Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu is a castle in all but name: a turreted, copper-roofed chateau perched on a cliff over the St. Lawrence in Charlevoix, with the elegant Casino de Charlevoix linked to the hotel by a warm interior passage.
The Casino de Charlevoix is refinement over scale — a tasteful, softly lit Loto-Quebec room of table games, electronic gaming and slots, connected to the hotel by a covered passage so the weather never touches you.
It is calm, immaculately kept and in perfect keeping with the chateau it serves. You come for a civilised hour or two at the tables, not the roar of a mega-floor, and that is exactly the point of a stay here.
The chateau holds around 400 rooms and suites dressed in classic Fairmont style, a great many angled over the river and the Charlevoix hills, with the finish and the service you expect at the top of the Fairmont portfolio.
This is a heritage grand hotel first and a casino-hotel second, and the grandeur is genuine — high ceilings, long corridors, and a sense of occasion the moment you step into the lobby.
There are several restaurants, a full spa, cliff-top pools and a celebrated 27-hole golf course on the grounds, with skiing, whale-watching and the Charlevoix food trail on the doorstep.
Few casino-hotels anywhere pair gaming with this much to do, and fewer still do it against scenery this good. The casino is a pleasant footnote to a resort that would earn its stars without one.
The resort sits in La Malbaie, about two and a half hours downriver from Quebec City along one of the country's prettiest drives. It is remote, and that is part of the luxury.
It is unquestionably a splurge, but as a romantic or special-occasion escape with a casino quietly attached, it has no equal in Canada. You pay for the setting and the service, and both deliver.