How to read this page
We open at 5 p.m. Someone driving out from Montreal in the morning therefore has five or six hours in a region they don’t know.
This page works in two registers. The afternoon radius first: what fits between lunch and five, three stops per season, all within fifty minutes of the house and most within twenty. Then what deserves a whole day: the Route des vins — the Brome-Missisquoi wine road — and the eight wineries we name further down. Those do not fit into an afternoon before service, and we would rather say so here than let you find out on the road.
Distances are road-routed from 13, rue Court, Granby.
None of this requires a reservation with us. This page is useful even if you eat somewhere else — and if you do, there are good tables in this region. We name two at the bottom.
Spring · moving water
March, April and May. The quietest season, and the loveliest — and it starts with sap, not with meltwater.
1. Lac Boivin Nature Interpretation Centre — 3.5 km, 5 minutes
Close to ten kilometres of trails, including more than four hundred metres of boardwalk over the marsh, and observation towers. The protected land is designated an Important Bird Area: more than two hundred and sixty species have been recorded there. In spring it is migration season — herons, ducks, warblers — and the site is at its most alive.
Part of the network is accessible to visitors with limited mobility (Kéroul certified), with free admission for one companion.
700, rue Drummond, Granby · 450 375-3861 · cinlb.org
2. Sugaring season — le temps des sucres — in March
Sugaring season is a short window, a few weeks, depending on how the year freezes and thaws. That is exactly what makes it a reason to come in March. There are dozens of sugar houses within the radius of this page, and a sugar house is lunch, not dinner: you are out of it long before five.
It is the one stop on this page we leave unnamed. We don’t recommend one sugar house over another. Call before you drive out — opening dates shift year to year and weekends fill.
3. Mont Shefford, by the Parc des Montagnards — 14.5 km, about twenty minutes
A loop of about five kilometres and a hundred and seventy-five metres of climb, from the car park at 333, chemin du Mont-Shefford, Shefford. The climb is short and steep. In spring the ground is waterlogged and the trail is soft underfoot.
Trails close during thaw, to protect the ground. Check the network before you drive out: censhefford.ca
Summer · the market and the rail trail
June to September. The simplest season: everything is on foot or by bike.
1. Marché public de Granby et région — 200 metres
Under a permanent hall, in the middle of downtown, two hundred metres from our door. Saturday mornings, May to November. This is where you’ll run into our market farmers.
At the height of summer the market also opens on Thursdays, from late afternoon into the early evening. It is the one sequence on this page where the stop and dinner genuinely touch: market first, table after. And Thursday is a bavette night — all-you-can-eat bavette, Wednesdays and Thursdays, $60, for tables of eight and under.
176, rue Principale (place du Marché), Granby · check the week’s hours on marchepublicgranby.ca
2. L’Estriade — starts downtown
A fully paved, near-flat cycling path built on a disused railway line — the first of its kind in Québec. It runs through Granby, Shefford, Bromont and Waterloo. Granby to Waterloo and back is 42 km and makes an unhurried afternoon, village centre included.
Service point at 111, rue Denison Est, Granby. If you didn’t bring a bike, several places to stay in the region are certified Bienvenue cyclistes! and rent them.
3. Parc national de la Yamaska — 15 km, 17 minutes
Around the Choinière reservoir, four and a half square kilometres of water: beach, canoe, paddleboard. Trails run from 2.5 to 19 km, and Le Grand Tour, by bike, circles the reservoir in 14 km. Run by Sépaq.
Autumn · the colour and the apples
Late September to mid-October. High season — leave early.
1. The colour, from Mont Shefford
The same loop as in spring, for a different reason. From the top, the skyline runs from Mont Orford to Mont Sutton, and by mid-October it is rust from end to end. The second week of October is usually the peak, but it moves: check the provincial fall-colour map before you go.
Go up late in the afternoon. October light does all the work, and you are at the table by 5:30.
2. Cidrerie Milton — 14 km, 15 minutes
A hundred and twenty-five acres of orchard on Route 137, between Granby and Saint-Hyacinthe, fifty-one apple varieties, facing Mont Yamaska. Pick-your-own, shop, tasting bar and a small bistro. Ice cider, still cider, sparkling, rosé, alcohol-free must. Open March through December.
Pick-your-own orchards are everywhere here in October and we don’t single one out: this one is named because it is the shortest detour on this page for the greatest number of things to taste.
5, route 137, Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton · cidreriemilton.com
3. BALNEA spa + réserve thermale — 21 km
The estate is a territory before it is an address: an 82-acre nature reserve around a private lake, with 22 km of trails. In autumn that is what you come for — the forest turning, on foot, with nothing else booked. The Lumami restaurant is on site.
319, chemin du Lac-Gale, Bromont J2L 2S5 · balnea.ca
The Route des vins · what deserves a whole day
Twenty-four vineyards over a hundred and sixty kilometres, accounting for more than a third of Québec’s wine production. The heart of it is Dunham — 36 km, 36 minutes from Granby — and Frelighsburg, 45 km out. It is also the home of two of our suppliers: Ferme Le Rizen and Ail du Pinacle, both in Frelighsburg.
This is not an afternoon. It is a day, sometimes two. So here are eight wineries, in two lists — because they are not the same recommendations, and not for the same reasons.
What the chef goes looking for
- Vignoble Pigeon Hill — natural wine. 395, chemin des Érables, Saint-Armand. Open Saturdays only, June through October: one day a week, five months a year. Check before you make the drive.
- Le Domaine Bergeville — the only estate in Québec making nothing but sparkling wine. Their Gastronomique range is built for the table, and they make a red sparkling. 1030, chemin Sherbrooke, Canton de Hatley — well to the east.
- Val Caudalies — for their late-harvest Vidal. 4921, rue Principale, Dunham.
- Clos Saragnat — straw wine and cider. 100, chemin Richford, Frelighsburg.
What we send you to visit
- Domaine des Côtes d’Ardoise — 879, rue Bruce, Dunham.
- Le Ruisseau — 4500, chemin Strobl, Dunham.
- Château Ste-Agnès — 2559, chemin Scenic, Sutton.
- Vignoble de la Bauge — 155, avenue des Érables, Brigham. 26 km: the closest of the eight, and the only one you can do in an afternoon before service.
So the advice is not to pick three at random. It is this: de la Bauge if you are dining with us that evening; the others if you are staying two days. And either way, someone has to drive.
Winter · snow, then embers
December to February. The season when the fire makes the most sense. Snow spills over into March, of course: skiing and snowshoeing hold up well there.
1. Bromont, montagne d’expériences — 17 km, 19 minutes
Alpine skiing from December to April, across seven slopes: 123 runs, 90 of them lit — the largest night-skiing terrain in North America. You can ski until 3:30, walk back to the car, and be at the table by 5:30 without rushing — or do the reverse, eat early and go back up.
2. The Thermal Experience, at BALNEA
The ritual is simple and it happens outdoors: hot, cold, rest. It is the best possible use of a February afternoon at −20 °C, and it is the most insistent recommendation on this page — for Brian Proulx, it is the finest spa in Québec, by a distance.
Book the Thermal Experience, and check the hours on their site: they change often. balnea.ca
3. Lac Boivin, on snowshoes or on foot
The same trail network as in spring, in an entirely different world: the marsh frozen, the boardwalks under snow, the silence. Thirty minutes of walking is enough to clear the head before service. And it costs next to nothing.
Within two hundred metres of our door
If you arrive late in the afternoon with an hour to spare, all of this is on foot:
- Le Palace de Granby, 135, rue Principale — a hundred metres. Close to a hundred professional shows a year: comedy, theatre, music. A 5:30 dinner and an 8 p.m. curtain fit together perfectly. palacedegranby.com
- The public market, 176, rue Principale — two hundred metres.
- Downtown itself, its shops and cafés. Rue Principale has been rebuilt; it’s a street you walk.
- Our gardens, behind the house. Ask us: if service allows, we’ll walk you through the greenhouse, the hives and the henhouse before the aperitif.
What we don’t recommend
We won’t speak ill of anyone’s address. But two honest warnings are worth more than one more list:
The Granby Zoo does not pair with a tasting menu. It is a very good zoo — fifteen hundred animals, a water park and a rides park — and it is why most visitors come to Granby at all. But it is a full day, with children, and nobody wants five courses at the end of it. Do the zoo one day and the table another.
Don’t stack three vineyards and a hike into one afternoon. The region is compact on the map and slow in real life: country roads, stops that stretch, tastings that take an hour. Two stops make a fine afternoon. Four make a race.
It is also why the eight wineries of the Route des vins sit in a section of their own rather than inside a season: three stops in the afternoon radius, or a day of wine. Not both.
Ending the day at the table
We open Wednesday through Saturday, from 5 p.m. The kitchen closes at 10.
And if we’re full — it happens, forty-eight seats, four nights — here are two addresses we name because they are good: Pavane, at 120, rue Principale in Granby, added to the MICHELIN Guide in 2026, run by chef François Côté and sommelier Elsie Gélinas; Espace Old Mill, at 7, chemin Caleb-Tree in Stanbridge East, whose MICHELIN Green Star — the Guide’s sustainability distinction, which is not a star — has just been renewed for a second consecutive year.
The drive from Montreal · Where to stay near the house · The maple fire, and why this house · The full food weekend
Addresses and distances verified 2 September 2026. Seasonal hours change: check with each business before you drive out.