Québec City Dining
City Guides > Québec City > Dining
Quebec City Dining
It is when you start eating in Québec City that the French ancestry of the Québécois hits all the senses: the eateries of the city present an array of culinary delights adopted from the mother country, from beautifully presented gourmet dishes to humble baguettes.
Whether you are on a tight budget or not, Québec’s lively cafés are probably where you will want to spend your time, washing down bowls of soup and croutons (toasted baguettes dripping with cheese) with plenty of coffee. Decked out in a variety of decors, traditional to stylish, they are always buzzing with activity, as students and workers drop in throughout the day. As you might expect, Vieux-Québec is home to most of the gourmet restaurants and cafés, but other areas - notably along rue St-Jean (quirky and cheaper) and Grande-Allée (generally touristy and expensive), just outside the city walls - have their fair share. Your best bet for good-value mid-price restaurants is to head for avenue Cartier near the Musée du Québec, with its numerous terrace-fronted restaurants.
Snacks and Cafes
A.L. Van Houtte , 995 Place D’Youville. Reliable chain with sandwiches and salads until 11pm. Internet access for $6 per hour.
Bistro St-Jean , 481 rue St-Jean. Café/restaurant that serves late breakfasts and decent hamburgers.
Bouche Bée , 383 rue St-Paul. Cheap café in Basse-Ville, serving sandwiches, quiches, soups and the like.
Brlerie Tatum Café , 1084 rue St-Jean. All-day omelettes and light snacks. Exposed brick walls and roasting coffee beans provide ambience.
Café Buade , 31 rue Buade. In a central location, with good light breakfasts and passable bistro fare throughout the day. It’s nicer upstairs. Open from 7am.
Buffet de l’Antiquaire , 95 rue St-Paul. An institution, popular with locals for breakfast and home-cooked comfort food like poutine and pâté chinois (shepherd’s pie).
Chez Temporal , 25 rue Couillard. Bowls of steaming café au lait , croissants and chocolatines make this Quartier Latin café, a few doors from the Auberge de la Paix hostel, a perfect place for breakfast. Soups and sandwiches are also available until 1.30am.
Dazibo Café , 526 rue St-Jean. Full Irish breakfast (11am-3pm). Soda bread and light meals help to soak up the best Guinness in town. Closed Mon.
L’Omelette , 66 rue St-Louis. Reasonable tourist joint with omelette specialities; breakfast from 7am.
Café Retro , 1129 rue St-Jean. Well-priced if touristy café/restaurant; serves everything from sandwiches to T-bone steaks.
Ste-Ursule Smoked Meat , 7 rue Ste-Ursule. Carnivore heaven: stacked slices of smoked meat on rye for $5.
Restaurants
In Québec’s finer restaurants high-quality French cuisine is easy to come by and, although prices tend to be rather high, even the poshest restaurants have cheaper lunch-time and table d’hôte menus. For a change of taste, the dishes of other countries are also represented, including Italian, Greek, Swiss and Thai - as well as the good old hamburger. Strangely though, typical French-Canadian cooking - game with sweet sauces followed by simple desserts with lashings of maple syrup - is available at very few places in town, although the many cabanes à sucre on ÃŽle d’Orléans offer typical meals to tourists.