In a city celebrated for its fiercely independent restaurants, Alma has quietly become one of the most compelling culinary destinations in Montreal. In 2025, the intimate Outremont eatery was named the best Mexican restaurant outside Mexico by Culinaria Mexicana—a distinction that speaks to not only the precision of the food but also the personal journey behind it.
At the centre of the story is chef and co-owner Juan Lopez-Luna, whose path from a small town in Mexico to one of Canada’s most exciting dining rooms is anything but conventional. “I left Mexico when I was 16,” says Lopez-Luna, who shares the full story in more detail on ELLE Gourmet’s new podcast, Taste Talks. “I crossed the border through the desert—three days walking in Arizona.”
From there, he landed in Wyoming, where his first job wasn’t in a kitchen but doing commercial laundry for local restaurants. He then started washing dishes at an Italian restaurant. Eventually, the team convinced him to work as a prep cook. “My first task was to chop parsley,” Lopez-Luna laughs. “It took me two hours. I was bleeding everywhere because I didn’t know how to use a knife.”
The chef eventually moved to Montreal in 2010. At the time, he knew almost nothing about the city. “I remember arriving the night the Montreal Canadiens won game six against Pittsburgh,” he says. “They showed aerial shots of the city on TV and I asked, ‘Is that Montreal?’ I had never lived in a city before – it looked huge.”
How Alma Became one of the World’s Best Mexican Restaurants
Lopez-Luna opened Alma in 2018 with a Mediterranean-leaning menu and a Catalonia-focused wine list. (Lindsay Brennan, a Montreal restaurateur/sommelier and the founder of the import agency Vin I Vida, oversees the wine list here and at sister restaurant Bar Luz.) But, like so many others, he was forced to rethink his restaurant during the pandemic. Even after reopening, the future felt uncertain. “I was exhausted,” Lopez-Luna says. “I was seriously thinking about closing the restaurant.”
Everything changed during a trip to Oaxaca, where he visited Alfonsina, the acclaimed family-run restaurant run by chef Jorge León, his mother, Elvia; León’s wife, Claudia de la Parra, manages the front of house and curates the restaurant’s singular ambience. “It was everything—the music, the neighbourhood, the feeling,” Lopez-Luna says. “They were playing songs from my hometown in Tlaxcala. And the food…I tasted flavours I hadn’t had since I was a teenager.”
The experience hit him with unexpected clarity. “I remember thinking on the ride back to the hotel: ‘What am I doing? I’ve been cooking Italian, French, Spanish food – and I’m Mexican.’” That moment became the catalyst for Alma’s transformation into a gastronomic Mexican restaurant.
Why Heirloom Corn Matters at Alma
Alma’s shift began with a simple yet bold idea: “I thought, ‘If Italian restaurants make pasta to order, why can’t we make tortillas to order?’” Lopez-Luna says.
Soon, that decision evolved into a deeper exploration of corn itself. Today, Alma imports Mexican heirloom varieties – including blue cónico from the State of Mexico, white corn from Tlaxcala and yellow corn from Chiapas – and processes them entirely in-house using the ancient technique of nixtamalization. “It’s the most important part,” the chef explains. “You cook the corn with limestone so the grain breaks down. It makes it easier to digest and releases nutrients. I think my generation might have been the last to see that regularly. Industrial corn flour changed everything.”
A Mexican Restaurant Shaped by Montreal
Despite importing corn from Mexico, Lopez-Luna still relies heavily on local ingredients for Alma’s nine-course tasting menu – an intentional reflection of his life between cultures. Microgreens come from Lab Grenouille Rouge located in the Ahuntsic neighbourhood, mushrooms from Full Pin in Hochelaga and vegetables from Parcelles, chef Dominic Labelle’s farm and country table in the Eastern Townships. “This is the first time in my career that it’s really mecooking,” Lopez-Luna says. “I’ve spent more than half my life in Quebec now. I can’t deny those influences.”
At Alma, that depth unfolds one course at a time – each tortilla pressed fresh, each dish bridging memory, migration and the evolving identity of Montreal’s food scene.
Listen to the Full Conversation on Taste Talks
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