Carnival De Quebec - arriving early

[jtphjl]

I will be celebrating my husband's 60th birthday at the Carnaval de Quebec.

We will be arriving a few days early because his birthday falls on a Wednesday (24th) and the trip is a surprise. Our hotel reservations are at the Fairmont's LeChateau Frontenac.

I need a delicious recommendation for Wednesday evening and for the following three evenings.

I have searched this site, L'Utopie, Toast and Laurie Raphaël sound wonderful - please can someone tell me where they are with regards to our hotel, other recommendations or confirmation of these recommendations and please other suggestions we may be in walking distance, I would appreciate!!!

Thanks!

jan

[Joe Gerard]

I will be celebrating my husband's 60th birthday at the Carnaval de Quebec.

We will be arriving a few days early because his birthday falls on a Wednesday (24th) and the trip is a surprise. Our hotel reservations are at the Fairmont's LeChateau Frontenac.

I need a delicious recommendation for Wednesday evening and for the following three evenings.

I have searched this site, L'Utopie, Toast and Laurie Raphaël sound wonderful - please can someone tell me where they are with regards to our hotel, other recommendations or confirmation of these recommendations and please other suggestions we may be in walking distance, I would appreciate!!!

Thanks!

jan

←

I can highly recommend Laurie Raphael as well as chef Yves Lebrun's beautiful Initiale. Both are located in the Old City not far from the Frontenac. You should have no problem walking. I do remember that Initiale closes for a time in January however.

[identifiler]

Laurie Raphael, Toast and Initiale are in the same area. Peronnally, I would go to Initiale... but then again, I would not stay at the Chateau so... Initiale is somewhat more traditionnal than Laurie but Laurie Raphale will have crazier mixes and flavors, not for everyone. Tast is more intimate and less grande. They all have their own style.

These three are all in the petit Champlain area, that is basically down the steep hill below the Chateau. You can walk, take the funiculaire or cab it down and back up. Funiculaire is a good mid way solution (it's a cable elevator, outside, like in europe).

I would also highly recommend Utopie but it is in the newly revamped St-Rock quarters, you will need to cab to go there. It's not a historic district and on a weekday, Utopie can be a bit boring as with any of the above.

Because you will be spending more than one night there, I highly suggest Cafe de Clocher Penché, it is not a fancy resto, a bistro but everything is prepared spotless, from the organic salad down to the valrohna chocolate molten. They have private wine imports and the staff has been working there for a long time, the best service in town. They also offer great brunch and lunch (I also highly recommend Toast for lunch). This resto is close to the Utopie resto. It`s always lively there and a local fav.

Ang again, as in another post, you can walk to St-Jean street from the Chateau to go have a croissant and cafe and any hundreds of pastries, macaron and whatnot at Paillard boulangerie.

Edited January 12, 2007 by identifiler (log)

[riboflavinjoe]

I will be celebrating my husband's 60th birthday at the Carnaval de Quebec.

We will be arriving a few days early because his birthday falls on a Wednesday (24th) and the trip is a surprise. Our hotel reservations are at the Fairmont's LeChateau Frontenac.

I need a delicious recommendation for Wednesday evening and for the following three evenings.

I have searched this site, L'Utopie, Toast and Laurie Raphaël sound wonderful - please can someone tell me where they are with regards to our hotel, other recommendations or confirmation of these recommendations and please other suggestions we may be in walking distance, I would appreciate!!!

Thanks!

jan

←

i know that ex-bearfoot bistro (chef?) and ex-club chasse et peche (waiter/sommellier/barman extraordinaire) employees have taken over the Cafe Krieghoff.

[jtphjl]

Thank you for the honest feedback - please tell more!

The St. Jean Street will be a favorite of my husband's I can tell - he is European and always in search of wonderful pastries (sorry to say, not so very common in our streatch of the US despite our close proximity to NYC). On this site I read about Chez Temporel--is this really the source for Croissants?

Today, I read a rather dated article in the NY Times Travel Section mentioning : Le Marie-Clarisse and also, Le Poisson d’Avril- for outstanding seafood -- any feedback on either of these places.

Identifiler - you make slight mention of, the Chateau ... other then the hotel literature, no one on this site (or others) seems to mention the Hotel's Le Champlain -- so am I reading that correctly, skip it?

Any recommendations for an outstanding canadian chocolatier or local shop?

[identifiler]

Ribo, this is interesting as I always have lunch and coffee at Kriegoff but certainly cannot put in the same league as anything close to CCP. I think I know the waiter you mention (same guy who worked temp at BU for a while)... Must be the night shift. They have a good solid staff there but the kitchen could use some direction.

On the same block of street of Kriegof, I also suggest La Noce, they make the best seared bavette (barely cooked) there, very good. I went for lunch and it was scarily empty so I did not return but the food was very well prepared.

jtphjl, oh ya, go to Paillard, they make a great kamut baguette. All the flour and oven, technicalities is directly imported from France.

Le Champlain is a classical hotel type restaurant. I am sure they are some great nights there. It's touristy, in the castle, staff is dressed up like the old days, not my cup of tea. The head chef there is very restraint and focuses on product a lot. But it's also the kind of chef who may need to make sure that all 1000 people banquet upstairs are well fed (the man has a very tight control over banquet food, I will give him that)... it's a big place and even a small resto in a big hotel is subject to some loss of focus.

For example, I do not sleep at the Chateau, there's just to much draperies everywhere, it's too old world and anonymous for me.

I went to Marie Clarisse about 2 months ago, I did not like it. It was overdone, the oysters were crappy and the veggies fell short, the actual fish was OK but it was lotte, very hard to screw up, and not the nicest lotte in town. I have herd good things about poisson d'avril but never been. If you are from New York, Marie Clarisse will not blow you away at all. Service is crap also.

Temporel will be good for croissant. Paillard is more of a production house, it`s quite big.

I know that there is a good chocolatier in St-Rock quarters but I do not know where or the name. Maybe I will find out next week.

Edited January 14, 2007 by identifiler (log)

[jtphjl]

just a quick thank yo u for the recommendations!

We began with Laurie Raphael on our arrival night, the following night we dined at Initiale , the following day, lunch at Toast, and the following evening dinner at Passion. there was a lunch at Chez Temporel and also ... I am drawing a blank --

I have to say, I love Quebec City -- and I was grateful for the directions -- so thanks again!

PS: Identifiler:

"...draperies everywhere" I get it! The gold floor was closed our first two nights, and we were scheduled to move upon their reopening -- our original room was a spacious, oval room, over looking the River, and the bob sled slide -- the room we were moved to was all drapes, dark, small and $150.00 more --we moved back to our original room (slight touch of drapery!) lots of space, great light and that magnificant waterway! No costumed help and all went well ( it was pure luck the Gold Floor rooms, as it turns out, are not ready yet, and they simply reopened the floor -- if they piped in Leonary Cohen ... well let's just leave it at that).