GastronautQuebec Report

[VivreManger]

This was the day of rest from gastronautical travels. The day before we had clocked over 140 miles of country driving. Today we installed the dock, swam, and ate lunch at Auberge Hatley. For those curious, please refer to the previous days for a brief background to this report and some hints at the cast of characters.

The Auberge, 325 chemin Virgin is set a few hundred yards above the shore line in North Hatley, commanding a majestic view of Lake Massawippi below. The building itself is a Victorian fancy, a well-preserved and maintained example of a style scattered about the area, a bit of Anne of Green Gables. Apart from its scale, it would not have been out of place among the painted ladies of San Francisco. The gardens are superbly tended, a lovely site alone worth a look-see. In fact while we were there our cousin's dentist appeared just to show a visitor the attractive house and grounds. After lunch cousin Monique spent time investigating the flora and fauna to learn what she might add to her own garden.

The shores of Lake Massawippi had attracted a lot of American wealth towards the end of the 19th century, when the Canadian dollar and land prices were low, building lavish summer cottages in the hills above. While that influx has receded, their architectural remains still dot the hillsides.

There are two places for eating at the inn: The less formal lunch (and I presume breakfast) spot set on a porch just above the garden-surrounded swimming pool. The formal dining room, decorated in yellows and other pastels, which commands the same stunning view of the Lake. The formal dining area expects jackets for the gentlemen. Its air conditioning is set so low, that a winter coat would not be out of place.

Lunch is à la carte. Dinner is table d'hote. We were five adults for lunch. The kids stayed at home, recovering from the gastrotourism of the day before.

For starters we ordered the velouté of yellow tomatoes and cumin with red tomato sorbet and the rabbit confit ravioli with carrots, asparagus, and aioli. For mains we had the bavette of red deer with haricots verts and frites, the cod, and the thin-crusted red and yellow tomato pie. For desserts we had the selection of sorbets and ice cream: vanilla frozen yogurt, verbena sorbet, basil sorbet, and a fourth that escapes my memory, one apricot clafouti with a florentine topping, and the strawberry demi-cuit coulis (so-called soup) with verbena sorbet. To drink, a Trimbach Pinot Blanc 2000 and a 2001 C'est le Printemp, Crozes Hermitage.

Dishes were freely shared and so I tasted at least a bit of everything ordered.

In addition to the beauty of the natural and cultivated setting, the table linens and furnishings are well-coordinated with the colors of the garden. Similar attention extends to the plating. Each dish is served in a bowl or plate distinctive to its form, shape, consistency, and color.

The most spectacular was the cold tomato soup which was produced in a fluted bowl, more like a wide-mouthed vase from William-Sonomoa, than anything you would normally put a spoon into. The rich orange-yellow and tomato red colors were beautifully highlighted in this vessel. The colors reminded me of the lavish orange, yellow, saffron, and red of Indian textiles and Buddhist monk robes.

The soup is a subtle combination of taste, color, and consistency. The cumin was not overwhelming, but blended in with the fruit. The sorbet was not liquidized but had chunks of red tomato.

The rabbit confit ravioli were good, but less spectacular. Having sampled similar dishes later on the trip, I have decided that subtle tastes don't do well in normal sized ravioli. The quantity of filling is too small to overcome the enveloping pasta. The solution is either to pack an incredible wallop of taste in a small package or increase the overall size of the ravioli itself. The latter technique can work well. I have yet to taste the unusual ravioli that succeeds with pleasing explosions of flavor in a small package -- cheese/mushroom/spinach work well, but duck and rabbit get overwhelmed. I love confit and rabbit, but here they were buried in semolina. The vegetables and the aioli sauce surrounding the ravioli were fresh, of excellent quality and prepared al dente so their essential tastes came through beautifully. Here again a lovely plate highlighted the shape and color of the dish.

The best of the mains was the tomato pie. The dish looked and tasted more like a proper French apple tart than an Italian pizza. Each tomato slice overlapped and was interleaved with the next in the classic pastry manner. The pastry itself was softer and richer than that used in a fruit tart, but it resembled it more than pizza dough. Eating the tomato tart after tomato soup might seem like gilding the lily, but the contrast between cool and warm tomatoes worked well and none of us who tasted both in succession felt we had too much of a good thing. The garden of the early summer had entered our palate. A dish like this reminds us that a tomato is a fruit.

Moinique ordered the cod and loved every bite of it. Yet she is hospitable enough a cousin to spare a few bites for the rest of us and I am a polite enough guest at her house and host for the lunch not to tell her what I thought of it. Working in the land of the bean and the cod, my attitude toward the fish is similar to early 20th century New England fishermen who threw the lobsters back into the sea as trash. Even now it is so common in Massachusetts that I cannot get excited about it. Because of the difference in quotas and waters, it must be rarer in Canada. She said that it is hard to get cod, harder to get good cod, and even harder to get perfectly cooked cod. For her, the cod at Auberge Hatley got high marks on all accounts -- and she was still raving about it two weeks later.

The bavette of cerf, or red deer steak, disappointed me, though the plating again was ingenious and appealing. Part of it was my mistake in ordering medium rare instead of my normal rare. The steak, not too thick to begin with, came out closer to medium. It was tender and tasty. The frites and beans were excellent. The sauce, a red wine reduction, pleasant, but the dish lacked the imagination and care evident in the tomatoes. I am also on a mission to see if I can find game as well prepared as what I ate at au Petite Marguery in Paris. Nothing yet has matched it. The other problem, as I had been forewarned by Doug, a friend at the table, is that red deer is farm-raised not local wild meat. Curiously the French ("cerf") fails to distinguish between the two. The English "red", at least helps the well-informed. Farm-raised as it was, it lacked the gaminess I enjoy in real game. Next time I am going to have to get Monique to let me defrost one of the deer steaks in her freezer, hunted by her son's bow and arrow on her own land.

The desserts varied. Most intriguing were the selection of sorbets: verbena, basil, vanilla yogurt, and a fourth, missing from memory. They were smooth and delicious. Verbena I have known only as a soap and basil I have yet to have as a pudding. It was nice to learn that the soap is edible and that basil does not require lemon grass or tomatoes -- though the thought of a plate of tomato and basil sorbet is appealing. It would have been a fit ending to the all-tomato dinner we had begun. Everyone was delighted by the verbena and basil sorbets which Doug graciously shared.

A clafouti is basically a baked fruit pancake -- a quick, easy, and elegant way to enjoy the summer's fruit. Here the serving is individually baked and covered with a thin florentine biscuit, so one doesn't quite know what is hiding underneath.

The greatest appeal of the coulis (or soup in the English menu) of half-cooked strawberries was that it gave us all another shot at the verbena sorbet. Cool fruit soups are a great delight in the summer and the strawberries could have used a bit more attention, perhaps a liqueur or fruit essence to intensify the taste.

It was not easy finding many wines under $50 -- we still have to send our kids to college. The Trimbach Pinot Blanc 2000 at $30 (about $22.50 US) was a relative bargain. The price in the States is around $10 or $11 retail -- I don't know the SAQ price. The 2001 C'est le Printemp, Crozes Hermitage at $50 topped our budget, but we all did enjoy it as well.

The service was gentle, agreeable, and solicitous and we don't mind pouring our own wine, at least not at lunch.

Robert and Lilian Gagnon sold the inn last year to a group of Swiss investors, if I am not mistaken. It is now a Relais Gourmand and by all accounts has not lost a bit with the new owners. One reason might be that the long-time chef, Alain Labrie, remains in charge of the kitchen.

The dinner menu, available on-line at their web-site which I have misplaced but easily Googled, looks quite appealing, but for this visit lunch must suffice. Their other coordinates are: Phone: (819) 842-2451, Fax: (819) 842-2907, E-mail auberge.hatley@northhatley.com

By the way, one of the attractions for some of us overlooking the pool was the parade of hotel guests, striding up and down the steps, clad in what previous generations might have called night gowns and undergarments. With legs three meters high, they had stepped out of Vogue to attend a wedding -- conveyed by humvees -- someplace in the neighborhood. Unfortunately we were not invited. If Dave McMillan is looking for more staff at Rosalie's, he might try to recruit them.

From high to low cuisine. Doug did tell me that the best poutine in the neighborhood is to be found at a snack bar across from Baron's Market on the Main St. in Hatley.

Thanks to eGulleteer RozRapp for her many helpful suggestions about the Auberge Hatley. We were all glad we went.

[carswell]

The Auberge, 325 chemin Virgin is set a few hundred yards above the shore line in North Hatley, commanding a majestic view of Lake Massawippi below. The building itself is a Victorian fancy, a well-preserved and maintained example of a style scattered about the area, a bit of Anne of Green Gables. Apart from its scale, it would not have been out of place among the painted ladies of San Francisco. The gardens are superbly tended, a lovely site alone worth a look-see.

Don't know if you're aware of this, but Auberge Hatley was originally built as a country home for the eponyms of the ritzy downtown Montreal department store, the Holt-Renfrews.

I am also on a mission to see if I can find game as well prepared as what I ate at au Petite Marguery in Paris. Nothing yet has matched it.

Are you talking about the actual preparation or the quality of the game per se? If the latter, probably nothing will match it. In Canada, all game sold in butcher shops and served in restaurants must be dispatched in government-inspected slaughterhouses, which effectively means that all game sold for public consumption is farm-raised. That's not the case in France, where individuals can sell wild game and fish they harvest to restaurants. There, wild rabbits taste of the garrigue they eat, wild boars of acorns. Given the quality of Quebec's real game — moose is simply the finest red meat I've tasted, snow goose breasts are darkly, deliciously wild-tasting — this is a sad state of affairs, especially for the non-hunters among us. I once had an interesting discussion with M. Boileau, Quebec's leading venison producer, about the ungaminess of his meat. Maybe when I have a few minutes, I'll type up a report and post it on one of the more general food/cooking boards.

Thanks, by the way, for taking the time to write up such a detailed review.

Edited July 16, 2003 by carswell (log)

[ABG]

Robert and Lilian Gagnon sold the inn last year to a group of Swiss investors, if I am not mistaken.  It is now a Relais Gourmand and by all accounts has not lost a bit with the new owners.  One reason might be that the long-time chef, Alain Labrie, remains in charge of the kitchen. 

The new owners are the Germain family of Montréal and Quebec City fame.

Thanks for the great review....

[VivreManger]

The Holt-Renfrew connection gives added cachet to the Auberge.

I knew that restaurant and shop-sold game in the US must be farm-raised, but I was not aware that a similar restriction applies in Canada. This now gives me an even greater incentive to raid my cousin's freezer next time I get there.

As for French game, it is my understanding that most of what is sold in France today comes from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. I don't know if this means wild or farm-raised.

Still I would suspect that au Petit Marguery -- at least in the past -- would get the best of whatever is available. Whether that prevails under the new ownership remains ot be seen.

I will post this question in the French forum as well.

[rozrapp]

As someone who has visited the Auberge Hatley annually since 1991, and who happily provided VivreManger with information I thought would be of assistance, I was really pleased to read this report. It, as well as his previous ones, have been nothing short of superb!

The Auberge, 325 chemin Virgin is set a few hundred yards above the shore line in North Hatley, commanding a majestic view of Lake Massawippi below.  The building itself is a Victorian fancy, a well-preserved and maintained example of a style scattered about the area, a bit of Anne of Green Gables.  Apart from its scale, it would not have been out of place among the painted ladies of San Francisco.  The gardens are superbly tended, a lovely site alone worth a look-see.

He has done a masterful job of describing the Auberge and its setting. I could hardly do better. The flora and fauna, both at the front of the inn and in the rear around the pool area, have grown more beautiful though the years. The person responsible for the landscaping design and tending is a lovely woman named Micheline.

In fact while we were there our cousin's dentist appeared just to show a visitor the attractive house and grounds.

VivreManger has touched here upon an interesting phenomenon: the situation of people who just stop by the Auberge to have a look. These “viewers” appear on the porch, brochures in hand, and stand there for several moments, taking it all in. Then, off they go. Actually, the Gagnons were never all that pleased about this, but felt they had to accept it. For my husband and me, it has become an “oddity” that is part of life at the Auberge, something we chuckle about.

There are two places for eating at the inn: The less formal lunch (and I presume breakfast) spot set on a porch just above the garden-surrounded swimming pool.

Breakfast is never served on the porch, only lunch. However, in the evening, anyone who wishes to have an aperatif before dinner, or coffee, tea, etc., after dinner, can do so on the porch.

The formal dining area expects jackets for the gentlemen.

When we first started coming to the Auberge, jackets were actually required. In recent years, M Gagnon reluctantly did away with the dress code, and now, though jackets are preferred, it’s basically comme vous voulez. Some nights, the jackets outnumber the non-jackets; other nights, it’s the opposite.

For starters we ordered the velouté of yellow tomatoes and cumin with red tomato sorbet and the rabbit confit ravioli with carrots, asparagus, and aioli.  For mains we had the bavette of red deer with haricots verts and frites, the cod, and the thin-crusted red and yellow tomato pie.  For desserts we had the selection of sorbets and ice cream: vanilla frozen yogurt, verbena sorbet, basil sorbet, and a fourth that escapes my memory, one apricot clafouti with a florentine topping, and the strawberry demi-cuit coulis (so-called soup) with verbena sorbet.

I was surprised to see that the veloute of yellow tomatoes, etc., was on this year’s lunch menu because it was also on last year’s, and they usually change the soups each year. Perhaps because, as VivreManger so accurately described it, it is so totally delicious and was, no doubt, a hit, that they decided to bring it back for an encore. Not exactly a tragedy. (Actually, during our five day stay last year, I ordered it twice.) The other repeat is the tomato pie. This had been on several years ago for, I think, two seasons, then was taken off, and returned last year. All other items listed are new to the lunch menu.

It was not easy finding many wines under $50 -- we still have to send our kids to college.  The Trimbach Pinot Blanc 2000 at $30 (about $22.50 US) was a relative bargain.  The price in the States is around $10 or $11 retail -- I don't know the SAQ price.  The 2001 C'est le Printemp, Crozes Hermitage at $50 topped our budget, but we all did enjoy it as well.

My husband is the wine drinker, so I cannot comment other than to say that he has never indicated that he has felt the wine list to be outrageously over-priced.

The service was gentle, agreeable, and solicitous and we don't mind pouring our own wine, at least not at lunch.

Absolutely, the most agreeable service! Though I'm a bit surprised about the wine pouring. The servers at lunch have always poured my husband's wine. At any rate, during dinner, my husband has always received excellent guidance from the sommeliers, and the wine service is always perfect.

Robert and Lilian Gagnon sold the inn last year to a group of Swiss investors, if I am not mistaken.  It is now a Relais Gourmand and by all accounts has not lost a bit with the new owners.  One reason might be that the long-time chef, Alain Labrie, remains in charge of the kitchen.

Not one reason, but the reason. Chef Alain has been in charge of the Auberge Hatley kitchen as long as we have been going there. A very shy man, and still quite young (he was in his late 20’s when he arrived at the inn), he is truly talented. From the very first, we realized that his cuisine was quite special, and over the years, when we have thought it just couldn’t get any better, we have come away newly amazed. The year before the restaurant became a Relais Gourmand, things took a quantum leap upward. New plates of various shapes and colors now compliment individual dishes, and presentation, which was always lovely, is even more artistic. The menu was re-designed and the cuisine reached new heights, becoming more interesting, more complex, and – the seemingly impossible – even more delicious.

The dinner menu, available on-line at their web-site which I have misplaced but easily Googled, looks quite appealing, but for this visit lunch must suffice.

Since the takeover by the new owners, the old Auberge Hatley site, which did include a listing of dinner items (though not the complete menu), has been totally revamped, giving way to a very stylish new design. Lots of information, but, unfortunately, no menus are to be found. This makes no sense whatsoever to me. After all, since the cuisine is such a big draw (as it has always been even before this new Relais Gourmand honor was bestowed), it is ridiculous to have a gorgeous web site that doesn’t include a menu. It isn’t as though the Auberge changes the menu often. They do so about 3 times a year. And there are never any daily specials. So having the current menus there would not seem to be a horrendous task. Anyway, the web address is: http://www.aubergehatley.com

I will get my chance to taste the cuisine very soon because our visit to the Auberge Hatley is just around the corner. Since we spend five days there, we are always able to order everything on the lunch menu. When it comes to the dinner menu, which is much larger, between my husband and me, we generally get to sample just about every dish. I'm salivating already!

[VivreManger]

Many thanks for your comments. I hope you give us an updated report. Since I was missed the dinner menu, what you say there will be particularly appreciated.