Bistrot à Franky in Montreal Is Dressed in Whites, Beiges and Aluminium

Chef Francis Blais's restaurant in Montreal now has a new interior, designed by Atelier Zébulon Perron. Dezeen published its report on the room on 30 October 2026.

Bistrot à Franky is the home base for Blais in Mile End, a neighbourhood in Montreal, Canada. The design firm was founded in 2008 and, according to its website, specialises in commercial development, meaning shops, restaurants and other business spaces.

The room is built around a monochrome palette, which means one colour family in many shades. Here that is whites and beiges, with milled aluminium accents, a metal shaped by machine into smooth, precise surfaces. The bar has a large zinc top. Dezeen reports that the design draws on Japanese metabolism, a 1960s movement that imagined buildings as living structures able to grow and change.

Visitors come in through a red-painted hallway. The metal door at the end has a handle carved from butcher block by Olivier Doray. Only the terrazzo floor, a surface of stone chips set in cement, was kept from the building's earlier use.

Above the bar face, a wine cellar is also made of milled aluminium. Its portholes, the round windows of a ship, refer to Japanese metabolist architecture. The custom chandeliers were fabricated by Lambert & Fils. They hold illuminated Pyrex glass tubes, with the wiring left exposed.

The artworks on the walls were curated by filmmaker Xavier Dolan. The custom walnut chairs were designed by Guillaume Sasseville.

For anyone planning a visit, the restaurant's look is built from a short list of materials and a few named makers. Each piece, from the carved door handle to the walnut chairs, has a designer or craftsperson attached to it.