A plate of one-bite snacks looks like a Lilliputian cocktail party: foie gras mousse on a dehydrated rhubarb-strawberry teardrop, a teensy spot prawn taco, a weensy potato nest with trout and caviar, a roti popper filled with Neufchâtel cheese. That’s just course one in the plush modern botanical room, where Pacific Northwest tasting menus showcase ingredients from Acre Lavande – the restaurant’s own farm on Cortes Island up the coast. Acre is part of a private club in an upscale boutique hotel in Richmond. But make a reservation, and you’re in.

Photo: courtesy of Acre Through the Seasons

Saint Boniface is set at the confluence of Winnipeg’s Assiniboine and Red rivers, a fitting district for this petite wine bar where, if you take a wrong turn, you end up at sister restaurant Nola. A tight, bright shared plates menu matches the low-intervention wine list. Sweet and sour kiwi-cucumber salad has a hemp heart dressing and pecorino. Vegetable bonbons, braised carrot nubs wrapped like penny candies in turnip sheets, come tossed in fermented-carrot brown butter and fresh mint. Sip on Gérard Bertrand Orange Gold as you snack away.

Bonheur d'occasion (The Tin Flute) was a novel of urban social consciousness set during WWII in Saint-Henri. From the vantage point of this whitewashed bistro, the neighbourhood’s grit is mostly gone — it has the happy feel of talented friends pursuing a dream. Snow crab sandwiches on homemade buns have a gentle whiff of Maritime Quebec, a platter of juicy roast duck and crushed olives arrives with fragrant shiso leaves in lieu of Peking pancakes. Wafer-thin phyllo dough, maple sugar and gobs of sweet clover cream are a modern masterpiece.

Photo: Peter Currie

Sprinkled with fresh pink rose petals, the fish course is a mindbender, the aroma more Dior than wild striped bass. With its sauce of locally grown saffron and stinging nettles, what it shares with the other six courses is chef Massimo Piedimonte’s urban take on terroir. Charlevoix lamb is cured and fire-roasted; lobster-stuffed cappellacci tastes like the essence de homard. Asparagus is prepared five ways in one tiny bowl, and there are two playful desserts (parsley sorbet, skull meringue), every bite a Montreal moment.

The 3-D cartoon menu cover is a portal into a gloriously off-kilter Mexican-inspired red sauce joint, with woodfired pizzas, housemade pastas, handmade stracciatella and sugar pie with preserved Prince Edward County cherries. A former co-owner of Toronto’s Superpoint, Jesse Fader quit the city for greener acres with his family in PEC. And he created a place where the Spicy Paloma has mucho personality, Cressy Farms turnips come on a deeply satisfying salsa macha, and Laura Branigan sings “Gloria” from on high. Bloomfield is one lucky town.

The agrarian dreamscape — a grand project by Eastern Townships star farmer Jean-Martin Fortier — is best enjoyed from the wraparound porch: There's a greenhouse and garden beds, rain showers and bonfires. Let’s eat warm brioche rolls brushed with honey, and drink local Domaine l’Espiègle pinot noir with hand-chopped beef tartare tossed with spring onions and sweet baby turnips. Choose from three cuts of pasture-raised Large Black pork: Juicy sirloin with a crisped fat cap, butt or tenderloin. Then fight over a little roasted strawberry sundae drizzled with pork fat caramel.

Photo: Éric Gendron

This plant-based food is so good it tastes like Mother Nature doing a death drop on RuPaul’s Drag Race. A salad featuring Hannah Brook Farm greens is revelatory—this what lettuce should taste like. Roasted chopped beets and hazelnuts are served like tartare along with puffy gnocco fritto for scooping. Garden-fresh carrots come tossed with warm panisse batons and a delicate elderflower vinaigrette, and grilled zucchini is set around a radiant yellow squash purée with chili crunch and lime. Turns out you can make friends with salad.

This is lusty cooking drenched in tradition. Entering a calming space of Kappo cooking, where a skilled chef prepares everything in front of you, is an experiential food journey for the ages. Tokyo-trained Takeshi Sato shaves bonito flakes for a gentle dashi, fries tempura one piece at a time, prepares seafood rice in a copper hagama pot, grills unagi over ceramic briquettes and churns soy milk into ice cream. He also smokes Nova Scotian toro, so sweet and fatty it’s like a roasted Atlantic marshmallow.

An A-Team of Quebec chefs – Antonin Mousseau-Rivard and Daniel Vézina – rolled up to the Quartier des Spectacles and created a Parisian-style brasserie for the ages. Édith Piaf plays on repeat as grandes dames enjoy glasses of rosé with their Doré meunière, couples slurp back Veuve and oysters at the bar, and proud grandparents treat their granddaughter to spit-roasted chicken. A giant craquelin-topped profiterole, stuffed with thick cream and vanilla ice cream, is drenched in warm chocolate sauce. Instant classique.

They are draping the table in crisp white linens as if preparing for a black-tie gala. But really, it’s for jumbo shrimp. Oysters first, creamy and deep, from Cortes and Vancouver islands. Then aburi sablefish, pressed, miso-marinated and kissed by the torch. The icy shrimp cocktail is the platonic ideal, a salad of urban-farmed Topsoil greens has dukkah for crunch, and spaghetti vongole has just the right amount of everything. Toptable Group spent millions launching this bacchanal of a restaurant, and it shows. Victoria is forever changed.

Photo: Allison Kuhl

The room is a wow. Elia Herrera, third-generation Mexican chef, channels her beloved grandmother’s home in Veracruz — all whitewashed arches and terra cotta. Architecture firms BOLD and Sturgess turned her photo inspiration into a matrix of wood and azure. Cocktails are equally stunning – the Saturn is passion fruit heaven – while shared plates include the Tres Marias salsa tasting with guacamole, pumpkin seed and black bean. Look for Herrera’s creamy young coconut ceviche, rajas poblanas and her abuela’s two-toned (blue and yellow masa) tortillas— soft and warm, like a grandma’s love.

Mauzy weather is the time for tucking into Ross Larkin and Celeste Mah’s local takes on dishes from away. Pork dumplings come with homemade XO sauce, donair spring rolls with famous sweet, garlicky sauce, this morning’s lobster is served on thick garlic Texas toast, and a bowl of whipped Newfoundland blueberry cheesecake with crunchy meringue comes dusted with local pineapple weed. “May be normal to you, but we can’t get anything like this here,” says my St. John’s dining companion. We can’t get this back home either.

Behold Halifax’s latest big development, the glassy Queen’s Marque on the waterfront, where Florida meets Nova Scotia. Hostesses in matching mom jeans and cable-knit sweaters march you along pale oak flooring past the wood fire in the open kitchen. Seared scallops with crispy sage, grapes and capers, over cauliflower purée, is a plate-licker. Fire-roasted Brussels sprouts, glazed in honey and mezcal, are as smoky as a 1950s pool hall. Duos in cocktail dresses and families in sweatshirts define something for everyone.

Photo: Hector Vasquez

There are flames and excitement in the open kitchen as pisco cocktails and aji-spiked ceviches hit the table. Suyo means homeland in the Incan language of Quechua, and Ricardo Valverde brought favourite childhood flavours with him from Lima and gave them a modern spin. Skewers of grilled beef heart dressed in chimichurri and sided with fondant potatoes are the ultimate dine-in street food. Arroz con pato – tender duck with cilantro-and-beer rice – comes with a seared foie gras upgrade. Some shaved truffle on those yucas fritas?

Photo: Chelsea Brown Photography

A warm Whistler welcome puts you at ease in the dauntingly polished room. Gabriel-Glas glassware and a wall of Okanagan and international wines are waiting. Watch as a delicate habanada-ginger dressing is poured tableside on North Shore tuna tataki with cucumber blossoms. Sablefish, roasted with maitakes and served with a broth made from its bones, is smoky, fatty and scrumptious. So too is the Prime New York Cut steak with pommes purées and yakiniku (like Japanese HP). Expert chicken fingers for kids, toffee pudding for many, a perfect night for all.

Photo: Leila Kwok