DECEMBER 2018O VISIT QUEBEC CITY IN THE WINTER, when the mansard roofs in
its old city drip with icicles, is to court disorientation. A four-
hour drive north from Burlington, Vermont (or an hour-and-
forty minute flight out of Newark, New Jersey), puts you in a
400-year-old city apparently airlifted, cobblestones and fortifi-
cations intact, from provincial France. For years Quebec City’s
food scene has played Lyon to Montreal’s Paris, concentrating impeccable haute
cuisine and down-to-earth dining based on local ingredients in one compact,
easy-to-navigate destination. Lately, innovation has been added to the mix,
thanks to “boreal cuisine” (think red deer, maple cream, and marine plants and
fungi foraged from local forests and shores). And a new wave of open-kitchen
restaurants staffed by relaxed servers is injecting some fun into the dining scene.
A weekend visit around the time of Carnaval, Quebec City’s winter-themed
festival (February 8–17, 2019), offers a taste of the Old World in the new. Book
your trip now, while rooms and flights are still reasonable.T
TRAVEL
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FRIDAY
Have your first meal at Buvette Scott (buvette
scott.com), on a sloping side street off rue
St.-Jean, for an introduction to the chill
spirit of the buvette, the Quebecois take on
the wine bar. As vintage vinyl spins, bar
staff serve cocktails mixed with housemade
tonics while waiters, switching effortlessly
between English and French, talk you
through a well-curated list of biodynamic
wines and chalkboard menus that alter-
nate between the comforting (fish cakes
and paprika gnocchi) and the adventurous
(boar’s tongue and boudin).Fairmont Le
Château Frontenac
overlooks the semi-
frozen St. Lawrence
River, the setting for
ice canoe races
during Carnaval.PHOTOGRAPHY: JEAN-FRANÇOIS BERGERON/ENVIRO FOTO