Feast on Atlantic Canada’s Culinary Experiences

Atlantic Canada stirs the appetite with its exhilarating sights and imaginative culinary scene. In these four provinces—New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—seafood is abundant, farms are plentiful, and wineries, cideries, distilleries, and breweries season the landscapes. You will be hungry, too, after paddling beautiful coastlines, hiking seaside cliffs and forested peaks, or strolling endless beaches keeping watch for whales, seabirds, and the occasional iceberg.

From New England, this culturally rich region is easily accessible via plane, car, or high-speed ferry. To tantalize you, we’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of memorable culinary adventures. Consider this a mere sprinkling of the ways an Atlantic Canada vacation will fill your plate.

Taste the Tides: Fine dining on the ocean floor in Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick

Attached to Maine and easily accessible with 17 U.S. border crossings, New Brunswick is known for its 60 coastal and inland lighthouses, the warmest saltwater beaches north of Virginia, and outdoor adventures in vast, untouched wilderness. You may be familiar with the Flowerpots: towering rock formations eroded by the world’s highest tides in the Bay of Fundy. Now imagine dining in their midst, on the ocean floor, just six hours before 45 feet of water rushes in.

“We showcase southeastern New Brunswick’s local products, including wines,” Chef Anthony Seamone says. The Taste the Tides culinary team forages for fiddleheads, dandelions, garlic scapes, and samphire greens. The salt comes from the waters around Cape Enrage.

It’s an intimate experience, limited to 24 guests at a time, who begin to bond on a guided, interpretive walk before descending to their Castle Cove dining expanse. A glass bowl displaying natural finds awaits on each table, and at the meal’s end, the chef thanks each guest with a surprise message in a bottle.

Feed your New Brunswick travel dreams at tourismnewbrunswick.ca.

Roots, Rants, and Roars: Eat, drink, and make merry in Elliston, Newfoundland

Fly or road trip to Newfoundland, where friendly locals “screech in” newcomers with cod kissing and rum. The third weekend in September is a foodie’s delight. Roots, Rants, and Roars brings acclaimed North American chefs to Elliston, the “Root Cellar Capital of the World.” Chef Nick van Mele of the Grounds Café at Murray’s, a former Cod Wars winner, calls the food festival “a beautiful experience for chefs who care about highlighting local ingredients” and for those who attend.

Judging the Cod Wars is a tasty task for festivalgoers, with six chefs’ cod dishes vying for supremacy. “Cod is Newfoundland’s backbone,” van Mele says of the fish’s place in local history, culture, and lore.

He loves The Hike, which features tasting stations, local libations, traditional music, and art installations along a coastal route. The festival wraps with a family-style feast featuring seven courses by seven chefs. “It’s held by the beach and feels off the grid; you live in the moment with others who love the rugged environment and Newfoundland ingredients.”

Plan an indulgent Newfoundland & Labrador trip at newfoundlandlabrador.com.

Vintage Vino Tours: Sip in style at Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley wineries

Nova Scotia, easily reachable via The CAT ferry from Bar Harbor, Maine, conjures images of the Cape Breton Highlands, South Shore beaches, Halifax’s maritime-history sites, and Annapolis Valley vineyards. On his private Vintage Vino Tours, Brennan Fitzgerald chauffeurs guests from vineyard to vineyard in vintage automobiles, weaving in stories about Canada’s Original Wine Region. “It’s the birthplace of North America,” he says. “We have been cultivating grapes here for over 400 years, but only in the last few decades have our wineries garnered international recognition for the quality of their wines. We make fantastic white and award-winning sparkling wines.”

Whether motoring in a 1947 Ford Super Deluxe or a 1952 Pontiac Chieftain, dining among the vines is always an option. “The slower pace of traveling in a vintage car adds to the experience,” Fitzgerald notes.

Each season has its pluses. “Spring is stunning; it’s quiet and relaxed, and the flowers are gorgeous,” Fitzgerald says. Summer is vibrant, and in the fall, he recommends adding farms, orchards, and markets brimming with produce to your custom-tailored tour. “The grapes are ready, the wineries are alive with activities, workers are harvesting, and grapes are changing color”—that’s bliss.

Explore Nova Scotia’s flavorful nuances at novascotia.com.

The Table Culinary Studio:Heavenly, hyperlocal fare in rural New London, Prince Edward Island

On Canada’s Food Island—the land of Green Gables, famed oysters and mussels, red sands and soil, and rare moving dunes—Chef-Owner Derrick Hoare and Executive Chef Hunter Guindon create a divine, seven-course tasting menu at The Table Culinary Studio. Remarkably, no dish served inside this handsomely restored church is repeated during the mid-May through late September season.

“We create the menu backwards,” Hoare says. He and Guindon scour the island, visiting farms, wharves, and foragers to find the best products. “Then we write our menu to feature the freshest foods available,” he says. For ingredients that can’t be sourced on the island, Guindon creates substitutes such as rhubarb for lemon, the little barbs on alder trees for black pepper, or daylily buds for capers.

In the dining space, which seats 27, Guindon appears periodically to explain the whats, whys, and hows of eating sustainably. “The pleasure for us is sharing a little bit of PEI through food, the island vibe, and the atmosphere in the church with guests from around the world.”

Cook up an escape to Prince Edward Island at tourismpei.com.