Kundah Hôtel: Indian cuisine with a Québécois twist

On Rue de la Couronne, in Saint-Roch, Kundah Hôtel continues to carve out its own path, going against the grain. In 2020, Alexandre Morin chose to bet on Indian cuisine — but not the kind you’d expect: a fusion between the flavours of India and local Québec products. Five years later, the spot has established itself as a rare gem in Quebec City’s culinary landscape.

The owner of La Buvette Laurentien, a local bistro, since 2016, Alexandre had sensed a gap while doing his market research: accessible Indian cuisine, stripped of preconceptions and anchored in Québec’s terroir. The pandemic pushed him to open for takeout sooner than planned. “For six months, 95% of my sales came from an Indian restaurant that had never actually opened,” he recalls. A sign that he had “put his finger on something.” When restaurants reopened, the Kundah Hôtel project officially took shape in the former Buvette space.

In the kitchen for nearly two years now, chef Thomas Boutin brings Alexandre’s vision to life. Previously captivated by Lebanese cuisine, he developed a strong taste for spices, but has always championed local ingredients. At Kundah Hôtel, he blends his two passions and the result is superb: flavourful, creative, well-executed cooking that puts Québec’s beautiful products in the spotlight. “An Indian guest who comes to visit will recognize what we do because of the flavours and the spices, but since it’s fusion cuisine made with Québec products, it will be really different from what they know,” he explains. His guiding principle: showcasing Québec’s terroir through the spice blends of a country “so immense” that it becomes a playground.

Plates where spices meet terroir

The menu at Kundah Hôtel changes often, depending on what the market gardeners bring in, and every visit comes with its share of favourites. The puri open the meal beautifully: little crispy shells stuffed with puffed rice, topped with a fruit sauce, yogurt, and wild blueberries that lift everything with a bright acidity. The samosas, reinvented with cheese and crowned with crunchy sev, yogurt, and fruit sauce, strike a delicate balance. The butter duck — a reinterpretation of the classic butter chicken — pairs a melt-in-your-mouth duck confit with a buttery tomato sauce laced with kasori methi, deeper and woodier than the original. But the real revelation is the palak Perron: cheese curds marinated in caraway, tucked beneath a creamy sweet potato spinach sauce. The warm cheese, still with a bit of squeak between the teeth, at the heart of a velvety, spiced sauce, sums up the entire ethos of the restaurant on its own. Cheese curds in place of paneer — that’s the kind of idea we’d love to see more often (!)

The Kundah Hôtel tasting menu, at just $50 — three courses, but nearly ten small plates for two — is one of the best value-for-money experiences we’ve come across in Quebec City in a long time. It doesn’t officially appear on the menu: you simply surrender to the kitchen and to the attentive, warm service, which takes the time to explain each dish with precision. Behind the bar, sommelier and director Félix has put together an equally accomplished cocktail list, with the occasional touch of India echoing what’s on the plate.

“We want it to be generous, affordable, and full of flavour,” the chef sums up. On Rue de la Couronne, the bet has paid off with Kundah Hôtel.

Written by Jean-Philippe Tastet
Photography by Mikael Lebleu

Updated on April 22, 2026

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