Where To Eat In Québec City

THE SPOTS

Bistro B is a great place to taste French food the Québécois way with Québec ingredients. The lunchtime table d’hôte offers incredible value with two or three courses, and either way you should spring for the local sourdough with roasted chicken-skin butter add-on. If you come in the evening you’ll have more options a la carte, with local sturgeon and duck often finding their way onto the menu, sometimes on the same plate (like fish confited in duck fat). We love Bistro B’s profiteroles, which change with the seasons, including a summery geranium-infused cream and local strawberry ice cream on top. Aim for a seat at the banquette facing the plant-filled window for a view of the gigantic lampshades on rue Cartier.

Kundah Hôtel’s website has a caveat that purists might want to take note of: the food is definitely Indian, but it’s also very Québécois. That means that dahi puri comes adorned with local blueberries in season, and that their palak paneer is made with sweet potatoes and the kind of squeaky cheddar cheese curds usually reserved for poutine. (There’s also a delightfully sticky tamarind beef, something you wouldn’t ordinarily find in India.) If you’re looking for a feast, leave the ordering to the kitchen for their extremely filling thali for the table, priced at a very reasonable $50 CAD per person. Kundah’s cocktails and mocktails lean to the cardamom and masala side, but there’s always Kingfisher beer, too.

Buvette Scott’s menu changes daily depending on what they can source locally or make in-house: marinated veggies, duck ham, maybe a pear sorbet. The small kitchen takes a Mediterranean approach to their plates—ajo blanco here, manchego with broccoli and mollica there—but also veers slightly Asian for a lamb capicollo with ‘nduja and wasabina greens. We’re still thinking about the tender local lobster pieces topped with sea asparagus bathing in a light, bright pool of cucumber and mint sauce we had here on a hot summer’s night. Wines are a focus at this tiny spot, with a great selection of Québec bottles and ciders at loss leader prices. It’s a small place, so reserve in advance. It’s a great choice for date night, but since the menu is so tempting, you might want to make it a double date so you can try every single thing on offer.

Babeurre's corner perch in leafy Limoilou is the kind of place to start off the morning with an Italian(ish) cortado and a vegan peach and elderflower square, then turn for a plate of spaetzle or another special from their lunch menu. The pastry counter is worth a look too—we’re in love with their hefty black garlic scone layered with turnip greens. There are high chairs here as well as tiny tables for a grownup tête-à-tête for their late afternoon salad and soup deal (with a glass of a sparkling Czech Alba Rosales, please). Don’t miss Babeurre’s Babe Matin breakfast sandwich: from the classic egg or sausage-filled, to their homemade vegan smoked turnip gravlax, they’re all good.

Hortus is a surprisingly good restaurant hiding in plain sight in the heart of rue St-Jean, one of the most touristy parts of Québec City. Between trinket shops and generic-looking pubs, they’re out here with a rooftop farm, and bees that make honey you can sample freely. Their gluten-and-nut-free menu is impressive, and their food has a wide appeal, like a thick beef burger with goat cheese and crispy fries. Those same fries feature in a predictably rich duck confit poutine that’s a step above most of what you’ll find in neighbouring tourist traps. Hortus has an excellent value daily table d’hôte for lunch and dinner, making it a good spot to head to when you’ve had enough of seeing the sights but don’t want to venture too far outside the zone.

Of course you can have a Greek salad or some moussaka at Le Mezze, but there’s so much more to explore at this boxy but comfortable family-run Greek taverna on the outskirts of Montcalm. We’re keen on the rich kalamata olive tapenade with almonds and honey, and the lamb-stuffed vine leaves in avgolemono sauce (especially with a bottle of retsina or wine from the Peloponnese or Limnos regions). Do as the locals do and get a whole fish or some lamb chops from the by-the-pound menu, and pair them with grilled mushrooms and a slab of imported feta. Don’t miss the baklava, made in-house by one of the owners.

Limoilou has no lack of lunchtime spots, but Chouchou has filled a (smash) burger and sando gap with its tiny takeout storefront. Here’s what you need to know: go for the medium-sized Chouchou with bacon jam, and if you want a non-burger, the messy chicken with gochujang on potato bun is worth all the extra napkins. The katsu sando with wasabi and char siu sauce mixes Asian metaphors like the rest of the menu, but somehow it all works on the terrific milk bread from a nearby bakery. Dayglo pandan iced tea is the go-to drink here, though the summertime strawberry oatmilk matcha comes in a close second. And if a fried ice cream sando is a draw, well, there’s that, too. (FYI: We’ve been assured that their space is expanding soon, as they’ll take over the entire ground floor of the building.)

If you haven’t gotten the memo yet, Québec City restaurants love showing off local produce, and Le Clan puts the exact longitude and latitude for almost every single item on the menu. That includes Québec ginger, venison, cheeses and mushrooms, and the salmon smoked by a nearby indigenous community. It’s fun entering the restaurant from a tiny street just below the Château Frontenac, walking through the kitchen, and taking the stairs to dining rooms where taxidermied animals lurch out of the walls and a huge wacky mural depicts the chef and his friends. Never mind all that: what’s great here is what’s on the plate, and it’s always seasonal and sophisticated. If you’ve never had guinea fowl (a popular poultry choice in Québec) this is a good place to check it out. At brunch it comes with confit onions and a beet sauce, which gives you an idea of the level they’re operating at here.

Nina Pizza pumps out 90-second Neapolitan-style pies with housemade ’nduja, rosemary ham, and cheeses from nearby Charlevoix in two locations: one on touristy rue St-Jean in the tourist zone and the other in the more neighborhood-y St-Roch. You can bring kids in and pop in for a caesar salad and a lemony, arugula-topped Greenpoint pizza, or nosh at home or your hotel (they deliver). The red carciofo with prosciutto cotto is pretty nice, too, alongside a glass of a natural-leaning red. Desserts here are great, like a fior di latte ice cream with olive oil and sea salt is a perfect, appropriately pizza-adjacent end note.

We like to go to subterranean, stone-walled Shiraz for Persian dishes like fesenjan, koobideh, and mast-o-khiyar, especially after a visit to the national art museum down the street. If you’re not familiar with Persian cuisine, the owners are more than happy to make suggestions and tell you their life story, too. It’s a cozy space, where visiting musicians have been known to stop by and sing the night away in the banquet space (looking at you, Chris de Burgh) big enough for a crowd. The focus here is traditional, including their rich ash-e-reshteh soup and dizi, a tasty slow-cooked lamb and beef dish eaten in two services. Pick up a bottle of pinot noir to go with your meat—it’s BYOB here—and settle in on a cold winter evening.

If you’ve ever wanted to sip a wine flight, snack on trout gravlax paired with Québec organic chardonnay, and play pétanque while enjoying a view of rows and rows of grapevines, then Vignoble Les Ouches has your back. Open from mid-May to the first weekend in October, it’s a half-hour drive from the city. It’s not fancy here—seating is mostly at picnic tables under umbrellas, and the pan con tomate and rhubarb sorbet are served on recyclable plates—but coming out to Île d’Orléans is a chance to see what’s so special about the Québec countryside and understand the commitment people have here to terroir and natural wines. Kids and dogs on leashes welcome. Zip across the road for some of the best blueberries on the island.

Le Hobbit has been around for almost 50 years, serving lattes and more to locals and tourists alike. The playlist is heavy on The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, but the stone walls from the 1800s are even older, and the kitchen is deep into its Québécois roots with homemade local strawberry jam, apple cider, and boudin noir. There’s nothing truly extraordinary here, but Le Hobbit’s thick-cut home-made bacon or smoked salmon make for a tasty brunch with local eggs done your way. Desserts here are hearty, with carrot cake French toast and what they insist on calling babka (we wouldn’t, but it’s still tasty). To really feel the history of the neighborhood, make your way down the block to the historic St-Matthew’s cemetery and the beautiful library with stained-glass windows, fashioned from a 19th century Anglican church.

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