Quebec City Restaurant Recommendations???
 

We're heading to our romantic weekend in Quebec City on Thursday, staying at Dominion 1912, and wondering whether any of you had some great restaurant recommendations. We love interesting, ethnic, fun restaurants, and are fairly adventurous diners. I'd love to hear your recommendations.
Thanks!

We just got back yesterday after our honeymoon in QC. We stayed at Dominion 1912. We loved every minute! We stayed in room 106, and then got upgraded to a river view room 506...
NICE! If you haven't stayed there beofe, it is a wonderful place. Great location, great staff. We took advantage of the free breakfast, and then ate our "nicer" meal at lunch,
then a small meal at dinner. The food in Quebec is great. We really liked
Anciens Canadiens. It is not fancy at all, but the food just burst with flavor. They had the lunch special that was only $14.75 and included a glass of beer or wine, soup or salad,
entree, desert, and coffee. Try the
Quebec meat pie, and you must try the
maple syrup pie if you have not had it.
We ate at the Initial too. We enjoyed it. Would recommend an early lunch
for lots of personal service. It gets
crowded. You need a reservation. ( not far from the hotel.) We heard the Paris
Bistro was good. It is in the upper city, and we walked forever to get to it, and then it was closed. Lots of places close between 2:30 and 5:00, so just know that when you make plans.
The carriage ride is romatic, but a rip off, $75. Take a ferry ride near sunset
for $5 round trip. It leaves every half hour. Ask at the desk at the hotel. We enjoyed a walking tour that
gave the history of the Fortification
of Quebec. Info. across from the Chateau Frontenac overlooking the river.
Walk to the Farmer's Market from the hotel. It is full of beautiful flowers and vegetables and just fun to walk thru. There is a lady that sells jewelry at the very last booth. She makes the jewelry and it is very pretty, and very reasonable. Some of the other booths looked cheap, so check her out. We bought food and wine there and had a picnic.
I got great tips off this website when I
was planning our trip. Have a great time.
P.S. Guard your purse. Mine got
stolen the 2nd day we were there. Luckily I had left 1/2 of my money and
our passports in the hotel.

Thanks for the reply. I just spoke to the concierge, and she recommended Laurie Raphael and Toast. Has anyone been to these places??

We stayed at the Dominion 18 months ago and loved it. Literally around the corner from the hotel is a little restaurant called L'Ardoise(sp?). It's very small and has the look and feel of a Paris Bistro. I like to try local & different food items when travelling. I had the moose steak in mushroom sauce and it was as tender as filet mignon. In upper town try Portofino's for a fun friendly atmosphere with good Italian food. Also, inside the train station there's a great steak house but I forget the name. That place isn't as "local" as the other 2 but has excellent steak.
Enjoy the trip,
Bud

Laurie Raphaël, along with l'Initiale and le Saint Amour, is one of the best restaurants in the city. I am not familiar with Toast, as it just opened last year, but it has had good reviews. Here is the review from Le Soleil:

http://lesoleil.cyberpresse.ca/journ...phorisant_.php

Aux Anciens Canadiens features hearty, traditional Québec cooking, and is very atmospheric, but is not in the same category gastronomically as the others mentioned.

Stayed at Dominion in June and was totally wowed! Take advantage of the espresso machine in the lobby.

Liked L'Initiale, but loved Laurie Raphael - you can walk to both from the hotel. The ambience was a little friendlier at L-R and the food a little more inventive. Both are upscale restaurants that ran about $60 CAN per person, not including wine. And we got very good wines by the glass.

Thanks everyone! We'll report back when we return. We appreciate all your advice.
-Helene

Yes, our caleche driver also recommended the L'Amour restaurant as the top restaaurant, however, also pricey...we had a fine meal at Portofino and a very nice lunch in the old city(take funicular down, turn right, walk the street to the end, take steps down near harbour..restaurant was called the"Cochon_____"..can't remember, but a cochon is a pig and the restaurant is painted primarily blue..very good food and quite busy where a lot of the others were empty..says something, I think

horatio's 2nd recommendation that he can't remember the full name is Le Cochon Dingue (The Crazy Pig)

ttt

Update as of July 2006: Laurie Raphael had fallen out of favor with concierges due to the complaints about rude service; however, that has now been rectified, according to our source at Clos Saint Louis.