Things are never static in the world of food, are they? After Halifax’s cafe, bar, restaurant and corner store scene brought us a full-blown pizza war, a kitchen labour shortage and a buffet table of new waterfront restaurants in 2022, you’d be forgiven for thinking that 2023 couldn’t possibly keep pace. Could it?
If only. The year 2023 brought an end to more than a few longtime favourites across our lovely harbour city—proof that, as ever, cost-of-living increases and the systems that drive them can go straight to hell. On the bright side, it also introduced us to a wave of new restaurants, cafes and taprooms across the HRM that proves the counterpoint: Haligonians are a creative, resilient bunch. And they can whip up a damn good meal.
As with last year’s food and drink review, please note: This won’t be the exhaustive list of everything that’s happened in Halifax in the last year—for that, you’d need to lure Halifax ReTales’ Arthur Gaudreau into a corner booth at a Dartmouth diner somewhere—but here’s the stuff you should know.
The openings
Wander into Quinpool Road’s Palm Tree Kitchen on a weekday afternoon, and as sure as soca music wafts over the radio, you’ll find Demetrius “Meech” Ferguson behind the bar. Like the tube TV playing old VHS tapes in the kitchen’s corner, he’s a constant. The driving force behind the colourful Caribbean-themed restaurant, Ferguson has long had an entrepreneurial spirit: While still enrolled at St. Francis Xavier University, he started a bespoke bowtie business. He later managed Courtside Sneakers upon moving to Halifax—and still works as a personal fitness coach. But the pull to share his culture from his home of Nassau, Bahamas with his adopted city was too strong to ignore.
“When you’re from the islands, you grow up in the kitchen,” he told The Coast in July. “I grew up with my grandmother, my great-grandmother, always watching them cook, watching my mom cook… I was always the kid around just learning, watching, observing, tasting.”
Palm Tree Kitchen (6220 Quinpool Road) opened in July to long queues of patrons eager for a taste of jerk chicken or jackfruit tacos. By evening, it switches to a rum bar. That makes for a busy day—only one bartender and chef work at a time—but Ferguson doesn’t mind.
“One thing about me, if I’m working, then I’m definitely enjoying it,” he says.
That wasn’t the only change to arrive in the west end: Coffee roastery East Cup opened its doors at the corner of Robie and Pepperell Streets at the start of the year, followed by Vietnamese dine-in and takeout delight Banh Mi A&B (6172 Quinpool Road) in July and late-night bar Jellies (6250 Quinpool Road) in October.
Down by the waterfront, it was another year of change. Upscale Lebanese restaurant Au Liban opened its doors on Lower Water Street in July, just down the road from where tricked-out ice creamery The Fog Company (1709 Lower Water Street) and The Wobbley Duck pub (1668 Lower Water Street) arrived in May and July, respectively. A few months earlier still, Halifax-based Freehand Hospitality opened its latest waterfront venture, Salt + Ash Beach House (1741 Lower Water Street). That wasn’t all for the boardwalk, either: PEI ice cream juggernaut COWS opened its Cable Wharf location (1751 Lower Water Street) in May.
A few blocks up on Barrington Street, farm-to-table upstart Mera Cafe + Bar arrived with a flourish in June. Led by head chef Sunpreet Singh (formerly of Hawksworth and Vij’s in Vancouver) and co-founder Khushkaran Chahal, the cafe and restaurant set its sights on locally-forged partnerships with the likes of Osprey’s Roost and Luke’s Small Goods, along with fresh vegetables picked from the Annapolis Valley. The menu rotates with the seasons: One week, the house salad might highlight foraged Japanese knotweed; another, something entirely different.
“We go with nature. So whatever nature is offering us in the landscape of Nova Scotia, we take that and we offer that,” Singh told The Coast in June.
Speaking of downtown, spring brought a pair of new cocktail bars to Barrington Street: Walter’s Snack Bar (1533 Barrington Street) started serving its buzzy concoctions on the ground floor of the former Freemasons Building at the tail end of April, and just a few blocks away, Tribeca Bistro and Bar (1688 Barrington Street) opened in the former Julep location in June. Both offer small plates, though the fare depends on your tastes: Walter’s pork belly nachos are a game-changer, while Tribeca’s seafood menu ranges from oysters to ceviche.
At the southern end of Barrington, Martha’s Pizza II opened its doors in the former WOW Pizza location (5212 Morris Street). Korean street food spot GOBONG popped up on Dresden Row. Instagram-ready brunch spot Dessert Yard launched in the Halifax Convention Centre (1636 Grafton Street) at the end of November. Over in Dartmouth, meanwhile, Sri Lankan surprise Curry Hut (205 Pleasant Street) opened in mid-October, while Montreal-based brunch chain Ben + Florentine opened on Portland Street and Nova Scotia’s own coffee and donut chain Aroma Maya expanded into its first HRM location (303 Prince Albert Road).
Then, there were the brewery openings: Stillwell unveiled its new Kempt Road hi-fi and taproom (inspired by Japanese jazz cafes) in June, while Good Robot rolled back the curtains on its beer garden on the Halifax Common (10/10, no notes). Propeller opened a taproom and drive-thru in Bedford (1225 Bedford Highway), while Berwick-based Smokehouse Brewery opened its first Halifax taproom on Agricola Street. And finally, 2 Crows Brewing Co. opened a taproom on Oxford Street with Yeah Yeahs Pizza in December.
The closings
When Coastal Cafe’s Mark Giffin announced that he’d be closing his beloved brunch spot after 16 years, we should’ve ended 2023 right there. There’s no way around it: This year was a brutal one for more than a few neighbourhood favourites.
Let’s start on a fonder note: Falafel king Raymond Khattar retired after 42 years behind the original Ray’s Lebanese (first of Scotia Square fame, before Khattar moved his business to Burnside). If you ever walked into Ray’s, chances are he remembers you.
“That’s my riches: People,” Khattar told The Coast in May. “It was never customer and owner. It was, you know, friends.”
There may be no singular figure quite like Ray. He won The Coast's Best of Halifax Readers’ Choice award for Best Falafel so many times—13 years in a row—that we had to retire the category in 2007. And when he left Scotia Square in 2014, facing the spectre of a doubled rent, an online petition garnered more than 5,200 signatures in his support.
Despite his obvious gifts, Khattar was never boastful about his life’s work.
“Cooking is taste,” he said. “If you have the taste, you know how to cook.”
May you enjoy your retirement, Ray. Now, on to the other closures…
Woodside staple John’s Lunch closed its doors at the end of October. The fish and chips restaurant’s closure marked the end of a 54-year run that saw the likes of actor Rob Lowe, Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson and president Barack Obama’s White House chef come through the doors.
Both Sidekick Cafe (2851 Agricola Street) and Coburg Social Bar & Cafe (6085 Coburg Road) bid farewell in 2023. Gottingen Street lost The Foggy Goggle pub in May, and both vinyl bar Hopyard and dessert favourite Fortune Doughnut in August—though the latter would reopen within days under another familiar moniker (more on that later).
Barrington Street’s Qiu Brothers Dumplings closed up shop in June—though its sister business, East Coast Dumpling House, remains open in Cole Harbour. Spryfield’s Serpent Brewing (5 Sussex Street) poured its last beer in October. Burnside lost Peppereka (200 Wright Avenue), Clayton Park bid adieu to Kor-B-Q (278 Lacewood Drive) and zero-waste grocer The Tare Shop closed its doors after an “epic five years” in Halifax and Dartmouth.
Then, there’s Pete’s Frootique and Fine Foods (1515 Dresden Row), whose unionized workers went on strike after unsuccessful negotiations with Sobeys, which owns the downtown grocery store. Pete’s workers say most of them are earning minimum wage, and the company was offering a five-cent hourly raise—what would have amounted to $4.55 in a 91-hour pay period, produce worker Terry Armour told CBC News. Crowds showed up in support of the workers in mid-November. Sobeys opted to close the store indefinitely.
The resto-revivals
Just as 2023 brought a career revival for the Barbie franchise, Halifax’s food and drink scene saw its own share of back-from-the-grave moments. After 2022 saw Gottingen Street’s Vandal Doughnuts appear to kick the bucket, rumblings surfaced in August that new ownership had taken over the brand—along with that of Fortune Doughnut. By the end of the month, it was official: The same owners behind Sea Smoke Restaurant & Bar and the former Saké had bought both bakeries and were relaunching the Vandal Doughnuts brand in Fortune’s location.
Now, it’s set to expand into Dartmouth, with a location coming to Portland Street.
Around the corner in Halifax’s north end, 2023 saw returns for two other venues: Ramblers (5576 Nora Bernard Street) and the Mid-East Food Centre (2595 Agricola Street). The coffee bar took over the former Sourwood Cider location, while the longtime grocer reopened after extensive renovations.
The still-under-constructions and maybe-not-happenings
After a year in construction, we thought we might be seeing Toridori (1715 Lower Water Street), Swanky Burger (same location) and Pazzo Ristorante & Enoteca (1566 Barrington Street) opening by now, but as of December, all three window fronts remain papered over. According to Halifax ReTales, Swanky Burger—another Freehand Hospitality imprint—appears to be dead in the water. No further details exist for Toridori (also of Freehand), but Pazzo appears to be making headway: The Italian restaurant’s Instagram page has offered semi-regular construction updates. So… 2024?
The milestones
Happy 10-year anniversary to Stillwell (1762 Barrington Street), Field Guide (2076 Gottingen Street) and the Agricola Street Brasserie (2540 Agricola Street). All three Halifax haunts hit the double-digit mark this year.
Earlier in the year, Bar Kismet (2733 Agricola Street), The Bicycle Thief (1475 Lower Water Street) and Café Lunette (1741 Lower Water Street) all cracked the Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list, while Fawn (1589 South Park Street), Peacock (1715 Lower Water Street) and Café Lunette were all selected as part of Canada’s “Best New Restaurants.” Dear Friend (67 Portland Street), Stillwell and The Narrows Public House (2720 Gottingen Street) nabbed spots on Canada’s Top 50 Bars list.
Last, but not least, popular oyster bar The Press Gang (5218 Prince Street) was named to OpenTable’s list of Canada’s top 100 restaurants.
One fond farewell
Synonymous with John’s Lunch for many years, and later with Pleasant Street Diner, restaurateur Fotis Fatouros’s name shone as brightly as any in Halifax’s food scene over the years. He passed away at age 77 in September.
“Fotis was an absolute pillar in our community, a loyal friend and a hard-working family man,” Portland Street pizza-and-wings favourite Jacob’s Lounge wrote on Instagram. “Whoever had the opportunity to know Fotis was touched by his kind and generous nature.”
Rest in peace, Fotis.
