Restaurant experience: Jardins Sauvages

I never thought I could have a favourite restaurant. It's like choosing a favourite food, you can't just pick one. There are too many delicious options and it depends what kind of mood you're in. But I have been to this little gem 3 times now, and I can say without a doubt that this is my favourite restaurant.

It's called À la table des Jardins Sauvages. Located in Saint-Roch-de-l'Achigan in the Lanaudière region, it takes roughly 45 minutes from Montreal to get there. The restaurant is in a beautiful site next to the St-Esprit river. It's very charming, with an outdoor fire pit and a suspension bridge covered in lights that crosses the river. The inside of the restaurant is very cosy and a tab bit rustic, which goes well with the cuisine.

Specializing in local game, wild plants and mushrooms, it makes you discover food that you either didn't know existed or you didn't know you could eat. It's a five course set meal (you can consult the web site to know the weekend's menu) that costs 75$ taxes included. It may seem expensive, but it's totally worth it! It's also bring your own wine, beer, porto, so that gives us a break financially speaking. If there's something that you don't like in their menu, just call them up and they'll change it. If it's a major change they may charge you, but that wasn't the case when they replaced the parmesan squares in the salad of my very cheeso-phobic brother.

Cattail show in the middle.

As I mention before, they use ingredients that are local but that you would never think of eating. François Brouillard runs the place and refers to himself as a coureur de bois. He picks wild mushrooms, plants and herbs and adds them to the menu. One of these ''I never would have thought of that'' discoveries for me was cattail. In the Spring, you can cut the tips and eat them. I tried this and it was very good. The waitress described it quite accurately as having a coucous texture and tasting similar to asparagus. There's also salicorne, which is an herb with a briny like taste, carcajou which resembles dijon, and the very aromatic foin d'odeur.

And let's not forget the mushrooms!!! I love wild mushrooms, bolet, trompette de la mort, morel, you name it they have it. When you start off the meal, they serve you bread with an absolutely divine bolet butter and monarde butter. You have to force yourself not to fill up. But don't worry, you can purchase these butters on site along with a bunch of other wonderful products made by Les Jardins Sauvages.

As mentioned, the main course consists often of game meat including deer, duck and bison. All in all the portions are not that big, but by the time you reach dessert you are very much full (and if by some miracle you aren't, you can order a cheese course for an extra 7.50$). Luckily the dessert is light and refreshing, a nice way of finishing off the evening before a long ride home.

Desset, yum!

Once and a while they have a special themed 7 course menu. This is the case for the last 3 weekends of October. The theme is wild mushrooms where every course includes, you guessed it, mushrooms. It's more expensive (100$ per person), but I intend to try it this year, I just haven't told my husband yet! ;-)