Best Places to Eat in Quebec City
Quebec City’s food identity leans hard into French-Canadian comfort cooking: poutine (fries, cheese curds, gravy), tourtiere (a spiced meat pie), cretons (a pork spread), and pea soup traditionally flavored with a ham hock and a touch of maple. Expect to see all four on menus across Old Quebec and well beyond it.
Aux Anciens Canadiens
For a meal inside real history, Aux Anciens Canadiens occupies Maison Jacquet, built in 1675-76 and one of the oldest houses in the city. Author Philippe-Aubert de Gaspe lived there from 1815 to 1824, and the restaurant, open since 1966, still serves traditional Quebecois cuisine across five small dining rooms with staff in period dress.
Chez Ashton
For the local take on poutine, Chez Ashton is the institution. Founded in 1969 by Ashton Leblond as a $5,000 food-truck operation, it added poutine to the menu in 1972, giving away free samples to win over skeptical customers, and opened its first year-round dining room in 1976. It changed ownership in 2022 and now runs more than 20 locations concentrated around Quebec City, with new franchise locations opening regularly.
Marche du Vieux-Port
This year-round indoor public market by the Old Port sells local cheese, deli meats, baked goods, produce, and maple products alongside stalls serving Quebecois classics like meat pies, soups, and poutine. It’s open daily, roughly 9 to 6 on weekdays and 9 to 5 on weekends (verify current hours), and it’s the easiest single stop to sample a wide range of local food without committing to a sit-down meal.
Cabane a sucre (sugar shack)
A traditional maple-harvest meal, classically eaten in spring during sugaring-off season, though some Quebec City spots serve it year-round, including La Buche on Rue Saint-Louis near the Chateau Frontenac. A full sugar-shack menu typically runs pea soup, feves au lard (baked beans), cretons, oreilles de crisse (fried pork jowls), ham or sausage in maple syrup, tourtiere, pickled beets, and tire sur la neige, maple taffy poured onto snow and rolled onto a stick.
Where to browse
Rue Saint-Jean inside the walls and the Petit-Champlain district in Lower Town both cluster cafes, bakeries, and bistros within a short walk of each other, while Saint-Roch across the river has the city’s more contemporary, less tourist-facing dining scene. Tax adds about 14.975% to every bill, and the standard move is to tip 15-20% on the pre-tax subtotal rather than the total after tax.
Read more: check the Quebec City travel guide for neighborhood context, or see the festivals and events in Quebec City guide for food-focused events like the New France Festival.