A Vegetarian in Quebec City, Part Four: Panache

Our last night in Quebec City, we ate at Panache, one of the city’s finest restaurants. It’s attached to a gorgeous hotel, which we got to tour before dinner.

The property started life as a wharf in the 1690s. Later an enormous warehouse was built, which now houses Panache. Beside it, workers dug a landfill to dispose of things that broke on ships en route from Europe. All this broken pottery and other household goods were thrown into the landfill. But what looked like junk, seconds and irregulars to earlier settlers looks like history and rare artifacts today. At least to people like me who love old things.

Fortunately, the Price family, one of Quebec City’s oldest and most prominent families, also love historic items. The owners of Auberge Saint-Antoine, they decided to incorporate the archeological theme throughout the hotel’s design. Each floor is devoted to a different period in the site’s history. Each room is named for an artifact found on-site, with a fragment of that artifact displayed by the room door in a lit-up glass box outside the door, and another fragment on the night table. Other artifacts are grouped in larger recessed boxes along the halls and in the reception area where other hotels would have paintings. The use of more than 700 artifacts throughout the hotel is extremely effective as far as being both attractive and relevant to the site.

Downstairs, on the lowest floor, the designers left exposed sections of the oldest walls. Enormous black and white photos of people working on the archeological dig decorate the halls. On this floor you’ll find a dedicated yoga room behind a door marked with an om sign. It’s a big space where you can do yoga on your own, join a weekly class on Saturday or have the hotel call a private instructor to give you special attention.

A little farther down the hall is a gorgeous gym. Four exercise bikes are grouped around a tree trunk. Unlike many hotel gyms, these aren’t rickety 20 year-old bikes, but modern ones with touch screens. The also offer weight machines, free weights, a good assortment of kettlebells and the opportunity to work with a personal fitness trainer. Another of my hotel gym pet peeves is the lack of natural light or a view. So often they’re crammed in dismal basements, making me rush through my workout to escape the depressing surroundings. But this gym is gorgeous. And has windows.

This is also the spa floor. Two massage tables await guests, as does the Finnish sauna in the dressing room, which is open from six a.m. to midnight.

The attention to detail is especially apparent in Panache. Like the rest of the hotel, as many of the original floors, walls and beams as possible are incorporated into the design. The stairway – a vintage reproduction – is a gorgeous ornate wrought iron, made in Ottawa.

Our group got to eat in the private upstairs dining room that opens onto a deck where the chef has his herb garden. It was still a little nippy for this year’s herbs to be planted, but we ventured into the cool air to admire views of the Saint Lawrence River.

Julien Dumas has been Panache’s chef for only a year. He’s big on local products, as evidenced by the herb garden. You can’t get much more local than the restaurant’s own roof.

Our first course, beet tartare, was beautiful, like everything that came out that night. Dumas paired the beets with strawberries and granny smith apples. As my group’s lone vegetarian, I was excited about a meatless starter. The mixed bread basket was also amazing.

Everybody else had steak or walleye, but the chef made me a special dish of smoked onions with mountain cranberries, garnished with a few lovely chard leaves. Our server told me to combine the onion and cranberry flavors in each bite.

Next came the cheese plate. As a mostly-vegan, I skipped the cheese but had some salad with truffle oil dressing, maple-coated pecans and an apple reduction with orange and honey (I know, honey isn’t vegan. I did say “mostly.”).

For dessert, Dumas made coconut milk ice cream with strawberry and Japanese parsley, plus a mixture of parsley and strawberry tails. The delicate rice lettuce leaves looked like angel wings on top.

In addition to being mostly vegan, I’m also a non-drinker, which sometimes adds to my embarrassment in a fine dining situation. I mean, people put a lot of thought into wine pairings, and then I stick to water. But the sommelier was extremely gracious. He offered me a mocktail pairing with every course! This was a bit excessive when I was already eating so much, but I did down two.

The maple iced tea was a tall and lovely mixture of Chinese white tea, maple syrup, two whole peeled lychees and lemon juice, with a carved lemon on top of the glass and a little plastic sword through one of the lychees. I have always loved drinks which include swords. I also drank a Shrekitini. Its ogre-green tinge comes from cucumber juice mixed with ginger, ginger syrup, lime juice and cranberry juice.