Restaurant Pearl Morissette

CHEFS DANIEL HADIDA AND ERIC ROBERTSON aren’t ones for sitting still. Over the last eight years, their agrarian farm restaurant in Niagara wine country has been fuelled by a kinetic, relentless sense of exploration. Early on, that meant unbridled enthusiasm for anything new. “We were changing the menu constantly, calling up different producers and searching for ingredients that were indigenous or seldom found. We were aging meats and fish, looking at different fermentations — we tried everything. About 10 percent of it worked,” Hadida says, laughing.

Those trials helped forge RPM’s intrepid, often idealist and always excellent approach to hyperlocal Canadian cuisine. The 10-plus-course menu still changes frequently, but with more precision and forethought. Early experimentation paid off. They now know just how long to dry-age a cut of carefully sourced beef (two months is the sweet spot for grass-fed), and so much more. Learnings apply to relationships with producers, too. They know which Nova Scotia fishermen reliably deliver the best razor clams, scallops and snow crab in time for dinner service. Same for the West Coast, and much in between.

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In the service of principle, their idealism is grounded in technique and ingenuity. For example, when citrus and chocolate were banished because they didn’t sync with the chefs’ Canada-first sensibilities, they were convincingly replaced by high-octane creativity — butter-poached lobster finds acidic counterpoint in pickled green peaches, while an ice cream sandwich is built with warm black-koji cookies.

At the end of the day, we seek to delight. We’re a refuge. Our core focus is to bring a little bit of levity to people’s lives. Chef Daniel Hadida

But RPM’s accomplishments are not just Hadida’s and Robertson’s. The chefs are really the conductors of a 100-pluspiece band of fisherfolk, farmers, foragers, ranchers, millers, servers, chefs and sommeliers. They’ve learned, when necessary, to surrender control and let staff do what they do best — like in-house forager/ gardener/florist Deirdre Fraser, who is given free rein to riff at their regenerative farm. “She’s part set-designer, botanical scientist, seed saver, grower and educator,” says Hadida. “My goal is to remove barriers — get the fuck out of the way for exceptional people to shine.”

Meanwhile, sommelier Robert Luo gets to play not just with Pearl Morissette’s own wines, but also with those of like-minded makers in the Loire, Burgundy, British Columbia and beyond. Service is warm and welcoming (you are in the country) but precise and professional. “At the end of the day, we seek to delight. We’re a refuge. Our core focus is to bring a little bit of levity to people’s lives.” And that, they certainly do — and so RPM is, most deservedly, our best restaurant for 2025.

—KATE DINGWALL