With a grin, a man in a flannel shirt, head shaved save for the long braid that whipped as he walked, crossed the bustling dining room and placed a slender wooden board on a table draped with red-and-white gingham. In the center sat two waffles, sandwiching ham, bacon and gooey cheese, which oozed and puddled on the wood. Apple compote lolled on top.
Filling as it was, the decadent sandwich was just one of many items that comprised my recent sugar shack brunch at Labonté de la Pomme, a cidery and maple syrup producer an hour west of Montréal.
While Vermont’s sugaring-season traditions involve snacking on hot dogs, eggs and other goodies poached in simmering sap — or dishing up sugar on snow alongside cakey doughnuts and crisp pickles — Québécois sugar makers have a rich history of offering full meals and boisterous hospitality to those who visit their shacks, known as cabanes à sucre.
Sugar shack fare, generally served in banquet halls, tends to be pork-heavy; classic dishes include split pea soup with ham, baked beans with bacon, crispy pig skin, omelettes and mixed meat pies. Maple desserts abound, such as pouding chômeur, a tender cake sopping with syrup. Many locals make a day of it, sticking around for on-site sleigh rides, snowshoe treks and live folk music.
Québécois sugar makers have a rich history of offering full meals and boisterous hospitality to those who visit their shacks.
Québec is the world’s largest producer of maple syrup, and the sweetener’s economic and cultural importance shows in the maple fever that sweeps the province each spring, as sugar makers fire up their evaporators and invite guests to dine. Some restaurants specialize in sugar shack fare year-round, manufacturing “snow” used to turn hot syrup into taffy. One such spot, Au Petit Poucet in Val-David — where roaring fireplaces illuminate walls decked with snowshoes and moose heads — feeds as many as 1,000 visitors a day.
Recently, there’s been both bad and good news about our northern neighbor’s sugar shack culture. The pandemic closed many businesses, and where there used to be more than 200 cabanes offering food and cheer to the public, the province now has around 140.
The bright side: Even as many continue to offer traditional feasts in their meaty, smoky glory, some have diversified that fare, giving visitors a reason to expand single sugar shack visits into full-blown, multiday tours.
Hungry for exploration after a long winter, I wanted to try a little bit of everything. Craving opportunities to burn calories whenever I wasn’t consuming them, I planned a trip to the Laurentian Mountains, which extend northwest of Montréal. There, I found culinary offerings that hit a variety of sweet notes, as well as plenty of outdoor activities to offset my intake.
Labonté de la Pomme
405 Rang de l’Annonciation, Oka, 450-479-1111, labontedelapomme.ca
Home of that memorable waffle sandwich, Labonté de la Pomme boasts an orchard and cidery, plus a maple sugar bush and a rustic building for visitors who flow through during the spring and fall to sample the goods.
In the dining room, visitors can choose a classic meal with all the fixings (CA$47), a veggie version of that meal (CA$52) or the “revisited gourmet meal” (CA$67). I opted for the latter, less traditional take, which included the waffle concoction and a caramelized onion soup featuring Trappist-style cheese — named Oka after the Cistercian Abbey that produced washed-rind cow’s milk wheels for nearly 100 years — along with the baked beans and homemade sausages that also grace the regular menu. When I inevitably cried oncle, staffers brought takeout containers for the leftovers.
To sip, I ordered a sampler of Labonté de la Pomme’s hard apple ciders (CA$20). They ranged from Nolan, a dry quaff made with rhubarb, to a bubbly and sweet dessert cider laced with maple syrup.
In the neighborhood
- At nearby Oka National Park (sepaq.com/pq/oka, CA$24.14), which has 25 miles of beautifully groomed Nordic ski trails, I glided next to the Ottawa River while listening to owls hooting in the forest.
- To dig deeper into Oka cheese lore, book a room at the Auberge de L’Abbaye d’Oka (abbayeoka.ca, rooms from CA$160) or call ahead to request a tour of the building (CA$10 per person, minimum of 2 people). Highlights of my stroll through the site included a visit to old dairy barns via weepy underground tunnels and peeks at various rooms that have been used as movie sets.Cheese is still made in a modern plant on the property. Several varieties, including one with mushrooms and truffles, are sold at a gift shop alongside other monk-produced specialties, such as salted caramel and mouse-shaped chocolates.
La Cabane à Tuque
370 Montée Fortier, Mont-Tremblant, 819-425-9129, lacabaneatuque.com
It’s not uncommon for sugar shacks to offer vegetarian options. For vegans or anyone who would prefer not to catch whiffs of ham and bacon as they dine, there’s the family-owned sugarhouse and eatery La Cabane à Tuque. Just 20 minutes removed from the over-the-top spa and slope culture of Mont-Tremblant, Québec’s largest ski resort, La Cabane à Tuque is a celebration of plant-based simplicity.
Guests gather at a single table in owner Simon Meloche Goulet’s home and share a family-style meal (CA$60) including freshly baked bread, cups of Chaga tea brewed with sap, and a variety of ferments and pickles, alongside heartier fare such as millet pie, fried potatoes and homemade tempeh scooped from cast-iron skillets. For a few extra loonies, I snagged a glass of kombucha (CA$5.50) flavored with spices foraged from the surrounding boreal forest.
Between courses, Goulet answered questions in French and English. While he cooked, I flipped through his handy, 23-page binder detailing his dietary choices, how he built his home with the help of 100 volunteers and the origin of his ingredients. Despite its nontraditional nature, the meal ended in classic fashion — with a trip outdoors to sample sugar on snow.
Maison de Soma
380 chemin Paquette, Mont-Tremblant, 833-883-7662, maisondesoma.com
Set amid snowy fields and forests, Maison de Soma, an on-farm restaurant near Mont-Tremblant Ski Resort, felt like an oasis when I arrived on a frigid day in early March. A fireplace burned in the portion of the kitchen that was open to the dining room, and sunlight streamed through tall windows. From a glass beaker, a staffer poured steaming coffee — one of the only items sourced outside Québec — into round-bellied earthenware cups that doubled as hand warmers.
This year’s sugar shack menu, available through the end of April, features classics inflected with Asian flavors and made using Québécois ingredients, many grown or foraged on the 600-acre property. One outlier: Maison de Soma, which opened in July 2023, hasn’t yet set up the sugaring operation its owners hope to launch by next year, so they are currently buying local maple syrup.
The various courses on the fixed-price menu (CA$75) were plated on rustic stoneware dishes. In place of pea soup was a bowl of yellow pea congee with baby ginger and housemade soy sauce; classic, vinegared slaw was scattered with cilantro. The omelette, which came alongside smoked pork and smashed potatoes, was drizzled with nÆ°á»c chấm, a tart, sweet and pungent Vietnamese dipping sauce.
During my visit there were three desserts: maple cake with toasted buckwheat-topped ice cream, a fluffy meringue “floating island” and classic maple taffy, which I scarfed down outdoors in view of the farm’s hoop houses.
In the neighborhood
- Mont-Tremblant is a hub for outdoor adventure, from the lift-served Mont-Tremblant Ski Resort to miles of Nordic and backcountry trails. While my sister hiked up the Mont and skied down (tremblant.ca, CA$30 for uphill skiers, CA$142 for a full-day downhill pass) — I lounged in an outdoor hot tub at the Fairmont Tremblant (fairmont.com/tremblant, rooms from CA$329) and watched folks slide the slopes.
- We both splurged on edible souvenirs at nearby Gourmet Sauvage (gourmetsauvage.ca/en), a store packed with surprising goods made of wild Québécois ingredients. Chanterelle caramel, cedar jelly, dried black trumpet mushrooms and marinated milkweed pods were just a few of the items on the shelves.
Correction, April 1, 2025: An earlier version of this story misstated the montn and year in which Maison de Soma opened. It opened in July 2023.
This article is part of a travel series on Québec. The province’s destination marketing organization, Alliance de l’industrie touristique du Québec, under the Bonjour Québec brand, is a financial underwriter of the project but has no influence over story selection or content. Find the complete series plus travel tips at sevendaysvt.com/quebec.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Pour Some Sugar on Me | Across the northern border, maple culture is evolving”
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2025.
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