Quebec City on a Budget: Best Cheap Eats
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Quebec City’s food story runs through two real institutions
No trip needs a long restaurant list here either; two verified names cover the dishes Québec City is actually known for, and the rest is worth exploring by neighborhood.
The two institutions
Chez Ashton, the Québec City poutine chain, started in 1969 as a $5,000 food-truck operation and added poutine to the menu in 1972, giving away free samples until it won skeptical customers over. It opened its first year-round dining room in 1976 and now runs 20-plus locations concentrated around the city (a 1980s push into Montreal failed; new owners took over in 2022). Aux Anciens Canadiens occupies Maison Jacquet, built 1675-76, one of the oldest houses in the city; the restaurant has served traditional Québécois cuisine there since 1966, staff in period dress, across five small dining rooms.
Signature dishes to look for anywhere
Poutine (fries, cheese curds, gravy) is the obvious one, but tourtière (spiced meat pie), cretons (a pork-and-spice spread), and pea soup (soupe aux pois, traditionally flavored with a ham hock and a touch of maple) show up on menus across Old Québec, not just at the two names above.
Sugar shack, out of season or in
A cabane à sucre (sugar shack) meal, classically a spring tradition tied to the maple harvest, pea soup, fèves au lard, cretons, tourtière, and tire sur la neige (maple taffy rolled onto a stick in the snow), is available year-round at a handful of Old Québec spots, including La Buche on rue Saint-Louis near the Château Frontenac, for anyone whose dates miss actual sugaring-off season.
Markets and self-catering
The Marché du Vieux-Port, an indoor, year-round public market by the Old Port, sells local cheese, deli meats, baked goods, produce, and maple products alongside stalls serving the same Québécois classics, a cheaper way to eat well without a restaurant bill.
The real cost at the register
Quebec’s sales tax, 14.975% (5% GST plus 9.975% QST), applies to restaurant meals in full and isn’t shown on the menu price, only added at checkout. Tipping runs 15-20%, calculated on the pre-tax subtotal rather than the total after tax, the standard local move.
Read more: the 2-day itinerary routes Aux Anciens Canadiens into Day 1, and the main Quebec City guide covers the free sights to pair with a meal.