Québec City · Canada
A warehouse that never stopped working
Montrivay has fifty-two rooms inside a maritime warehouse built in the 1830s, two streets back from the river. The walls are a metre thick and the windows are small and set deep. Snow lies in the courtyard until April, and the cobbled street outside is steep.
Upstairs, past the second landing, you'll find Montrivay Casino, a small casino that belongs to the hotel and opens in the evenings. Guests get there without going outside.
The building
Cold stone, warm rooms
The warehouse took in salt, barrel staves and sailcloth for about a century, then stood half empty for another. What survived was worth keeping: squared limestone, timber beams the width of a forearm, iron tie plates on the street face and a stair cut for men carrying weight.
We put heating under the floors and left the rest alone, so the rooms are plain and quiet and none of them pretends the building is new. In January the stone takes a day to warm after a cold snap. We tell guests that before they book.
Reception is staffed around the clock. Breakfast stretches into the morning because daylight comes late here.
Where we areRooms
Four kinds of room, one building
La Pointe sits on the angle where two streets meet, with windows on both. La Poutre lies under the longest beam, on the second landing, and La Cour looks over the courtyard and the snow that stays in it. Le Grenier is up under the roof, and its ceiling follows the slope.
- 52 rooms
- no room is square
- blackout shutters
- kettle and stovetop pot
Eating and drinking
Table du Quai, Bar Finlay, Comptoir Matin
The dining room is in the old receiving hall, where the floor still slopes towards the street door. Bar Finlay kept the warehouse counter it inherited, worn through the varnish in two places, and Comptoir Matin is a breakfast counter in the loading bay that opens early for people catching the first ferry.
The kitchen cooks with what the river and the island send: eel in autumn, root vegetables all winter, cheese from the Beauce. The menu is short and the portions are good-sized.
Hours and venuesSecond floor
Montrivay Casino
Our casino is inside the hotel, on the second floor. Take the stone stair that begins beside reception, or the lift in the corner of the lobby. The room has a few tables and a bar and opens in the evenings only. You never go outside to reach it.
The legal age in Québec is 18, and we check photo ID at the door on every visit. Limits are set on the floor by the staff who run the tables, so ask before you sit down. The floor is land-based only. This website offers no games, takes no bets and holds no accounts, and it accepts no deposits or payments.
Dress is tidy. Nobody will turn you away for being underdressed, though the room is small enough that people notice. A quiet casino on a Tuesday feels very different from a full one on a Saturday.
The gaming floor in fullThe Lower Town
Two streets from the water
It's four minutes down to the quay, where the ferry to Lévis crosses all day and most of the night through whatever ice the river is carrying. The funicular up to the Upper Town is a short walk the other way, and the stair beside it is free and quicker if your knees allow.
Place-Royale, the old port market, the train station and the antique dealers on rue Saint-Paul are all within ten minutes on foot. The street outside is cleared of snow by six in the morning, earlier than most of us would like.
Getting here