Plan your next day trip around a great meal.
In our opinion, a good day trip should achieve two things: get you out of the city and include a meal worth the drive (and the gas price). If an end-of-summer road trip is on your mind, we’ve got you sorted. We’ve rounded up eleven incredible outside-of-the-city dining destinations across the country from our 2022 list. They all have their own unique style, but they all have one thing in common: truly great food.
L’A Cabane d’à Côté
3595, Montée Robillard, St-Benoît de Mirabel, Qué.
After a two-hour, 60-km drive northeast from downtown Montreal to St-Benoit de Mirabel in pre-virus rush hour traffic, we spot the sign rising—just—out of the towering snowbank that flanked the right-hand side of Montée Robillard: La Cabane d’à Coté. Read the rest here.
La Ferme Bika
980 Chem. du Grand Bernier, Saint-Blaise-sur-Richelieu, Qué.
AN EGG ON A PLATE. ONE SIMPLE EGG. BUT IT’S MORE THAN THAT. It’s an egg that has just been laid in the chicken coop steps away from your table. “I can turn an egg into an omelette,” says Chef Fisun Ercan. “But I can also boil it perfectly, with a little soft yolk, put some herbs on it, and there! That is the true taste of a fresh egg.” And that is precisely what she’s offering at Bika Farm. Find out more about our Best Farm to Table 2022 winner here.
Restaurant Pearl Morissette
3953 Jordan Rd., Jordan Station, Ont.
AS IT ENTERS ITS FIFTH YEAR, the subtly renamed Restaurant Pearl Morissette continues to evolve, driving the bar ever higher for Niagara wine-country dining. Daniel Hadida and Eric Robertson, Ontario-reared chefs with cutting-edge experience in Paris and rural Belgium, respectively, are in charge of the kitchen. The atmosphere is agrarian-meets-modern; the dining room has floor-to-ceiling windows that provide IMAX-worthy views of the grounds. In summer the entire operation — kitchen, dining room and bar — moves outside to a tented space, punctuated by dramatic floral arrangements. More on No. 4 on our list here.
Langdon Hall
1 Langdon Dr., Cambridge, Ont.
SEASONAL, REGIONAL COOKING doesn’t get much closer to the source than this. Many of the restaurant’s ingredients are harvested from the property’s kitchen gardens and the surrounding Carolinian forest. Chef Jason Bangerter’s terroir-driven cuisine isn’t dogmatic, though, and B.C. sablefish is more than happy to partner with a velouté infused with the restaurant’s own geranium and lemongrass. Classically rooted cooking transforms even the humblest vegetables into items of desire. Sauces and soups in particular are beautifully judged. The dining room is all pressed linens, polished crystal and benevolent professionalism. More on No. 5 from our 2022 List here.
The Pine
203 Hurontario St., Collingwood, Ont.
Pluvio
1714 Peninsula Rd., Ucluelet, B.C.
A VETERAN OF DESTINATION RESTAURANT KITCHENS in remote coastal towns (like The Inn at Bay Fortune, in Souris, P.E.I.; and The Pointe, at the Wickaninnish Inn, in Tofino, B.C.), chef Warren Barr set out on his own in 2019 — for the even less well-trodden fishing village of Ucluelet (population: 1,717). There, amidst that handful of locals, and the region’s customary mix of campers and hard-core cold-water surfers, Barr and his wife, Lily Verney-Downey, set up this small, charming hotel and its over-achieving restaurant. The setting is warm and casual, down to the bare wood tables and earth-tone plates. The service, managed by Verney-Downey, is highly polished, and the food likewise. Read more from our Best New Destination winner here.
Araxi
4222 Village Square #110, Whistler, B.C.
Bearfoot Bistro
4121 Village Green, Whistler, B.C.
River Café
25 Prince’s Island Park, Calgary, Alta.
Editors note: Technically this is not a day trip (it’s too close to Calgary) but it sure feels like one.
EDGED BY THE RIVER AND LEAFY TREES, THE MAGICAL SETTING OF PRINCE’S ISLAND PARK sets this restaurant apart. So too does its reverence for the environment and commitment to the exclusive use of Canadian and preferably Albertan ingredients — from Highwood Crossing’s grains and canola oil to Broek pork and beef from Black Diamond Land & Cattle.
The dining room’s rustic décor highlights exposed wood, stone and brick, and the vintage sports equipment is a nod to local fishing lodges and mountain resorts, even as the glass-and-steel office towers of Calgary’s business centre loom across the Bow River. Chef Scott MacKenzie and his team’s fast-evolving menus straddle these two Alberta realities, with seasonal offerings rich in rural flavours executed with urban finesse. More on No. 10 here.
Fogo Island Inn
210 Main Rd, Joe Batt’s Arm, N.L.
The Inn at Bay Fortune
758 Route 310, Souris, P.E.I.
IT’S EVERY BIT AS SPECTACULAR AS ITS NAME. FireWorks Feast is part performance, lecture, and walking tour—and all gourmet extravaganza. It begins with cocktails and snacks in the courtyard. Then a tour of the gardens, punctuated by a visit to the oyster shack. Glistening with mint-chili aioli, a couple hundred Fortune Bay oysters burble on coals, only to be quickly dispatched by 100-plus guests. Then it’s back to the Inn, where a few hundred more oysters meet their demise. Read the rest here.
