Some of The Best Regional Food in Canada is Hiding in This National Park

My first visit to Le Bic, the wild and beautiful region surrounding Quebec’s Parc National du Bic, was in 2018, and it remains the farthest I have traveled simply to have dinner. My husband and I drove more than five hours from Montreal to eat at Chez Saint-Pierre, the restaurant belonging to the renowned chef Colombe St-Pierre, in the town of Rimouski. The clapboard house was unexceptional from the outside, unlike St-Pierre herself, whose fun outfit — shorts over pantyhose, plus a 1970s-style headband the night I visited — and outspoken volubility filled the room with warmth and charisma. St-Pierre, now 46, is the daughter of a local lighthouse keeper and grew up on Île Bicquette, a tiny island in the St. Lawrence River. She is charming, generous, and passionate about her region. And her food is fantastic. Sitting in her restaurant, its walls lined with corks — “they make excellent insulation” — we ate gravlax of Gaspé mackerel from the mouth of the St. Lawrence; beef from Saint-Fabien, a village down the road; and ice cream flavored with balsam fir.

That meal was so good and the surroundings so tantalizing that last year I went back. Along the coastal road, the river keeps you company, widening until the far shore disappears. I had come to this gateway to eastern Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula (also known as Gaspésie) to talk to members of a group of artisans, researchers, and restaurateurs, among them St-Pierre. Fed up with the narrow attitudes toward the bounty in the St. Lawrence River, which tend to focus on just a handful of ingredients, the group has organized under the banner Mange ton Saint-Laurent! (MTSL), literally, “Eat your St. Lawrence!”

Say “Gaspé” to anyone in Montreal, and they’ll lick their lips at the prospect of snow crab, prawns, and lobster. But, says Sabrina Roy of MTSL, “We have over a hundred edible species in our waters!” So, aided by the talented and eccentric St-Pierre, the group has set out to educate people about all the other nice things they could be eating in an effort to make their beautiful region more sustainable (80% of the river’s output in Quebec is currently exported) as well as show off its gastronomic variety.

As we pulled into Vieux Loup de Mer, co-owner Martin Gagnon came out of Le Garde-Manger — or “The Pantry,” his small shop packed with local products — to greet me and my husband. He guided us past the herb patch, the kitchen garden, and the henhouse — “help yourself to eggs” — to one of the 15 gorgeous chalets dotted throughout the woods. Inside, their distressed-wood interiors are artfully and comfortably decorated with flea-market and antique-shop finds, all washed with the light reflecting off the river. Gagnon and his partner, Jean-Luc Leblond, refashion them from derelict buildings — schoolhouses, farmhouses — that owners are only too happy to have removed from their properties. “Are you architects?” I asked. “No, we are madmen,” Gagnon responded cheerily.

In Le Garde-Manger, some large, round tins in beautiful colors caught my eye. They were from Chasse-Marée, a tinned seafood company founded by Parisian oceanographer Guillaume Werstink and Emmanuel Sandt-Duguay, a fisherman, on the river’s edge just past Rimouski. Their specialty is unlikely: gourmet whelks, steam-cleaned, shelled by hand, then preserved in a lobster bisque or a boreal brine. “Our objective is to show off these products that deserve to be as well known as prawns, crab, or lobster,” Gagnon told me. The St. Lawrence, he said, using the term so beloved of French winemakers, is “our terroir.”

Whelks were part of the diet of the indigenous Mi’kmaq people and then of the French and English who colonized the region. The shellfish are ugly but delicious, with just enough brininess and a lovely firm texture. They have been fished here commercially since the 1940s, but mostly for export. The same has happened with sea urchin, which is prized by Montreal’s top restaurateurs — when they can get it. This frequently repeated story of communities missing out on local ingredients is exactly what the region’s producers and chefs are trying to rewrite.

The list of delicacies pulled from the river is long: halibut, which St-Pierre steams over cedar branches; sturgeon, eel, and smelts; rockfish, once so beloved in France (as rascasse) that A. J. Liebling of The New Yorker wrote an entire article about them. The rockfish here had almost gone extinct, but the warming of the waters, thanks to climate change, suits them, and now, Chasse-Marée’s Werstink says, “the river is full of them.” Antoine Nicolas of Océan de Saveurs forages seaweed from the riverbed — even in winter, when he must navigate around blocks of ice. Julie Gauthier of Pêcheries Charlevoix fishes for smelts, herring, and sardines using a traditional fascine, which resembles a floating permeable cage. I hadn’t expected such a cornucopia in a place that spends half the year coated in snow.

Not all of the St. Lawrence’s bounty swims. Five minutes’ drive from Chasse-Marée, beside a lighthouse, is the Distillerie du St. Laurent. The distillery closed permanently in May, but during our visit, gin was made in copper and stainless steel vats with river botanicals, and the warehouse had a gabion wall — a wire cage filled with stones — that allowed the river-perfumed air to permeate the whiskey barrels. In the bar above the distillation tanks, we breathed that air, sipped a cocktail, and gazed over the ever-changing water.

Almost dizzy from this sensory overload, we tottered home via the Rimouski farmers market, then a bakery, a smokehouse, and a fishmonger. A little later in the year, we could have picked our own strawberries, or driven on to Saint-Fabien and Cantine Côtière, chef St-Pierre’s more casual celebration of local producers and river bounty (the name means “coastal canteen”), which is open from June to September. “We are the maestros of fun and of seaweed sausages!” she says.

Our chalet’s kitchen was extremely well equipped, but there was no obligation to use it. The next afternoon, private chef Adrian Pastor showed up to cook for us. This 32-year-old from Peru fell in love with a local woman, then became enamored of the region’s produce. He blends Peruvian techniques and Quebec products with a calm flair: ceviche of rhubarb and oysters, chicharrones from local oyster mushrooms instead of fried pork. Pastor makes miso butter from red beans and peps up his bread with a salty, smoky seaweed known as sea bacon. He assured me that cow parsnip, when lacto-fermented and dehydrated, tastes like curry. “I could make Peruvian food,” he says. “With globalization, it would be easy. But I had more fun discovering what was here.” Fun and flavor: the twin tastes of the region. If this is eating the St. Lawrence, I’d like a second helping.

Where to eat

Tourist season runs from April to October; many of these places are open only during that window.

Chez Saint-Pierre

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

Cantine Côtière

At St-Pierre’s casual dining outpost, meat, fish, and vegetables all come from local providers; there is wine by the glass or to take away, and great oysters.

Projet Yaku

Adrian Pastor of Projet Yaku blends techniques from his native Peru with Quebecois products in a range of unusual and delicious dishes. He cooks in the Vieux Loup de Mer chalets on request; his products are in Le Garde-Manger there, too.

Marché Public de Rimouski

There is a fantastic range of local products, from bison to bagels, plus cheese, duck, maple syrup liqueur, fruits and vegetables, honey, and smoked fish at this charming public market in the city of Rimouski.

Le Farinographe Boulangerie

You’ll find bread, cakes, and sandwiches, all made from Quebecois grains and natural yeasts at Le Farinographe Boulangerie.

Poissonnerie Gagnon

This fishmonger Poissonnerie Gagnon stocks fresh fish from the river just opposite or further afield, plus colorful cans of seafood from Chasse-Marée, teas, spices, and, in summer, sea plants, including samphire and sea parsley, from Les Jardins de la Mer.

La Fumerie de l’Est

Starting with a seafood marinade back in 1997, La Fumerie de l’Est has since expanded to smoked fish and meat, plus a range of local products including a selection of beers from Quebec’s many microbreweries.

Where to stay

Vieux Loup de Mer

Stay at a standalone chalet next to the water on this beautiful property just beside Bic national park. Vieux Loup de Mer hosts the aforementioned pantry shop, Le Garde-Manger, overflowing with products from local artisans, including Quebecois wines. Chalets from $230

Le Mange-Grenouille

This 19th-century general store in Rimouski is now the quirky hotel Le Mange-Grenouille with a great restaurant and wine list. Rooms from $149