Favourite Stores: A taste of Quebec

One of my favourite stores in the distillery district of Toronto, the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery which is the largest and best preserved site of Victorian Industrial architecture in North America, is the A Taste of Quebec. The store which is in the Cooperage building on Gristmill Lane carries the best artisan cheeses and terrior products from the belle province as well as an art gallery section which has recently expanded but the food products are still available on the patio during the summer.

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Location of store is marked on the map above.

A custom cheese plate I ate that was prepared specifically for me and which includes a variety of hard and soft artisan cheeses from Quebec that I chose from a large selection.

Patrons eating in the former dining area in the art gallery section of the establishment.

A selection of Quebec micro brewed beers and artisan ciders (above) is available for consumption with the food, all made with ingredients from Quebec, in the picture below.

The Le 1608 Charlevoix cheese shown below is a semi-firm, washed rind cheese from the Canadienne cattle, an indigenous Quebec Charlevoix region breed that was brought from France between 1608 and 1670. The cheese, aged between two and six months, from the Labbé family farm has an interior fruity flavour but tastes nutty at the rind.

The Cendré des prés cheese below is an artisanal cheese which is made of cow milk and possesses a bloomy rind. In the middle of the camembert style cheese is a line of maple wood ash that lends this cheese a particular flavour of farm fresh butter.

Grey Owl cheese is prepared at Fromagerie Le Détour in Notre-Dame-du-Lac, Quebec by Ginette Bégin and Mario Quirion and the milk comes from a Swiss breed called Saanen. The colour of the thin cheese rind comes from an edible ash in which it’s rolled.

And here are some pictures of other cheeses available.