A individual who could be recognized anyplace in Los Angeles is seated in a café on rue Saint-Denis on a Tuesday morning in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood, reading something on their phone and sipping a flat white. They are not being photographed. No automobile with a long lens is driving around the block. The individual seated next to them is preoccupied with their own pastries. Here in Montreal, it’s all about being invisible.
The city has been gaining a quiet reputation among some celebrities, especially those who have become weary of the realities of long-term visibility in Los Angeles. The ambient surveillance—the photographers outside restaurants, the knowledge that a trip to get groceries might produce content that circulates without consent, the unique quality of being watched that becomes part of the texture of daily life in a city built partly around that watching—is more important than the professional visibility, which many of them consciously pursue.
From a structural perspective, Montreal offers something distinct. Los Angeles has maintained a paparazzi economy for decades, but the local media culture does not. A celebrity dining at a Mile End restaurant does not always make headlines. American entertainment celebrities are not given the same hierarchical attention in the French-Canadian cultural setting, and people in the city typically interact with public figures in a straightforward manner that comes across as normal rather than intrusive. Instead of surveillance, privacy is the default.
It’s easy to see why Old Montreal is the neighborhood appeal. With its 17th-century stone houses and cobblestone lanes, Vieux-Montréal is authentically old. It has the kind of European-feeling urban fabric that American cities just lack and are unable to produce. It feels more like a specific area of Lyon than anywhere in North America when you stroll through it in November, when the number of tourists has decreased and the morning light is low over the St. Lawrence River. In the south of France, people are paying for that experience, and it’s a quick direct flight from JFK.
People who are used to dining properly are drawn to the culinary scene because it has developed enough. With its smoked meat, bagels, and unique Québécois cuisine, Montréal has always had a strong restaurant scene. However, during the past ten years, a wave of more ambitious kitchens has emerged that can coexist peacefully with those found in big American cities. The city’s culinary identity is distinct enough to evoke a sense of place—a trait that individuals with choices actively seek out and those overtourist locations lose.
The infrastructure for making movies has developed a gravitational pull of its own. With large studio space and provincial tax advantages that frequently draw Hollywood productions north, Montréal has long been a major production base. Sometimes actors that attend a production stay longer than the actual shoot. The city’s arts and festival schedule, which includes a number of smaller arts events throughout the year, such as the Jazz Festival in June and Just for Laughs in July, offers the cultural programming that people with active minds require to avoid feeling as though they have regressed from civilization.
There is a clear and growing expense difference with Los Angeles. Even at the high end of the market, real estate in Montréal is significantly less expensive than comparable residences in the L.A. neighborhoods where celebrities usually reside. Although Quebec has its own high tax rates, the whole calculus—lower housing costs, lower cost of living, and significantly lesser social friction—continues to draw those who have the freedom to choose where they spend their time. The tax environment in California has led to high-profile exits.
The question worth keeping an eye on is whether Montréal’s unique brand of liveable obscurity endures its own rising reputation among the people it’s drawing. The value proposition relies in part on not being very well-known. Eventually, a location that gains notoriety as a destination for celebrities seeking to avoid notice tends to attract attention for the same reason. Montréal has avoided that cycle thus far. It’s truly unclear how long that lasts.
