Best Food and Top Restaurants on Prince Edward Island, Canada

Prince Edward Island has some of the best food in Canada, with everything from lobster and mussels to fresh island beef.

You also can take cooking lessons, dine on fresh tuna poke and indulge in a legendary feast with celebrity chef Michael Smith.

My wife and I recently spent six days chowing down around central and eastern PEI, and came away hugely impressed with the variety of food we tasted and the passion of the people who make it. Here are some of the best food items and top restaurants we found in Prince Edward Island.

A FAB COOKING LESSON

 

Paige Hart and Chef Christine Hart took an old general store in “blink and you’ll miss it” Murray River and turned it into a beautiful cooking school and event space called The Old General Catering House. The design is worthy of a home décor magazine and is an Instagrammers delight. They do several types of cooking classes, including pasta night, pizza night and chowder with biscuits. They also do weddings and special events and have a nice garden overlooking a pretty bay. You can place a telephone order by Saturday and pick up fresh sourdough bread or other treats on Monday or Tuesday. For our visit, Christine taught us how to properly chop our vegetables and make a fine seafood chowder, while Paige instructed us on the finer points of making perfect, fluffy biscuits with PEI cheddar cheese. One secret: she grates very cold butter so it’s in smaller bits, versus big chunks.

SURPRISING PEI BEEF

PEI is famous for seafood; mussels, oysters and lobster. But this bucolic island also has deep green fields and a light industrial footprint, which makes it prime cattle country. I’ve read that the number of cattle on the island has dropped considerably in the past few years, but we tasted deeply flavoured, super tender beef short rib at Claddagh Oyster House in Charlottetown one night. We also sampled miso-marinated steak at Chef Michael Smith’s FireWorks Feast at Inn at Bay Fortune, as well as slices of a fine bavette (sometimes known as flap steak in North America) and sensational beef brisket that fell apart at the mere mention of the word “fork.”

A NEW BEACHSIDE INN FOR FOODIES

 

45 Steps is a new, Culinary Inn on the beach in PEI. The co-owner, Barbara Hasenbohler, started our dinner with a cucumber and cantaloupe salad mixed with a zingy apple vinaigrette, then served up five plump perfect scallops with a balsamic reduction, peppers and tiny cherry tomatoes. I’m not sure I’d do a heavy balsamic dressing on scallops, but they were tender and cooked perfectly. We also had a nice saffron risotto with shaved parmesan, and a wonderful rhubarb cake that her grandmother used to make, with raisins and ground almonds. The next morning we enjoyed a fantastic, Euro-style breakfast with eggs, meats, North American and German breads, cheese, yogurt, and much more. It’s a breakfast that’s worthy of a Swiss hotel, and that’s the best praise I can offer.

POKE IN PEI

The Poke Shack, a wooden, bayfront building in Souris (pronounced Surrey), is a revelation that serves lobster and tuna poke, a marinated raw fish dish that used to be something you found only in Hawaii but is now common around the world. The woman behind the counter said most of the tuna from PEI is quickly shipped to Japan, but that she had some that day from, gasp, Nova Scotia. The tuna wasn’t pre-marinated, so I  sprinkled soy sauce on top. Not quite as good as the real thing, but the fish was beautiful. For $16 I got a generous bit of fish, a salad, and two scoops of white rice with black sesame seeds. My wife loved the fresh lobster serving.

A CELEBRITY CHEF HOME RUN

 

Chef Michael Smith bought the Inn at Bay Fortune a few years ago, and now runs a FireWorks Feast and farm tour that’s truly remarkable. Chief farmer Kevin Petrie, originally from southern Ontario, gathered dozens of paying guests on the front lawn of the inn and explained how they try to use plants, including cilantro, in all their life stages. Later he showed off special half-dome greenhouses and explains how they dramatically increase the growing season. It’s all very educational, but the best part is the food that follows. Guests are treated to endless oysters fresh from the bay, which Smith and another worker personally shuck. You also get to wander past food stations where they’re making pork tacos, deliciously flaky salmon, cooked oysters, and miso-marinated flank steak. All the food is cooked on an open fire, as is our dinner, which is where you get the “FireWorks” name. After the appetizers comes an indoor, six-course menu. Ours included perfect lobster, a bavette steak, perfect beef brisket, fire-cooked bread, the most beautiful bowl of chowder ever invented, a salad strewn with popcorn, local nasturtiums and other flowers. The evening also featured a sabering sparkling wine ceremony with small samples and roasted, home-made marshmallows at the fire pit out front. It’s not a cheap experience ($235 for the tour and food; wine, beer or cocktails are extra and priced at restaurant levels, but your tip is included), but it’s a night you’ll never forget.

A-1 COFFEE

Receiver Coffee The Brass Shop is a gem right next door to Founders’ Hall. The building dates back to the 1870s and was formerly used to polish the brass on PEI railway trains. It’s a handsome building with plenty of light, and they make one of the best coffee lattes I’ve had anywhere. My wife loved her yogurt with berry compote, bananas and house-made granola. I enjoyed two eggs with some very thin slices of ham, sourdough toast and lots of good, roasted PEI potatoes. Nice, but pricey at $17.50.

FINE DOWNTOWN ITALIAN

 

We enjoyed very good scallops in brown butter at Abbiocco, a bright, shiny restaurant in downtown Charlottetown, which seems busier and more diverse than it was when I last visited in 2016. (Food options in town include Thai, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese and more.) We also had a busy but good linguine dish with roasted chicken, white wine, roasted red peppers, artichokes, spinach, cream, garlic, parmesan and fresh herbs and a nice plate of fettucine with Italian sausage, pancetta, mushrooms, onions, garlic cream and parmesan. Our waiter confirmed the pasta was hand-made. It wasn’t a big deal, but we could’ve done without the pounding noises from the martial arts studio on top of the restaurant. Bonus: A nice glass of wine was just $11.

FOUNDERS’ FOOD HALL AND MARKET

 

We didn’t get a chance to try anything, but this is a very appealing spot housed in the city’s old railway train repair shop. There are more than 20 vendors, and you can find everything from Mexican food to Parisian cupcakes and French-Caribbean street food. There’s also a sushi burrito spot, a place to buy fancy dog treats, and a spot selling Guadeloupan/Caribbean sandwiches called Bokits. Definitely not the kind of food Lucy Maud Montgomery ever wrote about.

 

 

CHARMING VICTORIA-BY-THE-SEA

 

Landmark Oyster House is a homey place in imminently huggable Victoria-by-the-Sea, with a tiny front room, a back room, a bar and a covered patio.  Our waitress, Jamie, whose husband is the chef, recommended the Red Thai mussels in a spicy coconut broth, which were hands down the best I’ve had anywhere in the world. Not only was the sauce divine, but the mussels were plump and juicy and perfect. They do regular “cold” lobster rolls but we opted for the warm ones, which were cooked in herbs and butter. Good, but no comparison to the mussels in my book. Jamie insisted we try the lobster rolls from Richard’s. There’s one next door but we were full so opted to try one on our last day.

LOBSTER ROLLS – AND HOW

 

Jamie (and a couple other people who recommended the place) was bang on. The lobster rolls at Richard’s are spectacular; brimming with fresh lobster and dressed with just a bit of mayo, onion and celery. The fish and chips were pretty good, especially the chips, but the lobster roll had to have had 2/3 of a specimen, and it was absolutely perfect. We went to the one inside PEI National Park near Stanhope Beach, north of Charlottetown. Four thumbs (and two claws) up.

ALSO CHECK OUT

SMALL PIES, BIG TASTE

 

The Handpie Company is a fine roadside spot is near Victoria-by-the-Sea and offers up terrific small pies. We went for ham and scalloped potatoes, with cream and nice chunks of meat and PEI taters in a flaky crust. We took a nice apple pie home with us. They also do bacon cheeseburger and bbq pulled pork pies, and some with beets, corn and goat cheese for customers who aren’t interested in meat.

BEST LEMON SQUARES EVER

 

The Maroon Pig Art Gallery and Sweet Shop in Georgetown is named for the owner’s former burgundy-coloured brute of a car, serves up the best lemon squares I’ve ever had, with nary a trace of icing (yay) and a mouth-puckering wallop. The owner tells me it’s because of the lemon zest. I’ve made a mental note to try that next Christmas. I didn’t have time to visit the gallery but it looked cute. If it’s half as good as the lemon squares, I’d say it’s worth visiting.

WATERFRONT IN GEORGETOWN

 

Wheelhouse in Georgetown is a fine spot with a lovely patio overlooking a quiet bay and the city’s boardwalk. We had good fish and chips with tons of fries and fat mussels cooked in beer and maple syrup, a dish I found a bit sweet for my taste. The menu also has fried chicken and other options.

LUCKY BEAN COFFEE

 

Lucky Bean Cafe is a marvelous coffee spot in Montague, with old tables and chairs, lots of wood, games and vinyl records for sale. It feels like something out of a trendy neighborhood in Montreal or Vancouver, and they make excellent coffee lattes, avocado toast, smoothies and other treats.

SEAFOOD AND LIVE MUSIC IN CHARLOTTETOWN

 

Located in a popular area for big-box stores near the airport, Local Pub and Oyster Bar is a fairly new place with good chowder and nice, crispy tacos. It’s a bright, airy spot with ceilings high enough for a LeBron James jump shot, and a series of lovely PEI photographs on the wall. They do live music on weekends.

MONEY SAVING TIP FOR ICE CREAM LOVERS

 

By all means go to Cows for an ice cream cone. There’s extra butter fat in their cones, and they’re delicious, But I think I paid more than $5 for a single cone. Lesser-known places will sell you a single scoop for a couple bucks, and it’s probably going to be quite good. In Souris, a small city in eastern PEI, we stopped in at Over the Top and had a fine ice cream cone on their second-floor patio/deck. They have 24 flavours, and it’s just $2.50 for a scoop.