Ile d’Orléans: Food-lover’s island near Quebec City

2K

Disclosure: I travelled to Ile d’Orléans as a guest of Destination Québec cité, the local tourism board, which neither reviewed nor approved this post. This post contains affiliate links.

Roughly 15 kilometres northeast of Old Quebec City, Ile d’Orléans is a gourmand’s dream destination. Once your car reaches the island end of the 1.75-kilometre Ile d’Orléans Bridge across the St. Lawrence River and climbs a steep grade, you’re in a rural wonderland of rolling hills and quiet roads, farm stands and cheese shops, jam makers and apple orchards.

When explorer Jacques Cartier stumbled across the island in 1535, he spotted lots of grapevines and dubbed it Ile de Bacchus. However, its winemaking history is relatively recent. There are now several wineries on the island, including one not far from the bridge, which was my first stop on a recent visit.

Cassis Monna & Filles: All things black currant

Cassis Monna & Filles is an unusual winery/distillery on many levels.

First, it makes its products from black currants. That’s not odd, admittedly, for its crème de cassis liqueur. However, it’s a bit quirky for its wines and for its newest product, black currant vodka, which nabbed a gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits competition in 2020.

Second, Cassis Monna & Filles is one of the few women-run wineries I’ve come across in Canada. Sisters Anne and Catherine Monna took over the business from their father Bernard, a fourth-generation liquor maker from France, who opened the winery after settling on Ile d’Orléans in the 1970s.

And third, the winery is part of Québec’s economusée (business museum) network, so you can learn about black currant agriculture, processing and beverage making in a small satellite building on the grounds. I didn’t make it to the museum because I was too busy chatting with Anne, browsing in the winery’s shop and, yes, sampling black currant vodka in a spiked lemonade cocktail. (It was very good.)

Not surprisingly, Anne is a bit bullish on the black currant, which she explains has been grown on the island for centuries. “It can be sweet. It can be salty. It’s very versatile.”

Today, Cassis Monna & Filles has 22 hectares planted with black currants and produces more than 60,000 bottles of liqueur, wine and spirits annually. As well as booze, you can shop for everything from black currant jam and mustard to chocolate-coated black currants and black currant soap in the sleek onsite boutique. In warm weather, the terrace restaurant is a gorgeous place to enjoy a view of the St. Lawrence River over lunch (which, of course, features menu items such as salads with black currant dressing). “We want people to fall in love with black currant,” says Anne.

It’s clear she’s in love with both black currant and Ile d’Orléans. She grew up on the island, and spent childhood summers peddling her dad’s fruit products from a kiosk. Even though she lives part time in a Montreal triplex, she spends as much time on island as she can, especially in summer. “It’s a beautiful place. We enjoy it very much.”

Ciderie/Verger Bilodeau: Apple and maple treats

If it can be made with apples and/or maple, you’ll probably find it in the spacious shop at Ciderie/Verger Bilodeau, the second stop on my afternoon trip around the island. Less than a 10-minute drive down chemin Royal from Cassis Monna & Filles, Ciderie/Verger Bilodeau manages an orchard of 3,500 apple trees, as well as a 2,000-tree maple sugar bush. From that bounty, it makes apple cider, apple juice, apple butter, maple syrup, maple sugar, and a few more uncommon treats, such as apple-maple onion confit and hazelnut-apple mustard.

The sweet sparkling apple juice is a hit with families, says Sandra Ouellet, daughter-in-law of the orchard’s founders. “It’s like champagne for kids.” Actually, many customers here seem to prefer their apples on the bubbly side; Ouellet says that Bilodeau’s effervescent cider has been the company’s most popular product throughout the pandemic.

You can sample many of the beverages and spreads at tasting stations separated by big sheets of dangling plexiglas. While others in my group worked their way through a series of sparkling, still and ice ciders, I had a ton of fun nibbling bread spread with butters, jellies and savoury dips. Yum.

Confiturerie Tigidou: Jam, jam and more jam

Speaking of tasty spreads, the third and final stop on my afternoon jaunt was Confiturerie Tigidou. Self-styled “jamtender” Vincent Paris studied marketing and advertising in Montreal before he and his partner started yearning for something different. Discovering that Ile d’Orléans was a “strawberry paradise,” they moved there and Paris began teaching himself to make jam, learning by trial and error. “Not all the [strawberry] varieties are good ones for the jam,” he says, a bit ruefully.

Perhaps because he’s somewhat new to the field, he gleefully experiments with all sorts of flavour combinations, blending berries with everything from mint to coriander. The results, he explains, find uses far beyond the breakfast table. I have to agree, as I eagerly gobbled up quite a few savoury samples.

Paris and his young family recently moved to a waterfront home next to a former boat factory, which they’ve converted into jam central. Check out Confiturerie Tigidou’s shop to buy fruit-rich jams of all descriptions, as well as other local products.

If you visit Ile d’Orléans

Quebec City is 445 kilometres northeast of Ottawa. You can get there by car, by train on VIA Rail, or by plane with Air Canada, Porter Airlines or WestJet.

Ile d’Orléans is a long, narrow island—about 34 kilometres long by 6.5 kilometres wide—just northeast of Quebec City. You can easily explore it on your own by car, or join a bus tour from Quebec City.

Many of the businesses on the island are seasonal (spring through fall), so please check their websites in advance when planning a tour. Note that many have online shops where you can buy their products year round.

The places where I stopped are just a few of the many farms, wineries, food shops and other agricultural businesses that you can visit on Ile d’Orléans. For more ideas, see Destination Québec cité or Tourisme Ile d’Orléans.

Want to stay overnight? Use the map below to find a place to stay. (Disclosure: If you do book a place using this map, I’ll receive a small commission—thank you!)

If you’re looking for more ideas for things to see and do in Quebec, Ontario and points beyond, please subscribe to my free newsletter. For day trips from Ottawa, check out my guidebook, Ottawa Road Trips: Your 100-km Getaway Guide.

As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land.