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In the last three months, three major food halls have opened in Montreal’s downtown core, jumping on a bandwagon that has already taken the world by storm. Those who remember Place Ville Marie’s Mövenpick know the phenomenon has existed before — even Marché Artisans, which opened a couple of years ago in Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel, offers an array of counters and a luxury approach to lunch foods in a cafeteria context that approaches the concept.

The difference with these big new food halls (or food marketplaces or emporia or whatever you choose to call them, so long as it isn’t “food court”) is that it isn’t one outfit providing the food, it’s a selection of Montreal chefs — the hotter and buzzier, the better. And unlike traditional food courts, there are no multinational chains allowed.

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As Montreal Gazette columnist Josh Freed recently wrote, the reasons we love food halls are many, from the convenience to the variety to the primo people-watching. But how do these new spots differ from one another? It’s time for a little compare-and-contrast.