Laurie Raphaël

Excellent. I did the 5 course tasting menu. Food was amazing. Washed down with a bottle of St. Aubin.5. We had not been there in 20 years. New location.

I returned to Laurie Raphael again this year for the 5^th time, and it was as exceptional as ever. Somehow they combine traditional, provincial Quebec cuisine with high-​end contemporary techniques in a way that brings out the best of Old and Modern Quebec. They use ingredients from Charlevoix, so each meal is a taste of Quebec. The wine list is outstanding, and they do an excellent job of matching the perfect wine with each meal.
It is a bit pricey, but not absurd and definitely not over-​priced.
Very friendly staff, excellent location (easy walking distance from le Château Frontenac, even in the cold of winter), and very inviting space/​décor.
I recommend ordering the «Chef Chef» and trust the outstanding chefs to create a meal for you.
I went twice this year, and I will return each December when I visit Quebec.

Outside looks somewhat Las Vegas, but inside is calmer and more sophisticated.
We were intrigued by the idea of surprise, so we opted for Chef Chef menu. But we really, really wanted to have foie gras and somehow got the hint that it was not part of the Chef Chef menu, so we ordered foie gras app separately. It was good but not the best.
The Chef Chef was a great, especially the venison carpaccio. Everything was nicely presented and was delicious. I was a little disappointed when the dessert was brought in front of me because it looked it had a lot of white chocolate (I don’t do white chocolate), but the whole dish was really delicious with many flavors coming together.
Nice and friendly service as you’d expect at a place like this.

We had dinner here on 10÷11÷13, the staff was wonderful, from the hostess to the many, many waitstaff. They were polite and very friendly. We chose the Chef Chef menu, it would be a surprise of items the chef was experimenting with, each was paired with a glass of wine. The food was delicious, we enjoyed each course as well as the wine that was paired with it. The only complaint was the portion sizes were so small. The restaurant is very expensive and we left hungry! Not sure if we’d go back, it was a great experience and we were thrilled with each surprise, but it was more like tastings than courses.

Nous sommes allés là, ma famille et moi, pour la fête des Mères. Il y était offert un menu spécial à moindre coût (comparé aux prix élevés de d’habitude). Il faut savoir que le Laurie Raphael est l’un des restaurants les plus prisés de la ville de Québec. Comme tout bon resto dans le genre, la force n’est pas dans la quantité, mais dans la qualité de la cuisine. Le chef, Daniel Vézina, nous régale les papilles avec ses inventions culinaires hors du commun. Je dois lui lever mon chapeau, car dans le menu qui nous était imposé, il y avait de la purée d’asperge, et je déteste les asperges. Seulement, lorsque j’ai pris une bouchée de la mixture verdâtre, j’ai presque versé une larme (façon de parler…).
Tout ça pour dire que tout, même ce que je n’aime pas d’habitude, m’a semblé délicieux. L’ambiance est assez huppée, cela va sans dire, mais le personnel est très sympathique. Nul doute que pour des occasions spéciales, avec un bon budget mis de côté, j’y amènerai mes futures ex.

This restaurant is trying too hard. Every dish had a foam, a gel, an emulsification, a sorbet and one or two purees. That’s fine, but they seemed there just to be trendy, not to any purpose, and some didn’t really work. Meanwhile, service was spotty (no spoon with soup?), although our primary waiter was excellent. Don’t get me wrong; the food was beautiful and generally delicious, but for the type of restaurant this wants to be (e.g., many bottles of wine listed over $ 300), it fell short.
From other reviews, I expected a place not frequented by tourists (and, indeed, there were few there), but it’s clearly not a place for locals either.
You’d do far better to spend your evening at Le Patriarche, or for a slightly more affordable meal, any of the places along the Rue de Petit Champlain.

Great food, terrible service. No English menu available, no interest in avoiding allergens and snooty attitude. Shame on them.

We return to Quebec City as often as we can with this restuarant as our destination. For fifteen years it has remained our favorite, though we have tried many others. In fact this year we had lunch there two days, deciding to try two other restuarants for dinner based on reviews we had read. Though our Chef Chef lunch was truly devine, there is just nothing like a fine dinner there. The two other restuarants? Panache, a real disappointment actually, and St Amour, another of our favorites.
The Chef Chef lunch is a little adventure, since you don’t know what you will be eating until it arrives, though you can hardly go wrong at LR. Our fabulous waiter, Carl, chose a perfect wine for whatever it was to be for which he claimed no knowledge. Turned out to be the most delicious salmon, unlike no other, beautifully presented as always.
So, our next trip, back to LR for dinner.

This restaurant is really good… the service was Excellent!.. we got a place in the terrace and the place is very beautiful… All Dishes were Delicious… I asked for the Chef menu, which you don’t know what it is until you get the Dish. and It was really really good… the best Choice I could get… My boyfriend asked for the lobster, and It was really good, but the ammount of lobster was really small, even when the portions are normally small in Gourmet cuisine, this lobster portion was smaller than normally… the best part was the Dessert. We got the best one there, it was something with Chocolate and hydrogen. The presentation was Awesome… and also really delicious…

After my fabulous meal at the Laurie Raphael this week, I think it deserves a place on my list of favourite lunch places along with Le Café du Clocher Penché. However, just like the Clocher Penché, it’s a restaurant you go to on special occasions or when you just feel like having way above average food because it’s a little expensive, though I believe that the lunch menu offers great value for the money. Appetizer, main course and dessert ranged from about $ 17 to $ 24 depending on what you pick; stunningly cheaper than dinner. After thorough examination of all choices on the menu (isn’t it great when everything looks good?) I ordered the salmon tartare which came with tempura vegetables and taro chips. Everything was divine, they even managed to make the tempura vegetables better than most Japanese restaurants.
The service was very attentive and friendly. Even though it’s a posh restaurant, the staff didn’t have a cold attitude. The place was a little empty for lunch, but it may be because it was June 24^th and almost everybody in town was at home nursing their hangover.
Sadly, I don’t think it’ll ever be a place I’ll start frequenting often for dinner (if at all) because of the price, but I’ll be back for lunch when I feel like treating myself to some fancy food.

A beautiful restaurant that is certainly well aware of its foodie appeal. They have their own gourmet food shop just off to the side when you come into the restaurant.
The dining room is large, grand and very chic. Located in the Vieux-​Port of Quebec, this is definitely not a tourist place and certainly a place for those in the know. However, that being said, Laurie Raphael is well-​known to both Montrealers and Quebeckers. The standard of service is very professional. The wait staff exude a sense of sexiness in their approach, but that doesn’t mean that the service was doting or exceptional – it was just OK.
The menu is full of double meanings and humour. For example, the sponge cake with chocolate and orange ganache is presented as though it is some kind of seaside dessert where the sponge cake is torn up and presented as though it was a real sponge. The spoons of foie gras, scallops, lobster et c. are usually paired with some kind of local jam or sauce. Something from the «terroir» and something for everyone! Citrus and fruits appear often in their food (in late 2009 anyway). We were served a goat cheese plate where one of the goat cheese items was a take on the Pogo stick. I suppose that is fun and creative. But in truth, it did taste good, so what to do?
There was one wonderful dish – a chocolate caviar which was comprised of little tapioca balls bursting with a chocolate pudding taste that you’d remember eating as a child – all served in a little caviar container.
The meats and fishes are fetished over and usually come with a smear or two of some kind of sweet beet paste or chestnut purée. They served us one course with a stuffed squab leg full of nuts and herbs. Delightful, to be sure.
This was the second time I ate here and on both occasions, the food was lovely. However, sometimes you just don’t want to look for all the humour and jokes embedded in what is otherwise a truly contemporary French line-​up. But maybe that’s what life is all about?
Overall, an elegant Québécois restaurant with a sense of humour, even kitsch, when it comes to preparing its food.
P. S. Expect to pay at least $ 125/​person.