It’s been a decade since my last visit. Which restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries would you recommend?
These are the dishes that I enjoyed on my last visit:
Halifax Donair
Fish & Chips
Butterscotch Pie
Blueberry Pie
The Chowders (The Chowder Trail, and every other chowder)
The Lobster Rolls
I liked That Dutchman’s Gouda.
https://www.thatdutchmansfarm.com/
Does anyone have a recommendation for places serving hot buttered lobster rolls?
Thanks for any tips!
I was there in 2014 but I’m still thinking of two places: 2 Doors Down in Halifax (we liked it so much that we ate there twice in three days) and some place with a deck right on the water in Cape Breton (I can’t remember where) that had a lobster club sandwich that almost made me cry, it was so good. I want to say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of Baddeck, but I can’t be sure. I also had the most disgusting pizza I’ve ever had—“donair” pizza (again, can’t recall where but that’s probably a good thing). The sauce was full of sugar. Literally threw away the rest of an entire pie after eating two pieces.
Thanks for your recs!!
I also remember having a lobster sandwich on a patio on Cape Breton. I can’t remember if it was a Club, but it was a sandwich rather than a lobster roll. The one I had was at a restaurant close to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum.
That’s Halifax donair sauce that was on the pizza , which contains sugar and evaporated milk. I like it, but it’s probably an acquired taste.
There are only a couple places in Toronto that serve Halifax-style donair with the sweet sauce. I used to be able to order it at a food court in the 80s in Ontario.
(I also like Turkish-style and Berlin-style donair. I like all donair/doner)
Nova Scotian baked goods
Recommended by cyber friends
Was in Halifax for a whirlwind visit. I had a dinner and a lunch at places picked by friends:
Dinner was at Bar Kismet. It’s a cosy spot on Agricola, away from the main downtown.
Food was pescatarian for the most part, in small to medium plates very suitable for sharing. Cocktails showed a lot of skill and sophistication. The wine list also looked very good.
The first cocktail I tried was Floppy Disk, which apparently was on the menu since their opened: mezcal, Cynar, dry curacao, grapefruit, and soda - lovely balance, with a bit of smoke, bitter, and lots of citrus. The second was Appeal to Reason: tequila, mint, rhubarb amaro, honey, apple cordial - an fun apple riff on a margarita.
Fresh raw albacore was drizzled with brown butter, spinkled with toasted buckwheat, and garnished with blackberries:
Nicely roasted carrots were paired with sweet crab meat, crispy shallots, and a rich bernaise sauce:
Ahi tuna tartare came with quail egg, chopped onion, parsley, and other delicious but unidentified fixings. The accompanying frites were crisp and delicious:
Just-done cod came in a pool of parmesan and dulse broth, with plenty of maitake (alas no pic).
For dessert a lovely pear and brown butter layer cake - light, not too sweet:
And a peach and nectarine frangipane tart - delicious melding of orchard fruit and almonds:
The next day I met up with a friend for lunch at The Bicycle Thief. It occupied prime real estate on the waterfront, with a lovely view of the harbour. Food was fairly straightforward and well-executed. Service was attentive and helpful. And the wine selection includes a few from Nova Scotia.
I selected a glass of L’Acadie Blanc Blend, Tidal Bay, Domaine de Grand Pré 2022 - fruity, nice acid, and dry. They also provided some complimentary foccacia (pillowy soft interior) and a red pepper and bean puree:
To start I had seared very fresh scallops with a pistachio and panko crust, with a tangy ginger orange beurre blanc, and more toasted pistachios:
And then a very fine if smallish lobster roll - sweet meat in a chili and lime mayo, with some celery for accent, loaded into a fresh bun. It came with crispy frites and a side salad of greens:
We’re headed to the area in July so I’m glad I found this thread!
An amazing report 
We did a quick trip to Halifax earlier in April, partly for work and partly to visit some friends. We didn’t cover a lot of new ground, save one high-end restaurant. Here is our report:
A flight cancellation prevented plans for dinner with a friend at The Five Fisherman, an old standby. If someone else has been there recently, it would be good to know if it is still good.
Breakfast started with freshly roasted coffee from Java Blend - we bought a Brazilian-Ethiopian blend that had some winey notes. We bought a decent enough sourdough baguette from Arthur’s Urban Market, which we had with Valley Gold from Annapolis Fine Cheese (pleasantly nutty).
For lunch, we walked with a colleague to Pizza Corner for some donair pizza. Although we were aware that many of the favoured purveyors of this local classic are further afield, we needed something close to the Halifax Convention Centre. We selected Classic Pizza, which appeared to have better reviews compared with the other options. The pizza featured decent donair meat, fresh tomato, onion, and thick, not particularly sweet donair sauce on the side. The crust had good texture, but lacked much flavour. Overall, good enough to scratch the itch if you are downtown, but not worth seeking out specifically.
I made a return to Bar Kismet as my wife hadn’t tried it. We went with friends who live down the street, so we were able to sample more of the menu.
The cocktails remain lots of fun, with great mixtures of flavours and aromas. We tried 4:
The food remains excellent for the most part. There were a few minor missteps with excessive salting (not egregiously, but noticeable), but otherwise the flavours were fresh, the execution great, with a few particularly standout dishes.
We started with a nice warm plate of marinated olives.
Next were very fresh, local raw scallops, well-accompanied by pear, buckwheat crunch, chives, and chili.
Very successful was a kohlrabi riff on a Caesar salad, with cheese, bacon, and something crispy bread-ish.
An encore for me was the ahi tuna tartare, which remains lovely but the fries were overly salted.
Also a bit too salty was the otherwise perfectly cooked halibut cheek, with snow pea leaves, and shallot butter (the main vehicle for the salt).
We really enjoyed the beet, endive, tahini yogurt, and candied cumin - the bitter endive contrasting with sweet candied cumin.
One exeptional dish was the Humboldt squid milanese, schnitzel-style and perfectly tender, with a complex smoked tomato mayo.
Also excellent was the deep-fried purple cabbage, with a tangy green goddess dressing and dried, grated Arctic char over top.
Paccheri with a rich Venetian duck ragu was another hit.
Parsnip and comté raviole du dauphiné could have been great as the parsnips were sweet, but again the dish was too salty.
The chocolate meringue cake was nicely not too sweet, with some sour and whipped cream.
Coconut panna cotta had perfect texture, with aromatic roasted coconut on top.
We were next meeting a friend for lunch who was a bit less adventurous, so we opted for The Bicycle Thief, another encore for me. The food remains good, pleasant, not superlative. We at least appreciated the opportunity to sample more local seafood.
We had two glasses of Nova Scotia wines:
We started with a dozen oysters. We were especially interested because the first server told us they were from Pictou County. It turns out they were Raspberry Point, which we have enjoyed before but weren’t as local as we were hoping for. They were very good, but not actually that well shucked - one was sliced through and a couple had bits of shell.
Better was the lobster and corn chowder, with new potatoes, vidalia onions, crisp double smoked bacon, carrots, tomato, and celery - very good and not excessively rich.
We then had the lobster roll (a repeat for me) on a split bun, with chili and lime mayo, sea salted frites, and vinaigrette drizzled greens - again small but pleasant.
We ordered the Spaghettini ai Frutti di Mare and asked them to hold the shrimp, which were neither local nor sustainable. The pasta was al dente and the scallops and mussels were fresh and lightly cooked. The sauce had been described as sundried tomato pesto and vino bianco, but they didn’t mention the dominant presence of cream, which kinda took over.
For dessert, we had the overly sweet blackberry elderflower sorbetto. Better was a glass of the Pomme d’or, Domain Grand Pre - a sweet apple wine.
Needing a bit better local wine, we stopped in the nearby Bishop’s Cellar wine shop and tried the Blomidon sparkling - pleasant, very green. We then picked up the 2019 blanc de blancs from Lightfoot & Wolfville (excellent) and a 2023 dry Riesling from Gaspereau (haven’t tried it yet).
For a dinner with colleagues, we decided to try Mystic, which had only opened a few months previously and had few detailed reviews available. Nonetheless, we liked the look of the ambitious menu, with a lot of in-house preserving and lots of emphasis on local products.
The setting is quite striking, in a narrow building that is a ramp up to an art installation on top, with full window views of the harbour. There is an open kitchen and a display of their many in-house preparations. And there are fleets of staff cooking, preparing, and bringing out your courses.
For food, you have your choice of 2 tasting menus, each for $165. One is labeled Fauna and the other Biota. We could not figure out what distinguished them other than different dishes. Our friends were able to swap out dishes to better suit their tastes, but we stuck with both having the Fauna selection.
While waiting for others to arrive, we were going to share a glass of 2017 white Chateau Musar but it was no longer available. The sommelier let us sample some other wines and we chose an Azores Verdelho, Magma, 2023 which tasted like pickles and grapefruit pith. We then moved on to a wine pairing with the main meal.
First pairing: Lightfoot and Wolfville, small lot Blanc de Blancs, 2014, late-disgorged, secondary fermentation for about 9 years - apricots, mushrooms, lots of lees
First course:
Second pairing: Montagny premier cru Chardonnay, Jean-Marc Boillot, Burgundy, 2022 - toasted butterscotch, fresh, oak, and some malolactic fermentation.
Second course: Acadian Caviar over a voluptuous smoked egg yolk, on toasted brioche, with sea mustard (wakame) emulsion - a great pairing of eggs with egg.
Third pairing: Loimer, Langelois Spiegel, Kampal, Gruner Veltliner, erstlage, reserve, 2015 - later harvest, with some botrytis, honey but dry, viscous, very like sherry.
Third course: lobster raviolo, Nova Scotia saffron trumpet mushrooms, lobster butter sauce, scallop and lobster mousse, lobster chip, and cured egg yolk, with seaweed brioche beside with black honey oil - decadent and luxurious.
Fourth pairing: Vistamare, Ca’marcanda, Tuscany, Vermentino, Fiano and a touch of Viognier, 2023 - bright and fresh, with weight, stainless steel and older barrels - nice but not as interesting as the others.
Fourth course: monkfish, betony artichoke, potato pearls (some were pickled), sea urchin butter sauce, pine emulsion on top, cattail chips that look like ferns - gorgeous fish with a nice balance of rich and acid in the accompaniments.
Interlude: seabuckthorn-flavoured fermented kefir - cool and refreshing.
Fifth pairing: Purple Angel by Montes, Carmenere, Chile, 2020 - candied violet with something herbaceous, cherries, blueberries, cassis, soft tannins.
Fifth course (we each had a different option):
Sixth pairing: Pomme D’or (second time the same day).
Sixth course: elderflower and wintergreen bavarois with buttery brandy snaps, gooseberry sorbet on fennel pollen crumble, with haskap dollops and wintergreen dollops - the wintergreen touches really enhanced the fruit flavours.
Sweets:
In summary, a really great meal and experience, as good as some of the better tasting menus in larger Canadian centres. Hope they are able to have enough clientele between the tourists and locals.
Before heading to the airport, I got a quick breakfast sandwich from Café du Port, just a block from where we were staying. I ordered an avocado mash on a baguette, but got what seemed to be a clubhouse on a croissant with avocado (with smoked turkey, bacon, spinach, and some kind of mayo sauce). Not bad, but not what I ordered.
Looks like a super visit!
