A few of The Finest Regional Meals in Canada is Hiding in This Nationwide Park

My first go to to Le Bic, the wild and exquisite area surrounding Quebec’s Parc Nationwide du Bic, was in 2018, and it stays the farthest I’ve traveled merely to have dinner. My husband and I drove greater than 5 hours from Montreal to eat at Chez Saint-Pierre, the restaurant belonging to the famend chef Colombe St-Pierre, within the city of Rimouski. The clapboard home was unexceptional from the surface, in contrast to St-Pierre herself, whose enjoyable outfit — shorts over pantyhose, plus a Seventies-style headband the evening I visited — and outspoken volubility crammed the room with heat and charisma. St-Pierre, now 46, is the daughter of an area lighthouse keeper and grew up on Île Bicquette, a tiny island within the St. Lawrence River. She is charming, beneficiant, and obsessed with her area. And her meals is implausible. Sitting in her restaurant, its partitions lined with corks — “they make wonderful insulation” — we ate gravlax of Gaspé mackerel from the mouth of the St. Lawrence; beef from Saint-Fabien, a village down the street; and ice cream flavored with balsam fir.

That meal was so good and the environment so tantalizing that final 12 months I went again. Alongside the coastal street, the river retains you firm, widening till the far shore disappears. I had come to this gateway to japanese Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula (often known as Gaspésie) to speak to members of a bunch of artisans, researchers, and restaurateurs, amongst them St-Pierre. Fed up with the slender attitudes towards the bounty within the St. Lawrence River, which are inclined to give attention to only a handful of substances, the group has organized underneath the banner Mange ton Saint-Laurent! (MTSL), actually, “Eat your St. Lawrence!”

Say “Gaspé” to anybody in Montreal, they usually’ll lick their lips on the prospect of snow crab, prawns, and lobster. However, says Sabrina Roy of MTSL, “We’ve got over 100 edible species in our waters!” So, aided by the proficient and eccentric St-Pierre, the group has got down to educate folks about all the opposite good issues they may very well be consuming in an effort to make their lovely area extra sustainable (80% of the river’s output in Quebec is presently exported) in addition to exhibit its gastronomic selection.

As we pulled into Vieux Loup de Mer, co-owner Martin Gagnon got here out of Le Garde-Manger — or “The Pantry,” his small store filled with native merchandise — to greet me and my husband. He guided us previous the herb patch, the kitchen backyard, and the henhouse — “assist your self to eggs” — to one of many 15 beautiful chalets dotted all through the woods. Inside, their distressed-wood interiors are artfully and comfortably embellished with flea-market and antique-shop finds, all washed with the sunshine reflecting off the river. Gagnon and his accomplice, Jean-Luc Leblond, refashion them from derelict buildings — schoolhouses, farmhouses — that house owners are solely too completely satisfied to have faraway from their properties. “Are you architects?” I requested. “No, we’re madmen,” Gagnon responded cheerily.

In Le Garde-Manger, some giant, spherical tins in lovely colours caught my eye. They had been from Chasse-Marée, a tinned seafood firm based by Parisian oceanographer Guillaume Werstink and Emmanuel Sandt-Duguay, a fisherman, on the river’s edge simply previous Rimouski. Their specialty is unlikely: connoisseur whelks, steam-cleaned, shelled by hand, then preserved in a lobster bisque or a boreal brine. “Our goal is to point out off these merchandise that need to be as effectively often known as prawns, crab, or lobster,” Gagnon informed me. The St. Lawrence, he stated, utilizing the time period so beloved of French winemakers, is “our terroir.”

Whelks had been a part of the weight-reduction plan of the indigenous Mi’kmaq folks after which of the French and English who colonized the area. The shellfish are ugly however scrumptious, with simply sufficient brininess and a stunning agency texture. They’ve been fished right here commercially for the reason that Forties, however largely for export. The identical has occurred with sea urchin, which is prized by Montreal’s prime restaurateurs — once they can get it. This steadily repeated story of communities lacking out on native substances is strictly what the area’s producers and cooks are attempting to rewrite.

The record of delicacies pulled from the river is lengthy: halibut, which St-Pierre steams over cedar branches; sturgeon, eel, and smelts; rockfish, as soon as so beloved in France (as rascasse) that A. J. Liebling of The New Yorker wrote a complete article about them. The rockfish right here had nearly gone extinct, however the warming of the waters, due to local weather change, fits them, and now, Chasse-Marée’s Werstink says, “the river is filled with them.” Antoine Nicolas of Océan de Saveurs forages seaweed from the riverbed — even in winter, when he should navigate round blocks of ice. Julie Gauthier of Pêcheries Charlevoix fishes for smelts, herring, and sardines utilizing a conventional fascine, which resembles a floating permeable cage. I hadn’t anticipated such a cornucopia in a spot that spends half the 12 months coated in snow.

Not all the St. Lawrence’s bounty swims. 5 minutes’ drive from Chasse-Marée, beside a lighthouse, is the Distillerie du St. Laurent. The distillery closed completely in Might, however throughout our go to, gin was made in copper and chrome steel vats with river botanicals, and the warehouse had a gabion wall — a wire cage crammed with stones — that allowed the river-perfumed air to permeate the whiskey barrels. Within the bar above the distillation tanks, we breathed that air, sipped a cocktail, and gazed over the ever-changing water.

Virtually dizzy from this sensory overload, we tottered house through the Rimouski farmers market, then a bakery, a smokehouse, and a fishmonger. A little bit later within the 12 months, we might have picked our personal strawberries, or pushed on to Saint-Fabien and Cantine Côtière, chef St-Pierre’s extra informal celebration of native producers and river bounty (the identify means “coastal canteen”), which is open from June to September. “We’re the maestros of enjoyable and of seaweed sausages!” she says.

Our chalet’s kitchen was extraordinarily effectively outfitted, however there was no obligation to make use of it. The following afternoon, personal chef Adrian Pastor confirmed as much as prepare dinner for us. This 32-year-old from Peru fell in love with an area girl, then grew to become enamored of the area’s produce. He blends Peruvian strategies and Quebec merchandise with a peaceful aptitude: ceviche of rhubarb and oysters, chicharrones from native oyster mushrooms as an alternative of fried pork. Pastor makes miso butter from crimson beans and peps up his bread with a salty, smoky seaweed often known as sea bacon. He assured me that cow parsnip, when lacto-fermented and dehydrated, tastes like curry. “I might make Peruvian meals,” he says. “With globalization, it will be simple. However I had extra enjoyable discovering what was right here.” Enjoyable and taste: the dual tastes of the area. If that is consuming the St. Lawrence, I’d like a second serving to.

The place to eat

Vacationer season runs from April to October; many of those locations are open solely throughout that window.

Chez Saint-Pierre

Chef Colombe St-Pierre reopened her fine-dining spot this summer season with a set menu on weekends solely. The six-course menu celebrates the restaurant’s 20-year anniversary and its dedication to the area’s culinary id.

Cantine Côtière

At St-Pierre’s informal eating outpost, meat, fish, and greens all come from native suppliers; there’s wine by the glass or to remove, and nice oysters.

Projet Yaku

Adrian Pastor of Projet Yaku blends strategies from his native Peru with Quebecois merchandise in a variety of surprising and scrumptious dishes. He cooks within the Vieux Loup de Mer chalets on request; his merchandise are in Le Garde-Manger there, too.

Marché Public de Rimouski

There’s a implausible vary of native merchandise, from bison to bagels, plus cheese, duck, maple syrup liqueur, fruit and veggies, honey, and smoked fish at this charming public market within the metropolis of Rimouski.

Le Farinographe Boulangerie

You’ll discover bread, muffins, and sandwiches, all created from Quebecois grains and pure yeasts at Le Farinographe Boulangerie.

Poissonnerie Gagnon

This fishmonger Poissonnerie Gagnon shares recent fish from the river simply reverse or additional afield, plus colourful cans of seafood from Chasse-Marée, teas, spices, and, in summer season, sea crops, together with samphire and sea parsley, from Les Jardins de la Mer.

La Fumerie de l’Est

Beginning with a seafood marinade again in 1997, La Fumerie de l’Est has since expanded to smoked fish and meat, plus a variety of native merchandise together with a number of beers from Quebec’s many microbreweries.

The place to remain

Vieux Loup de Mer

Keep at a standalone chalet subsequent to the water on this lovely property simply beside Bic nationwide park. Vieux Loup de Mer hosts the aforementioned pantry store, Le Garde-Manger, overflowing with merchandise from native artisans, together with Quebecois wines. Chalets from $230

Le Mange-Grenouille

This Nineteenth-century normal retailer in Rimouski is now the quirky resort Le Mange-Grenouille with an incredible restaurant and wine record. Rooms from $149