Food & Drink John Lee
STAPLES & SPECIALTIES
DRINKS
CELEBRATIONS
WHERE TO EAT & DRINK
VEGETARIANS & VEGANS
EATING WITH KIDS
HABITS & CUSTOMS
COOKING COURSES
EAT YOUR WORDS
Food-curious visitors to Canada used to begin and end their culinary adventures with a trip to national fast food franchise Tim Hortons (aka ‘Timmies’), where they had the dubious pleasure of choosing between Maple Cream and Double Chocolate doughnuts (the former is always recommended) before drowning their sorrows in a bucket of truck-stop coffee.
But in recent years, the country that used to treat food as a way of fueling up for a hard winter of polar bear wrestling has undergone a two-course culinary renaissance. Big cities such as Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver have developed internationally influenced fine dining scenes rivalling any major world metropolis. At the same time, regions across the country have rediscovered the unique ingredients grown, foraged and produced on their doorsteps – bringing treats such as distinctive seafood, piquant cheeses and lip-smacking wines to the mouths of local diners.
For travelers, this means that eating and drinking in Canada can now be a highlight of a visit here, rather than a disappointing pit-stop necessity. Just remember that for every top-notch restaurant you discover and every off-the-beaten-path farmers’ market you stumble on, it’s still okay to drop into the doughnut store and suck up a cheap treat: Timmies will never be fine dining, but it’s still an ideal place to rub shoulders with the locals.
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STAPLES & SPECIALTIES
Colonized by the British and French, then by a myriad of nationalities from around the world, Canada has a cuisine founded on four centuries of international influence. With the Irish bringing potatoes to the table, the Germans rolling in with smoked sausages and the Chinese dropping by with dim sums, Canada has always been a finger-licking smorgasbord of food styles, making it the original home of fusion cooking.
This approach is still the cornerstone of dining here today: contemporary restaurants often add a dash of Japanese influence to their French cuisine or a pinch of East Indian Flair to their west coast seafood menu. But while tweaking traditional recipes is common in Canada, some dishes continue to define specific regions. These provincial soul foods directly reflect available local ingredients and the diverse influences of their cooks. For hungry visitors, it’s these foods that are the true tastes of the nation.
If you’re starting from the east, the main dish of the Maritime provinces is lobster – boiled in the pot and served with a little butter – and the best place to get stuck into it is a community hall supper on Prince Edward Island. Dip into some chunky potato salad and hearty seafood chowder while waiting for your kill to arrive, but don’t eat too much; you’ll need room for the mountainous fruit pie coming your way afterwards.
Next door, Nova Scotia visitors should save their appetites for butter-soft Digby scallops and rustic Lunenberg sausage, while the favored food of nearby Newfoundland and Labrador is cod: cod cheeks, cod tongues and cod-and-potato-blended fishcakes. If you’re feeling really adventurous, gnaw on a slice of seal flipper pie here.
Along with broiled Atlantic salmon, the French-influenced region of New Brunswick serves-up poutine râpée, potatoes stuffed with pork and boiled for a few hours. It’s been filling the bellies of locals here for decades and is highly recommended if you haven’t eaten for a week or two.
Over in the even more French-influenced province of Québec, fine food seems to be a lifeblood for the locals, who will happily sit down for four-hour joie de vivre dinners where accompanying wine and conversation flow in equal measures.
The province’s cosmopolitan Montréal has long claimed to be the nation’s fine-dining capital, but there’s an appreciation of food here at all levels that also includes hearty pea soups, exquisite cheeses and tasty pâtés sold at bustling markets. In addition, there’s poutine (gravy and cheese curds poured liberally over deep golden fries) and smoked meat sandwiches so large you’ll have to dislocate your jaw to fit them in your mouth.
Ontario – especially Toronto – is a microcosm of Canada’s melting pot of cuisines. Head south to the Niagara Peninsula and you’ll find some of Canada’s best wines cohabiting with restaurants fusing contemporary approaches and traditional local ingredients, such as fish from the Great Lakes. Like Québec, maple syrup is a super-sweet flavoring of choice here, and it’s found in decadent desserts such as beavertails (sugary pastries with rich toppings) and on breakfast pancakes the size of Frisbees.
Far north from here, Nunavut in the Arctic Circle is Canada’s newest territory but it has a long history of Inuit food, offering a real culinary adventure for travelers. Served in some restaurants (but more often in family homes – make friends with locals and they may invite you in for a feast), regional specialties include boiled seal, frozen raw char and maktaaq (whale skin cut into small pieces and swallowed whole).
In fact, Canada’s Aboriginal people have many fascinating and accessible culinary traditions. Reliant on meat and seafood – try a juicy halibut stew with a Haida host on Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia – there’s also a First Nations tradition of bannock bread, imported by the Scots and appropriated by Canada’s original locals. And if you think you’re an expert on desserts, try some ‘Indian ice-cream.’ Made from whipped soapberries, it’s sweetened with sugar to assuage its bitter edge.
In contrast, the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have their own deep-seated culinary ways. The latter, Canada’s cowboy country, is the nation’s beef capital – you’ll find fine Alberta steak on menus at top restaurants across the country.
There’s an old Eastern European influence over the border in Manitoba, where immigrant Ukrainians have made comfort food staples of pierogies and spicy sausages. Head next door to Saskatchewan for dessert, though. The province’s fruit pies are its most striking culinary asset, especially when prepared with tart Saskatoon berries.
In the far west, British Columbians have traditionally fed themselves from the sea and the fertile farmlands of the interior. The Okanagan Valley’s peaches, apples and berries – best purchased from roadside stands throughout the region – are the staple of many summer diets. But it’s the seafood that attracts the foodies, who tuck into succulent wild salmon, juicy Fanny Bay oysters and mouth-melting scallops as if their lives depended on it.
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DRINKS
While you’ll soon come across the innocuous, mass-produced beer processed by Canada’s two brewing behemoths Labatt and Molson, a little digging uncovers a thriving regional and local microbrewing scene dripping with fantastic ales, bitters and lagers.
Midsized breweries such as Moosehead in New Brunswick, Alexander Keith’s in Nova Scotia, Sleemans in Ontario, Big Rock in Alberta and Okanagan Springs in BC produce some easy-to-find, highly quaffable tipples. It’s worth noting that several of these have been taken over by the two big boys in recent years, although they have resisted changing much about these successful operations.
At the local level, Canada is suffused with a foamy head of excellent small-batch brewers to keep visiting beer geeks happy. Nowhere is that more evident than in BC, where the craft-brewing scene is one of North America’s best. Here you should hunt around for the dark, chocolaty or downright earthy tastes of beer from local producers such as Storm, Phillips, Dead Frog or Russell Brewing. It’s a similar story in Québec, whose popular bottled microbrews are generally stronger than their BC counterparts – which might explain the colorful satanic imagery on labels such as Unibroue’s Maudite.
Canada’s wines are gaining even greater kudos, with Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula and BC’s Okanagan Valley region developing some excellent wineries, many of which are worth visiting if you fancy some languid sampling coupled with a picnic lunch. If you time your visit well, you might catch a regional wine festival, enabling you to sample a few unfamiliar tipples as you rub shoulders with bleary-eyed local imbibers.
Canada’s cool growing conditions generally favor chardonnay, pinot noir and Riesling and it’s also the world’s leading producer of icewine, a sweet dessert drink made from frozen grapes. Among the country’s prominent wine labels are Inniskillin, Stoney Ridge and Jackson-Triggs Niagara from Ontario, and Mission Hill, Quails Gate and Sumac Ridge in BC. There are also many boutique wineries worth checking out in Nova Scotia and southern Québec, as well as Vancouver Island, which additionally has a couple of intriguing cideries.
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CELEBRATIONS
Food and drink is the foundation of having a good time in Canada. Languid summer barbecues, fall’s feast-like Thanksgiving Day and winter family get-togethers at Christmastime traditionally center on tables groaning with giant meat dishes, heaping salad bowls, diet-avoiding desserts and plenty of wine and beer. If you’re invited to someone’s celebration, ask what you can bring along: it may be a fruit plate or a bottle of wine.
Several Canadian regions showcase their cuisines with annual festivals dedicated to their signature dishes and restaurant scenes. Recommended events include the Prince Edward Island International Shellfish Festival (www.peishellfish.com/sf) in September, the 11-day Wine and Dine component of the Montréal High Lights Festival (www.montrealenlumiere.com) in February and the bacchanalian November weekend of wining and dining in Whistler that’s otherwise known as Cornucopia (www.whistlercornucopia.com). Many cities – including Victoria, Vancouver and Toronto – also host annual dine-around events where restaurants offer discounted tasting menus during the off-season.
Wine lovers are spoilt for choice when it comes to festivals. Among the many held each year, few grape fans will want to miss September’s Niagara Wine Festival (www.niagarawinefestival.com) in Ontario, while others include March’s Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival (www.playhousewinefest.com) and January’s Sun Peaks Icewine Festival (www.owfs.com).
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WHERE TO EAT & DRINK
Canada bulges like an over-stuffed Fraser Valley chicken with dining options – even small towns serve up everything from cheap-and-cheerful diners to international ethnic cuisines and a couple of upmarket gourmet choices. There are also many family-oriented, midpriced eateries for those traveling with kids, and bars are usually just as interested in serving food as they are beer.
While there are many variations, breakfast spots often open from 8am to 11am, lunch is usually offered between 11:30am and 2:30pm on weekdays and dinner is frequently on the menu from 5pm to 9:30pm daily. Midrange and family restaurants usually stay open all day. Closing times vary greatly and often depend on how busy the restaurant is on the day: hours are especially liquid in larger, tourist-friendly towns.
Service is generally excellent at Canadian restaurants and bars. Solo travelers are welcomed at most eateries, although family-oriented restaurants may baulk at sacrificing a large table to a lone nosher. See opposite for information on tipping.
Quick Eats
The best value meals on the run are found at street-side hot dogs stands, covered or outdoor markets and shopping mall food courts. Especially in Toronto and Vancouver, these mall smorgasbords often have excellent multiethnic vendors serving fast, heaping, fresh-cooked dishes for just a few dollars – and, if you’re on a budget, there’s no tipping required.
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VEGETARIANS & VEGANS
While two of Canada’s biggest dine-out cities – Toronto and Vancouver – feature vegetarian options on most menus and have dozens of dedicated eateries for noncarnivores, the rest of the country is a little hazy in understanding the concept. BC is the nation’s most vegetarian-friendly province, but you will almost certainly be met with blank stares in some Québec restaurants when you ask if a menu item is vegetarian.
Expect similar responses in the Maritimes and on the prairies, where the carnivorous approach is a way of life. In these regions, strict adherents should limit themselves to any vegetarian-only eateries they can find, since ‘vegetarian’ menu items in mainstream restaurants are often prepared with meat stock or cooked alongside meat. Not surprisingly, vegans can expect an even rougher ride. The handy VegeDining website (www.vegdining.com) has listings of vegetarian restaurants across the country.
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EATING WITH KIDS
Most Canadian restaurants are adept at dealing with families, offering booster seats and child-adept servers as soon as you steer your progeny through the door. Kids menus often rely heavily on breaded chicken and brightly colored mini pizzas. As an alternative, ask for a half-order of something more nutritious from the adult menu. Servers often work extra hard to keep kids happy, so consider adding a few dollars to your tip to reward exemplary service in the face of adversity. Families with even the most well-behaved children will not feel comfortable at fine-dining establishments, where menu options may be limited and fellow diners might look at you as if you’ve brought an animal to the table.
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HABITS & CUSTOMS
Canadians usually follow the North American tradition of eating morning breakfast, midday lunch and early evening dinner, although late dinners (from 8pm) are common in Québec. On weekends, many restaurants serve brunch from as early as 8am, sometimes until as late as 4pm. Canadians are sociable eaters, so it’s common for restaurants to be noisier than their European counterparts. And following the US style, eating fries or pizza with one’s fingers is common – in fact, other diners will know you are from overseas if you eat your pizza with cutlery.
Tipping is expected at around 15% of the pre-tax bill total: do not tip if you are unhappy with the service and also check that a gratuity has not been automatically added to your bill. If you’re planning to dine at a busy or high-end restaurant, call ahead for reservations. If you’re in a hurry, it’s worth mentioning this when you order because it will usually expedite your meal.
Table service is common in most pubs, although you can still order at the bar. Don’t forget to tip your table server, and consider dropping some change in the bar-server’s pot if you stick around for a few beers.
Almost all areas of Canada have now introduced some form of smoking ban in public places including bars and restaurants, with occasional regional variations. A small number of areas still allow separate smoking rooms and patio smoking but this is also being slowly stubbed out.
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COOKING COURSES
Culinary tourism has spread like a fresh red wine stain here in recent years. Contact provincial tourism offices Click here to see what’s on offer.
One of Toronto’s best options, the two-hour hands-on courses offered by Great Cooks (
416-861-4727; www.greatcooks.ca; classes $110) feature loquacious visiting chefs and gregarious foodies talking you through sauce-making, French-Canadian bistro skills or Japanese sushi rolling, among others.
BEACH BUFFET
If you’re not accustomed to picking your food off the ground, a visit with Diane Bernard (Vancouver Island’s ‘Seaweed Lady’) can be a real eye-opener. Twinkle-eyed Bernard leads gumbooted groups across the muddy beach at Whiffen Spit, extolling enthusiastically on the culinary properties of the many seaweed varieties growing in the ocean garden around her. Within minutes, you’ll be popping shiny green nuggets and rippled bottle-green fronds in your mouth as if you’d been eating off the beach all your life. After you’ve had your fill, you can enjoy the vista of gambolling sea otters and swooping eagles. Running for a couple of hours, the Outer Coast Seaweeds tours (250-642-5328, 877-713-7464; www.outercoastseaweeds.com; $35) operate from May to mid-September only.
Vancouver’s Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks (604-688-6755; www.bookstocooks.com; classes from $45) does a similar job on the west coast, serving up an ever-changing roster of short cooking classes, culinary skills events and recipe showcases from local and visiting chefs. Call ahead for reservations.
You can learn all about Canada’s traditions of seafood preparation, cheese making and meat smoking on an immersive weekend residential course at Nova Scotia’s Trout Point Cooking and Wine School (902-482-8360; www.acadianfarm.com/masterclasses.html). Rates – including accommodations, meals and plenty of hands-on training – are typically around $675 per person.
Those interested in Vancouver Island’s produce cornucopia should consider an educational tour of the verdant Cowichan Valley region, offered by Travel With Taste (250-385-1527; www.travelwithtaste.com; tours $195). You’ll meet and sample with artisan cheese makers and boutique vintners before tucking into a gourmet lunch of wild BC salmon. Who says learning can’t also be fun?
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EAT YOUR WORDS
Want to know your poutine from your patates? A tourtière from a tarte au sucre? Get behind the cuisine of French Canada by getting to know the language. For pronunciation guidelines, Click here.
Useful Phrases
Food Glossary
BASICS
Meats
FRUIT & VEGETABLES
DESSERTS
DRINKS
