HUDSON, Québec, Canada — Americans love visiting the Canadian province of Québec. Foreign enough to feel refreshing and different, but still safe and friendly, it’s an easily-accessible foreign vacation destination. Most tourists head for Montréal or the provincial capital, Québec City. Both are very French, (with a distinctive Québecois accent) and offer historic charm, as well as downhill ski resorts like Mont Tremblant, north of Montréal and Mont Sainte Anne, east of Québec City. The food scenes are sophisticated and exciting, evolving constantly to reflect the demands of a deep end foodie culture. But few Americans sample the lesser-known and very worthwhile charms in a region west of Montréal, towards the Ontario border. One of those is the small village of Hudson, 60 kilometers west of Montreal on the shore of the Lake of Two Mountains.
Serving a small but thriving population of English-speakers, the charming Hudson main street features several gift shops, one of which, Clarence and Cripps, specializes in British food including excellent cheeses and iconic puddings.
Visiting in winter? Be prepared
My sister lives near Hudson, so we visit the area at least once a year, usually at Christmas. While a trip to Québec is worthwhile any time of year, winter weather presents its own set of very real challenges. Be prepared with warm winter clothing, including snow boots, and for your car, good tires, and very importantly, windshield washer that’s good to 40 below zero. There are few things scarier than having your windshield washer tubes and nozzles freeze solid, and up there, with all the snow and road salt, you need to clean your windshield often. It can get very, very cold. Two years ago during the Christmas holiday, the temperature never got above 20 below Fahrenheit. The first morning I took my dog for a walk, she made the mistake of licking a metal doorstop. I will spare you the details of what happened next. This year, the morning after we arrived, there had been a thaw and I
knew it would be icy, so I already had crampons, or spikes, on my boots. What I didn’t realize was that the front steps, the entire lawn, the
driveway and the street would be shining, boiler plate sheets of ice that even my crampons could barely get a grip on. It remained icy until the day before we left, when it snowed, which was lovely, because it allowed us to finally do some hiking on the trails in the woods near my sister’s house.
A restaurant worth the drive
One of the highlights of any western Québec visit is a dinner at a French restaurant in the nearby rural town of Très-Saint-Rédempteur, a place you would be hard pressed to find in a mainstream tourist brochure. We had a reservation on the evening of the expected snow, but the locals don’t let the weather stop them, so neither did we. We arrived at the restaurant, La Maison Du Défricheur at the appointed hour, and noticed that the parking lot, coated in a sheet of ice so smooth it looked as though a Zamboni had just groomed it, was empty. We gingerly made our way to the door and stepped inside a space that was also empty. Maybe Québecers are getting soft, because most people had canceled their reservations because of the impending snow. Only one other table was occupied that evening. From our table by a large window, we had a view of the entire dining room. The furnishings and decor exuded an understated but elegant comfort, the sort of relaxed ambiance I love in unpretentious European restaurants. There was music, but we didn’t have to shout over it. There was attentive, well-paced service, but no one rushing us or asking if “we were still working” on our plates. There are several menu options in addition to à la carte, including a testing menu and a menu du marché – whatever looked good at the market that day. All of the selections feature regional foods. After the appetizers, which included goat cheese salads for my sister and me and a wild boar terrine for my husband, we all decided on fish. My husband had Arctic char, my sister ordered sole with tiny, “nordic” shrimp and I had the walleye, a fish I have hardly ever seen on any menu. Accompanied by a selection of tiny, perfectly cooked vegetables, my walleye arrived piping hot, with a thin, crispy skin. We washed this down with a good Fumé Blanc. For dessert, my sister and I shared a sampler of three house-made desserts, including a profiterole and a small cup of their own maple ice cream.
I must also mention another enticement at this restaurant: they are also chocolatiers. A small selection of chocolates arrived at the end of our
meal, and we ended up buying a box to take home. Every bite had been delicious, and the room was cozy and comfortable, even with so much of the space empty. La Maison Du Défricheur (the English translation of défricheur is pioneer) is a very good reason to step off the beaten path on your next visit to Québec.
If you’re visiting in the winter, just make sure to bring your crampons.
Written by: Constance Sullivan
