Talking queer food—and where to find it in Montreal

Montreal's a queer-friendly city. How does that influence its hospitality industry and the safe spaces of its restaurants, cafés and bars?

Ivy Lerner-Frank

February 29, 2024- Read time: 7 min

Alex Ketchum, assistant professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at McGill, on queer food—how to define it, and where to find it. | Photograph: Sid Baar / @sayhey_studio

Alex Ketchum has been thinking about feminist cafés and queer food for a long time. So much so that Ketchum, assistant professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at McGill has written a book about it: Ingredients for Revolution, an exploration of the history of feminist restaurants, cafés, and coffeehouses, with a comprehensive look at the ways these spots foster non-capitalist, non-hierarchical business practices.

And now she’s thinking about queer food in Montreal (and elsewhere), how to define it, and where to find it.

Food politics, business practices, political activism

“One way to think about queer food has to do with the producers themselves,” Ketchum says. “Are there queer chefs or queer owners or managers? That’s a traditional way to think of it, even talking about the marketing of the restaurant, café, or bar.”

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