a tacit deal with the English speaking business community: “If you leave the Catholic Church educate Francophones, I let you dominate the business community and discriminate against Francophones.” Such was the dominance of the Catholic Church among Francophones in Quebec at this time, that they put up with being second class citizens in both business and education (not that Catholic Church schools need be bad, Pierre Trudeau was educated by Jesuits in a private school, but this wasn’t the high quality private Catholic education.)

        1. A couple mistakes:
          1.Pierre Trudeau’s district (riding) and the neighborhood my father lived in is Mount Royal, not Westmount.

          2.It’s the Eastern Townships (L’Estrie) in Quebec that is directly north of Maine, not the English Townships.

    1. That’s exactly what someone who didn’t exist would say!

      Or rather what a fiendish Canadian bot would say for them.

    2. When I was in college at SUNY Albany circa 1987, I signed up and paid for a bus trip to Montreal to see the Expos play the Mets. I forget how much it cost, but the guy running the trip absconded with the money. That is exactly the kind of thing a Canadian that didn’t exist would have done. While I have been to Toronto and Niagara Falls and therefore know Canada exists, I have still never been to Montreal. So I suppose I have to come down on the side of it being a fictitious place. If anyone from Montreal wants to convince me otherwise, invite me to visit next time the Mets are playing there.

      2. I can barely vouch for the rest of Montreal but I know the Forum existed.
        I’m home in Akron on Spring Break (trimester) and get a call from a friend who lived a little west of the city that his father had had his back flare up and couldn’t make the next evening’s match, was I interested? No problem. Got up real early next morning, drove around 11 hours or so and made it up there an hour before match time. Made the drive back to Ohio the next day at a more relaxed pace.
        Completely worth it. The atmosphere and sense of history was Boston Garden x 1.5. My French was pretty decent, so made lots of instant friends. And Les Habs won two-zip, goals by Peter Mahovlich and the mildly disappointing young RW Guy Lafleur (he wasn’t quite le Demon Blond yet). The only bummer was that I hadn’t made it there before Beliveau retired.
        Unfortunately, didn’t see zip of the rest of the city and haven’t ever made it back.

  3. It’s fake news!

    I’m sorry, but I’ve eaten dinner there on multiple occasions and can without a doubt agree with the 5-star rating.

    Not Michelin stars mind you, but certainly Yelp-worthy stars.

    1. Right. I especially love the terrace tables on the 30th floor. What a view of the beach!

      I have to say, though, that the quality was much better when George Santos was the head chef.

      (It has been scrubbed from Trip Advisor)

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