4 great dining experience

St. Andrews, NB, has a lot going for it: it’s known as Canada’s first seaside resort town and is home to awe-inspiring Bay of Fundy tides, quaint shops, spectacular whale watching and gorgeous gardens. And, if you’re a food-lover, well…Here are four not-to-miss experiences.

Kingsbrae Arms

Expect the freshest and finest, from garden, farm and sea at the 36-seat dining room and 16-seat club room at this luxurious “Relais & Châteaux” (an exclusive group of luxury hotels and restaurants) garden inn.

“We showcase the best ingredients possible. The most important thing is that the product is in season,” says owner and general manager Harry Chancey, who’s lovingly restored the 1897 estate. He and chef Guillaume Delauné run their kitchen to the rhythms of the garden and nearby Charlotte County farms, fisheries and markets. Delauné, who uses his French roots to put a unique Mediterranean spin on Bay of Fundy produce, flabbergasts guests with up to 42 different courses a week. New this season, Kingsbrae is offering eco-tours, designed to take guests onto the fishing boats and organic farms of its food producers. Information: (506) 529-1897 or kingsbrae.com.

Rossmount Inn

Naked lobster? Fiddlehead soup shooters? Par for the course at this popular country inn at the foot of Chamcook Mountain. Built in 1889 as a private estate, the inn has a 60-seat dining room known for its menu—designed around pickings from the inn’s organic kitchen garden, and from the woods on the property.

Savour Restaurant

“It’s got to be local,” is the food philosophy behind Savour, a 26-seat boutique restaurant on the outskirts of town. “We forage like crazy in the summer—berries, mushrooms, peas—we utilize all the local farms, raid the family apple orchard,” says chef Alex Haun, who, with his wife, Jennie, runs the restaurant known for its tasting menus. The dedicated table d’hôte changes daily in summer. They use only Canadian wine, and eschew chicken, beef, pork and haddock for more obscure seafood and game. Instead, diners can choose monkfish, sea urchin, wild boar, pheasant, partridge, quail—“products you’re not going to see every day.”

Expect to be pampered. “Essentially, you’re getting welcomed into our home,” Haun says of the renovated cottage where guests can choose a private six-seat dining room, the main 12-seat dining room, or the chef’s table, which seats six right in the kitchen. Information: (506) 529-4055 or chefalexhaun.com.

St. Croix Olive

Opened just last year, St. Croix Olive has already attracted a strong following among those who enjoy cooking at home. The tasting bar, housed in the rustic Treadwell Inn, carries about 50 varieties of olive oils and balsamic vinegars sourced from around the world. At no charge, people can wander from fusti to fusti (stainless steel containers from Italy with spigots on the front) to try before they buy, tasting oil and vinegar from locations as varied as Morocco, Chile, or California, while staff tell customers how to mix and match. “Lots of people have never experienced pecan praline balsamic vinegar, or thought to mix blueberry balsamic vinegar and Meyer lemon olive oil, which is spectacular,” says sales associate Robin Burton. Information: (506) 529-1011 or stcroixolive.com.