Have in common Elvis Presley, Jean Chrétien and Bishop Félix-Antoine Savard? All three have already been eating at Bootlegger La Malbaie!
Outside, at the beginning of the path leading to the venerable restaurant Menaud area master draveur, a huge boot filled liquor bottles and welcomes you referring to the meaning of "bootlegger". At the time of smuggling, alcohol smugglers hid the bottles dives ... actually in their boots!
Go to Bootlegger is likely to enter the most historic and original steakhouse in Quebec. Bar stool mounted on saddles, photos of personalities and kitschy objects alongside genuine antiques.
House smugglers, the building dates from 1860. Built in the corner of Clermont, the house was moved in 1939, piece by piece, until St. Agnes by Norie Sellar, an American from Pennsylvania whose rich father had told to get a job if he thought inherit one day!
The result, as one is in full during prohibition in the United States, Charlevoix while being an area where the Americans liked to come to forests full of game and its multitude of lakes, Sellar developing a hunting and fishing club - Club Monts - and transforms this typical house of the French architecture, not only as the administrative headquarters of the Club des Monts, but also as a restaurant (tenons, mortises, wooden pegs and rafters-supporting farms, yes!). The home where the master of the house, or rather his cook was cooking the meat is still in office. Parts Angus beef, pig grain, chicken and farmed elk are rubbed with the mixture of spices and herbs house, grilled on a charcoal Maple, himself Hickory flavored chips. You can imagine the result!
On time tables - then of the guests there also engraved their name - the owner of now, Johanne Brassard, has put a bottle of sauce to meat bootlegger's House, one of the four products houses it sells with partner Joey Tardif. "In addition to the sauce, we do also make our steak spice, our magic and our spice vinaigrette St. Agnes," said the proprietress warm places since 1996, sitting in his chair flanked by two skulls.
Simple and great
Specializes in grilled meats, it will be understood that cometh in the Bootlegger, not for its foie gras and duck confit, but for the atmosphere. "We want it simple and excellent. It is a place to celebrate with the added Joey Bootlegger House Band "continues that rules over 36 employees.
With meals only host table is 16,000 people, for 143 days as of April of each year, come taste the soup drunken snail des Monts, the against-nets , ribs and surf and turf and eventually send his belt one or more of the 20 shooters a set menu or better, orange club. This dessert dates from the time of Mr Sellar: this is a slurry orange, injected with mint cream!
Do not worry, there is an escort service for those who want it! For two years, a few kilometers from Bootlegger, it now has its inn with absolutely charming rooms where people come enjoy the quiet Charlevoix after a particularly festive evening.
When grilling rhymes with bravado
An evening at Bootlegger would obviously be incomplete without a tour of the premises. During the erection of the new house in St. Agnes Sellar, also amateur games to money the good man, "took great care, says Sandra Tremblay, responsible for the guided tours to the restaurant, to amend accessibility of various parts. "
From the dining room, stairs very steep leads to a maze with multiple rooms with behind hidden doors of libraries or multiple caches for delivery fresh alcohol. Because even if there was not really any prohibition in Quebec, the temperance campaigns were underway, all led by the Church. Sellar being constantly ready to "outwit the most astute squad members mores of the time", explains a leaflet Bootlegger. But when one is friend with Félix-Antoine Savard, it must help a little to survive Bootlegger as says the motto of the restaurant!
For more information:
Maison du Bootlegger
110 rang du Ruisseau des Frênes
418-439-3711
www.maisondubootlegger.com
