The Strøm Nordic spas stand out from all the others in Quebec by offering quite advanced Nordic gourmet cuisine, incorporating ingredients that are still too little known in our region.
Each of the five thermal spas (L’Île-des-Sœurs, Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Vieux-Québec, Sherbrooke and Saint-Sauveur) hosts a Nord restaurant. For just over a week, it has been possible to have a meal there without being a spa customer.
Director and executive chef Raphaël Podlasiewicz coordinates a large team. The menus are developed at the Nord Culinary Laboratory in Chambly, where Strøm’s head office is located. The restaurant is also open to the public.
The dishes on the menu of the five other branches are born in this lab. At Strøm Saint-Sauveur, we tasted practically the entire menu – which will change depending on the season, that said – in small formats. There was, among other things, the excellent pork terrine from the Turlo farm, the superb hot-smoked duck glazed with honey and lavender, then a delicious creamy buffalo yogurt with raspberry meringue, rhubarb compote and berries.
In Saint-Sauveur/Piedmont, where there are already a good number of restaurants (including Merci la vie, Baumier, Lola 45 and Les Vieilles Portes, which are being resurrected), will people travel for the culinary experience without the baths ? This is a medium/long term project, especially since the development of this large resort is only just beginning. But in L’Île-des-Sœurs and Mont-Saint-Hilaire, where the offer of refined Nordic cuisine is less abundant, a Nord is probably welcome.
The dining rooms with minimalist decor, in the chic-rustic register, are pleasant to frequent. Then there are generally great things to drink, both on the cocktail side and on the wine side, with a majority of Quebec products.