LOCAL ARTIST’S ST-SAUVEUR B&B IS QUAINT AND INVITING
Perron’s paintings, woodsy yard, varied menu offer full sensory experience
Raymonde Perron wants you to do more than simply sleep and eat at her new B&B in StSauveur. She wants to you have a sensory experience.
Perron is an artist and art teacher, and the Gîte de l’Artiste Perron is her gallery. You can gaze at canvases of flora and wetlands, and study the genre she calls “expressive realism.”
The Lower Laurentians’ newest B&B is on a quiet, tree-lined residential street less than two kilometres from the centre of St-Sauveur. Perron and her husband, Jean-Marc Houle, transformed the lower-level bachelor apartment of their fieldstone bungalow into a getaway including two guest rooms with queensize beds, plus a smaller room for children.
Everything was rebuilt from scratch — floors, walls, ceilings, electricity and heating — so it’s fresh and inviting.
The house is surrounded by hydrangeas, cherry trees, evergreens and Japanese lilac trees which create an attractive, woodsy entrance to the home and a secluded backyard.
For lounging, guests can gather around the patio table in the garden or hang out in the TV salon — complete with leather sofas, a large flat-screen TV with plenty of English and French channels, a DVD library and books. Perron and Houle also make available a BBQ and a kitchen where you can keep your drinks cool or warm your food.
The guest rooms are decorated in pastel colours and furnished with cottage-style white rattan vanities. Comforts include thick duvets, bamboo sheets, bathrobes, hypoallergenic wooden floors, a choice of goose down or synthetic pillows, recycling baskets, wine glasses, bottled water, toiletries by OrganiQ and individual thermostats. Guests
share one bathroom.
Perron offers a choice of breakfasts because she said when she travels, she likes to choose. The four-course meal starts with fair-trade coffee, juice and a yogurt-fruit-granola parfait or oatmeal. The main courses include a ham and cheese omelette or crepes, French toast or waffles with fruit and maple syrup, as well as bacon, ham or beans on request. THE ARTIST: Perron said she always knew she would be an artist some day. With the world’s flora as her muse, she has had exhibitions in Europe, Asia, the United States and Canada, and she has been honoured by the Société académique des Arts-SciencesLettres de Paris. She specializes in colourful florals and landscapes, specifically wetlands.
She sells her work at her onsite gallery, the Atelier Galerie Raymonde Perron. She also organizes painting workshops from time to time. DINING OUT: The hot spot for dining in the area is Manoir St-Sauveur, and it has a new, hit restaurant.
M Steak Moderne, the hotel’s super-trendy steak and seafood house, opened in June with a sexy decor of cherry velvet booths, appaloosa-themed chairs and a floral mural. It’s petite and striking.
The menu features irresistible cuts of beef, a raw bar of shrimp, crab and oysters, as well as interesting adventures including grilled bone marrow, grilled squid with wasabi, misoginger salmon, jerk-spiced crab and tuna encrusted with za’atar (Middle Eastern spices).
Some outstanding steaks include the bone-in filet, the tomahawk for two and the 18-ounce Delmonico, served with sauces such as chimichurri, truffle butter and the M signature steak sauce. The side dishes hit all the right buttons: creamy kale, garlic-roasted rapini, tiger shrimp, blue cheese and truffle fries with Parmesan.
Beyond M Steak Moderne, Manoir St-Sauveur is on a culinary roll. The poolside patio Le Boudoir lounge is a pleasant outdoor getaway for drinks and suppers like Portuguese chicken or salmon tartare with coriander, at their summery best with sangria or craft cocktails.
In 2016, the Manoir opened La Tablée, a stunning, contemporary bistro with a natural-chic decor of bare wooden tables, white marble counters and charcoal flannel seating, as well as an open kitchen, a pizza oven and a wall-sized TV screen.
La Tablée’s Italian-Mediterranean menu features an antipasto of calamari, octopus, Burrata cheese and wild mushroom bruschetta. Its creative pasta dishes include a cavatelli and sausage or an angel-hair pesto. Among the main courses are roasted salmon, wood oven pizza and veal al limone.
The food is fresh and filling. You might start with a mango Bellini and finish with a dessert of banana-chocolate bread pudding. If you can.