The current froth of northern nationalism has Canadians staying put this summer—and planning trips to domestic dining destinations. Luckily, Canadian cuisine has never been more exciting. Where else can you find the world’s fanciest pastrami? A secret six-seat sushi counter hidden in another restaurant? An Inuit chef preparing crave-worthy grilled narwhal? We canvassed the country to find epic restaurant experiences, brilliant chefs and must-try dishes to make this summer the most delicious one ever. There’s never been a better time to put your money where your patriotism is.

Edmonton

P.E.I.

Montreal

Saint-Benoît De Mirabel, Quebec

Jasper, Alberta

Toronto

Montreal

Vancouver

Montreal

Toronto

Montreal

Malahat, B.C.

Jordan, Ontario

Toronto

Richmond, B.C.

St. John’s

Toronto

Iqaluit

Skidegate, B.C.

Halifax

Most of Scott Iserhoff’s earliest food memories involve his grandmother. During spring hunts in the northern Ontario wilderness, he’d watch her pluck geese and then roast them over a fire. She’d turn moose meat into hearty stew and bake hot, doughy bannock. Iserhoff, who’s Mushkego from Attawapiskat First Nation, always left his grandmother’s house with a full, happy belly. So when it came time for him and his wife, Svitlana Kravchuk, to launch their own restaurant, it was a no-brainer to name it after her.

Bernadette’s, which opened last year, is now one of Edmonton’s coolest culinary experiences. The 23-seat room features a mural painted by Sakâw Nêhiyaw-Métis Iskwew artist BB Iskwew, and the speakers might be blasting Indigenous EDM or Ukrainian music. Kravchuk, who hails from Ukraine, takes care of the front of house, while Iserhoff runs the kitchen, remixing the hearty Indigenous dishes of his childhood. His potato dumplings resemble Italian gnocchi, but are actually inspired by the potato pancakes Iserhoff’s dad used to make. At Bernadette’s, they’re paired with a rich rabbit ragu. The deep-fried olives are stuffed with Spam—a nod to the canned meats the Canadian government rationed out to First Nations when it outlawed their traditional foodways. They also got instant rice, so there’s usually a rotating ocheshishak (rice in Omushkegowin) on the menu; one version last fall, for instance, featured fried risotto balls made with creamy butternut squash. “It’s storytelling,” Iserhoff says.

Chef Patrice Demers and sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin knew they had a hit on their hands months before Sabayon even opened. The duo tested their tasting menu concept during a two-month stint at Brooklyn’s Fulgurances Laundromat in the spring of 2023. Word spread among Quebec’s culinary diehards, and Montrealers were soon making pilgrimages to the pop-up. That summer, they opened a 14-seat jewel box in Pointe-Sainte Charles, a residential neighbourhood on the banks of the St. Lawrence. If diners were willing to cross the border (and the East River), surely they’d cross the Lachine Canal.

The restaurant is just them: Demers prepping his carefully choreographed courses in the kitchen, Beaudoin pouring wines from her meticulously crafted list. Their tasting menu unfolds like a slow, easy inhale, with four savoury plates—a tomato tartlet topped with whipped ricotta, perhaps, or Île de la Madeleine lobster with fresh peas and white asparagus in a smooth bisque sauce—followed by two dessert courses. Reservations open up monthly and sell out within minutes.

On Friday and Saturday afternoons, Sabayon shifts into something softer as guests settle in for a tea service that goes above and beyond your standard scone and Earl Grey affair. Here, teatime is a $58, three-course ode to pastry, paired with infusions from Camellia Sinensis, the cult Quebec tea house Beaudoin has been obsessed with for two decades.
Each tea is poured to match, not mask, the desserts. A deep, cocoa-scented pu-erh from Jeju Island in the South China Sea amplifies the richness of a chocolate and coffee mignardise. A dark oolong, the shui xian lao cong, hums with maple, making it a natural fit for Demers’ maple cream layered with pistachio sponge. There’s maple-cinnamon brioche with a quince purée and candy-cap mushroom purée, or a pastel-pretty strawberry sorbet with pistachio cake and vanilla cream.

It’s a quieter kind of hospitality, one that trades flash for finesse, and one the pair say they wouldn’t have been able to pull off a decade ago. No gimmicks, no egos, just two pros doing their thing for 14 lucky guests at a time. Just don’t forget to set an alarm for when reservations drop on the restaurant’s website.

One of Alberta’s best-kept dining secrets is tucked away in the rugged, mountainous beauty of Jasper National Park. Orso is located in the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge—a favourite of Prince Harry and Meghan—but it’s a far cry from your average hotel restaurant. Enter through the lodge’s grand lobby, past the fireplaces and down a set of stairs. There, a host welcomes guests into the long, luminous room. The decor is spartan, with plenty of natural light and lots of dark wood. All the better to focus on the main attraction: a set of floor-to-ceiling windows that offer astonishing views of the glassy Lac Beauvert, a lush pine forest and the craggy skyline of the Rockies.

The food lives up to the view, reimagining Italian classics with local ingredients. Agnolotti is made with Alberta egg yolks, stuffed with charred scallions and in-season corn from Taber, Alberta (known as the corn capital of Canada), and served with a gremolata made from local sage. A signature entrée is Alberta bison striploin, grilled and paired with seared Alberta beef bone marrow, a chianti jus and quirky local vegetables—kabocha squash, icicle radishes or spring peas, depending on the season.

It’s Italian food, sure, but it’s also distinctly Rocky Mountains—a point of pride for a town that has recently begun to rebuild after it was devastated by wildfires last summer. The Fairmont lost a few structures on its property, including one of its cabins and some of its staff housing, says food and beverage director Jamie Hussey. Other local businesses were not so lucky. “We want tourism to come back,” says Hussey. “I think sharing the journey with people is special.” Drinking in the mountain view over a plate of perfect noodles is an excellent first step.

On any given night at Le Fou Fou, diners might chase a torched crab maki roll from James Beard Award–winning chef Tony Messina with some garlic naan from the Montreal Indian institution Le Taj. They might slurp chef Hanhak Kim’s rich tonkotsu ramen alongside frites from Lenny Lighter, former owner of Moishes, or share a plate of tuna tacos from Hogar while eyeing the next round of pancake bites from Eva’s, dripping with homemade Canadian maple fudge. There are lobster dumplings, wagyu beef burgers, Neapolitan pizzas, handmade pastas.

This is Le Fou Fou: not exactly a food court, not exactly a restaurant, but a choose-your-own culinary fever dream featuring a who’s who of Montreal’s culinary talent. Twelve restaurants and three bars fill the 900-seat communal space inside Royalmount, the city’s newest mall. To make the mix-and-match work, owner David Haas invested in tech. Every table is equipped with a QR code that pulls up every menu in the hall. Diners can order from anywhere—sushi, tacos, pasta, wine—in a single transaction, and servers (or “ambassadors” in Le Fou Fou–speak) deliver the goods.

Le Fou Fou was built to feel like a place you might stumble into for brunch and end up staying for dinner, cocktails and maybe a show. There are DJs every Friday and Saturday night, and Le Fou Fou hosts large-scale events each year. Last October, a Vampire Ball featured dancers, DJs, a live band and fortune-tellers. In February, 450 people turned out for a Cupid Party on Valentine’s Day. “The core philosophy is that it’s a place to have fun,” Haas says. Ultimately, he’s betting that what diners want isn’t just food—it’s community.

Chef Juan Lopez Luna comes from the place of corn—literally. That’s what Tlaxcala, his home state in central Mexico, means in Náhuatl, the Uto-Aztecan indigenous language still spoken in parts of the region. His family were corn farmers for generations until trade policies in the 1980s and ’90s flooded the market with cheap American grain, making it impossible for small growers to compete. When he was 16, he immigrated to Canada with his family. And now, decades later, he’s reconnecting with his heritage.

At Alma, his restaurant in Montreal’s Outremont neighbourhood, Lopez Luna goes all in on the flavours and ingredients from his homeland—especially the corn. He gets his heirloom varietals from small producers in Tlaxcala’s Ixtenco region, where cobs are still laid out on rooftops to dry. At the restaurant, the kernels are soaked in limewater each night in a Mesoamerican process called nixtamalization—Alma is one of few restaurants in Canada to deploy that method—and then ground into masa. The resulting dough is fragrant and nutty and, in Lopez Luna’s hands, used for handmade........

© Macleans