It’s easy to feel behind the times when it comes to restaurants, with new places opening and old places closing like clockwork, almost as regularly as the sun rises and sets. But it’s not often you feel a hundred years behind the times. Started in 1901, the Resolutes Amateur Athletics Club of Halifax is the […]
Restaurant Reviews
Happy Veal or no deal
The first time I saw the sandwich board outside of Park Victoria promising fresh noodles and homemade dumplings, I thought I was hallucinating Happy Veal Hot Pot into existence. I’d always pictured the bottom floor of Park Vic as nothing more than a Goodlife bumping up against Le Bistro by Liz, so this new restaurant […]
Arms way
It’s early Saturday evening. A hedge of limousines wraps around the Public Gardens and a dull chatter hangs in the air like a low cloud. It’s not until I see the creased tuxedos and wrinkled taffeta that I realize: it’s a prom night. Droves of girls wander around in gossamer fabrics, sunlight firing from sequin […]
Happy Garden medium
There is something sort of dingy about the dining room of Happy Garden. Perhaps it’s the bones of the Fog City Diner that cast an air of slackness to the restaurant, but it definitely still reads like a bit of a dive. Tables are jammed in sloppy rows, the worn edges of chairs almost bumping […]
Piez again
Tucked into a corner of the stripmall complex on Portland Hills that once held Que Tal—a new restaurant called Absolutely Delish Cuisine recently opened in that space—Piez Bistro specializes in pizzas and other savoury pies. It’s a tiny restaurant. A handful of tables fills the corner around the counter, while shelves stacked with jars and […]
Tako belle
Until last week, the only reason I ever had to go to Parkland Drive was 9+Nine, one of the city’s most delicious hidden gems. Now it’s starting to look like that area is actually a bit of a diamond mine: Tako Sushi and Ramen is another treasure, buried in that same inconvenient geography. We stop […]
Got The Nook
Low-key, jazzy music fills The Nook. This new cafe-meets-lounge on Gottingen is, in fact, incredibly low-key in general. There’s a warm, slightly industrial feel to the space that feels very in step with how this part of Gottingen is developing. Natural light floods in through a big window at the front that is lined with […]
Efendy’s on fire
Efendy quietly opened on Dresden Row late in 2013. Its dining room will feel familiar to anyone who spent time in the late, great Fid. The banquette is still tucked into one of the walls, while the other is a bold red with a chalkboard menu and a little shelf where a single bottle of […]
Field Guide notes
Atlantic Canada has long had a Saint John and St. John’s, but in Field Guide, Halifax has found its own St. John. Since 1994, Fergus Henderson, the chef at St. John in London, England, has been at the forefront of nose-to-tail eating, and now chef/owner Dan Vorstermans and his partner Ceilidh Sutherland are leading the […]
Agricola Street’s alright
If nothing else, the Agricola Street Brasserie is ambitious. But, luckily, there is some else. The restaurant is really beautiful. The huge main dining room is a scattering of tables within a perimeter set by high, comfortable banquette seating. A long bar runs the margin, a corridor of sorts, that leads to the back room, […]
Cafe Karachi cravings
I love breakfast. It is, to put it very simply, the best. But, as a reluctantly aging night owl who steadfastly refuses to wake up, wipe the sand from my tired eyes and embrace a weary, grown-up existence as a morning person, my favourite meal—even if it’s admittedly by default—is brunch. From the moment I […]
Sweet Caroline’s Bakery
I am no stranger to Caroline’s Bakery. It opened on Alderney Drive right across from the library around a year ago, and for a few months now I have stopped in pretty frequently, picking up a loaf of bread here and a turnover there. It’s a plain little bakery—mumsy, even— with chintz-upholstered cafe chairs, and a […]

