I’m eating the butteriest croissant, standing on a chic, tree-lined boulevard and listening to a French-talking foodie I met at the bakery. He’s pointing me towards his favourite restaurants, culminating in Caffe Un Po Di Piu: “You really have to go! And order the burrata - you must!”
But I’m not in France. This is Quebec, where a 12-night family stay showed me the perfect mishmash of European-style architecture and food fanaticism - and North American friendliness. Gaze confusedly at Google Maps for more than three seconds and a Montreal commuter volunteers the most scenic route or speediest shortcut.
We started in Montreal, getting our bearings via a family bike tour. The kids, aged two and five, slept off their jet lag in a trailer while we navigated some of Montreal’s 350km of immaculate - and safe - cycle paths. We laughed with whooping locals as we crossed the finishing line of Île Notre-Dame’s F1 track (struggling to imagine Silverstone allowing such frollicks), then looped around industrial malt factories and stopped for brioche at Atwater Farmers Market (marchespublics-mtl.com).
Food is a seriously big deal in Montreal: not French-snobby or haute-cuisine obsessed, but the city has more restaurants than Manhattan. Those restaurant staff know not just every ingredient on the menu, but the middle names of the farmer who grew them too.
The bagels are famous (go for blueberry-stuffed ones at Fairmount bakery), but we followed the advice to visit Caffe Un Po Di Piu (caffeunpodipiu.com) - and its burrata, polpette and bruschette were everything my croissant-buddy promised. Bao dumplings at vegan Lov de la Montagne (lov.com) would convert even the most cynical meat-lover. And we gazed down on ant-sized people numerous storeys beneath us while eating confit duck and massive avo salads at the tower-topping Les Enfants Terribles. (jesuisunenfantterrible.com)
After all that food, my own enfants (not-so) terribles loved learning exactly what happened to it in graphic, kid-perfect detail at Montreal Science Centre. Quebec’s museums are spectacular - the Museum of Archeology, where you can walk the city’s former sewers, was worth a whole day.
Footsore, it was time to bob around in the outdoor jacuzzi of Bota-Bota, a huge old ferry boat that’s now been fashioned into an on-the-river spa (botabota.ca). Its Nordic thermal circuit and cocooning hammocks were more relaxing than any boring beige luxury hotel’s spa.
There’s always noise in Montreal, though: as a taxi driver told me, “we have two seasons: winter, and construction.” Cranes and diggers were everywhere during our early September trip, builders desperate to finish work before Canada’s brutally-cold winter starts to blow in.
Plethora of high-vis jackets aside, autumn or spring is the perfect time to go. When we headed north, the trees were beginning to show off their world-famous hues. A three-hour VIA train ride (which left Montreal bang on time) pulled into Quebec City, a quiet haven that’s touristy in all the best ways. The very-walkable Old Port area was crammed with arty shops and food stalls, canons still in position from the town’s history under French, then English occupancy (quebec-cite.com).
A three-hour food tour run by Local Quebec City was a great sightseeing hors d’oeuvre: rolling our own maple taffy at sugar shack La BÈche, eating the region’s most famous dish, poutine (chips plus cheese curds plus gravy: the best hangover food) and scoffing more Paris-beating croissants at Paillard. My food coma and I waddled to our hotel, Fairmont Le Château Frontenac (fairmont.com). It claims to be the world’s most-photographed hotel and it was clear why: its turrets poke out of the skyline like Walt Disney’s dream castle. I was just as snap-happy at the perfect breakfast buffet (rolled-up maple syrup crepes: load me up) and at little touches like a hotel treasure hunt for kids, maple fudge on pillows, and Daphne, the lobby’s friendly dog.
From here we explored more rural Canada: cycling the 20km round trip to Montmorency Falls, mounting a cable car then crossing the 83m-high waterfall on a suspension bridge (sepaq.com). We trekked the spectacular rainbow-ringed Canyon Sainte-Anne and lived the life of the local eagles, flying over the gorge at 50km/hour suspended on a wire in an open chair.
Our trip whooshed by too: hiring a car for the 90-minute drive to Baie Saint-Paul in Charlevoix, which is surrounded by mountains, farmland and fresh air, we could pull in to a friendly farm every five minutes. A tour and tasting at Migneron involved the stellar produce combination of wine, cheese, and vodka (bonjourquebec.com).
Even our spa hotel, German Charlevoix, had on-site chickens, alpacas and rabbits, lavender and sunflower fields. It was the perfect base to visit Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive (they like a hyphen around here) and its Musée Maritime (mmq.qc.ca), which turned the esoteric topic of schooners into a fascinating morning. There are large, preserved (including sailers’ letters and leftovers) ships to explore without a single ‘don’t touch’ sign, plus amazing wildflower gardens.
On idyllic Isle-aux-Coudres (where the 1400 residents all knew each other and greeted us like locals too) we relaxed over Asian tofu salad and local smoked fresh salmon bowls at La Fabrique de l’Isle (lafabriquedelisle.com). Dessert was apples plucked from their groaning trees; then we rented a four-seater bike to pootle (we were overtaken by octogenarians) beside azure river and bright-green hills.
The best views of the trip all involved water, in Quebec’s numerous, beautiful national parks. We took a calm, captained riverboat on the Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivere-Malbaie, and kayaked ourselves around the cool lake at Yamaska whilst squinting for deer in the woods.
There was just time, on our journey back to Montreal airport, for a sunny afternoon at Verger Champetre (vergerchampetre.com), a farm where you can pack a wicker basket picnic full of its produce (chicken pie, pumpkin soup, apple juice, date cakes), and flop on Adirondack chairs in an immaculate waterside summerhouse.
New England charm with European chic - or as the Quebecois would put it, de fantastiques vacances.
