Gold Winner The Canteen
Silver Winner The Wooden Monkey, Halifax
Bronze Winner EDNA
Renée Lavallée loves to cook with lemons and olive oil, but not as much as she loves her Saturday farmers’ market run. The Canteen’s chef and owner shouts out local producers like Ted Hutten, Tap Root Farms, Oulton’s and Noggins for helping her menu stay chock-full of stuff grown and raised here in Nova Scotia. “Everyone in the kitchen and front-of-house have gotten to know our suppliers,” Doug Townsend says, like Roma Cheese’s Ciro Comencini. “Ciro walks in and everyone is like, ‘CI-RO!’ Instead of just getting one big delivery every week, the staff care more about it because of these personal relationships.”