Excellent restaurant in old town Quebec?

We are interested in dining in Quebec prior to our Serenade cruise this October. We will be staying in old Quebec. We want an outstanding restaurant as we kick off the cruise. A local favorite, not tourist oriented, would be preferred but all suggestions are welcomed. We think French or continental would be best, but we are flexible.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Thanks & happy sailing.

There are certainly some worthy options, but if forced to choose one with no more info than you give I'd plump for Le Continental - excellent food and truly exceptional service.

Thanks for the reply. We are interested in fine elegant dining and you hit the nail on the head.

No problem - personally I'm usually all about the food and I can tolerate a lot of issues with service & environment to get the best dish of whatever genre it might be, from corn dogs to foie gras. Every now & again though, it's just nice to have some truly old-school, European-style fine dining service with ninja servers (the ones you never see unless you want to - wine and water seems to be just magically refilled whenever you look away, but a raised head and cocked eyebrow makes the waitron appear) and Le C delivered that plus excellent food seamlessly.

We keep going back to Le Parriarche: http://www.lepatriarche.com/en/index_en.html

I definitely second the recommendation of Le Continental, for Upper Town. If looking for a place in Lower Town (nearer the cruise ship terminal), I've always liked Restaurant Initiale.

I recommend Le St amour, on Ste Ursule street upper town, classic French, very romantic, owner chef is renowned Jean Luc Boulay.