Among the dull cobblestone buildings in Old Quebec, this one was hard to miss. On the corner of Rue Saint Louis and Rue des Jardins sits a white house with bright red trimmings painted to look like the Canadian flag.
On a rainy Saturday night, after calling a few restaurants to find out they were completely booked with reservations, I walked into Aux Anciens Canadiens—with a welcome comparable to one you would expect from grand-mère. Instantly I was greeted with a sing-song bonjour and the dry heat of the carefully tended flames of wood stoves. Before I could peek into the dimly lit dining room on the first floor to admire the old masonry walls, a short man in a crisp white shirt beneath a black apron came around from the bar and offered to take my coat.
The house-turned-restaurant was built in 1675, making it one of the oldest houses left in Quebec City. At the time, it was called the maison Jacquet. François Jacquet acquired the land in 1674 and built adjoining houses which now hold five dining rooms. Since its construction, a slew of impressive tenants have lived in the house, with the most notable being the author Philippe-Aubert de Gaspé. He wrote the novel “Aux Anciens Canadiens”—which the restaurant was named after.
Through the solid wood door painted red, the warmth radiates from the wood stoves located in almost each dining room filled with a majority of tourist diners. At a few tables, some chatted with the waiters about how they were going to split the check and what desert they should order—all in broken French.
As I was ushered up to my table on the second floor, I couldn’t help but hum along with the classical music playing dully around the restaurant. I had to duck as I walked up the carpeted stairs, making me feel like I should have been walking around in slippers rather than heeled boots. At the table, the place settings were dressed with white and blue dinnerware and checkered cloth napkins to match. From my seat, I was able to spot a different antique piece every time I looked up from my food. It was like playing I spy with my own grandmother when I was a child. On almost every inch of the windowsills and walls were old iron keys, hunting equipment, plates and probably more I couldn’t spy with my little eye.
For the full canadien experience, the waiter—dressed in a navy blue overcoat fitting the French regime theme—suggested I try choosing from the table d’hôte menu as it includes an appetizer, soup, main course and dessert complete with an aperitif and tea or coffee. My gin and tonic was followed by my selection of a wild caribou and bison rillettes with a carrot confit. Only finding out then a rillettes was like a pâté, luckily I was charmed by the tiny mason jar on my plate. Similar to the traditionally seasoned taste of a French Canadian tourtière meat pie, while spread over buttered toast, the rillettes melted in my mouth. While the carrot confit teetered on the verge of overly sweet, it still meshed well with the saltiness of the meaty spread.
Next on the menu was soup and my choice seemed like the most obvious given the atmosphere—pea soup grand-mère. Being a self-proclaimed pea soup connoisseur, I had the highest hopes for the soup but I was sadly underwhelmed. For my taste, there weren’t enough peas and there was a pitiful lack of the basics like salt and pepper.
For the main course, the table d’hôte offered the choice between beef tenderloin with button mushroom and calvados sauce, bison bourguignon with a cream blueberry wine sauce, a salmon filet with vegetables or the Régal de Grand-Mère: meatball ragout, tourtière, paté and baked beans.
Apart from the options offered on the table d’hôte, the menu offers an interesting selection of main course proteins. Diners looking to experience an authentic recreation of traditional Quebec cuisine can test their palettes with red deer, lamb or bison dishes. For diners who are not keen on trying gamey meats, the daily menu also offers poultry and seafood options.
Any menu combination of a three course meal of the traditionally rich foods would leave anyone wanting to unbutton their jeans for a taste of the dessert menu’s tempting list of maple infused delicacies: maple syrup crème brûlée, maple caramel bread pudding, pure maple sugar on bread and a traditional maple sugar pie with unsweetened whipped cream. The crème brûlée—a personal favourite dessert of mine—could have been more maple infused, but the top glaze would satisfy anyone’s maple sweet tooth.
The plates did not have much finesse or portion control, considering the hardiness of the dishes, but it was a meal that did traditional Quebec cuisine justice in its tasty seasonings and local ingredients. Plate décor sometimes consisted of bulky romaine lettuce leaves and clunky sides, but all the while I believed that grand-mère could have very well been cooking up a storm to feed the full dining rooms of tourists. On the frigid Saturday night that I stumbled upon a small piece of Old Quebec history, there is no doubt the food warmed me up and sent me home with an overly full belly.
The table d’hôte menu price starts at $49.95.
On the regular dinner menu, main dishes range in price from $31 to $59.