Photographer and food stylist kellyneil.com In just over five years, Kelly Neil has come out of seemingly nowhere to become one of Nova Scotia’s favourite food photographers. “I am fuelled by learning,” she says. “I don’t have any formal training and every time I pick up my camera, set up lights, move a piece of pasta […]
women in food
Lauren Marshall
Chef de cuisine, enVie, 5775 Charles Street You could call Lauren Marshall a Top Chef contestant. A vegan chef. A teacher. A holistic nutritional consultant. There are a lot of things that make her an incredibly creative force in Halifax’s food scene, but she’s not into labels. “What I love about what I do is […]
Lia Rinaldo
Managing director Devour! The Food Film Festival As a teenager, Lia Rinaldo got a job at the legendary Wormwoods Dog & Monkey Cinema, which led to the Atlantic Film Festival. “All of a sudden I blinked and 20 years had passed. It was a life in film and I never really planned on it,” she […]
Lil MacPherson
Owner The Wooden Monkey, 1707 Grafton Street and 40 Alderney Drive “It was an a-ha moment,” Lil MacPherson says. When Hurricane Juan struck Nova Scotia, a storm of concerns about food security hit her hard. “To me the very foundation of business, life, a province, a country is to make sure you have enough food […]
Liz Ingram-Chambers
Owner and manager, Le Bistro by Liz, 1333 South Park Street Liz Ingram-Chambers gets emotional when she talks about Le Bistro. “It’s my way of taking care of people, my way of making people happy.” After entering the scene as a server in college, she fell for the industry and the relationships she built with […]
Amber MacLean
Manager and server Morris East, 620 Nine Mile Drive A lot of people say that the secret ingredient to any great recipe is love, but for Jennie Dobbs and her Morris East restaurants, the secret to greatness just might to be Amber MacLean. With a decade of experience as a server under her belt, MacLean […]
Sheena Clark & Kathy Cooper-MacDonald
Owners, Made With Local, madewithlocal.ca It didn’t take long for co-workers/gym buddies Sheena Clark and Kathy Cooper-MacDonald to take their friendship to the next level and become badass business parters, snowballing their “wouldn’t it be cool if” idea into Made with Local. They’ve gone from making granola bars for farmers’ markets in lobster pots in […]
Ami Goto
Owner and chef Dharma Sushi, 1476 Argyle Street Ami Goto was hired as a server at Dharma Sushi five days after she arrived from Japan in 1998. It was her first foray into restaurant life and, in the beginning, just a way to pay her bills. Flash forward a few years and her boss, Hideki […]
Marie Nightingale
Food writer and editor 1928-2014 On March 15 of this year, Marie Nightingale passed away after a battle with cancer. The obituary she wrote for herself was “Marie says goodbye.” The legacy she wrote for herself was Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens. You really can’t talk about food or cooking in Nova Scotia, the […]
Annaleisa Scigliano
Pastry arts instructor, NSCC A pastry chef since 2002, Annaleisa Scigliano trained at NSCC before working at restaurants like Fox Harb’r Resort and Gio. Since 2012 she’s been teaching baking and pastry arts at NSCC’s Kingstec campus in Kentville. “I always felt like I was training anyways when I was working,” she laughs. She credits […]
Natalie Chavarie
Owner, The Food Wolf, @thefoodwolf Natalie Chavarie isn’t overstating when she says her role in developing food truck culture in Nova Scotia has been a pivotal one. In just over two years with The Food Wolf, Chavarie has done more than bring southeast Asian street food influences into Halifax’s culinary scene. “I see a really […]
Bee Choo Char
Head chef Prince George Hotel, 1725 Market Street Originally from Malaysia, Bee Choo Char has been in Halifax for a little over 16 years. She has spent 15 of them diligently working her way up the ranks at the Prince George Hotel. “I started from the bottom,” she says. “I slowly moved up from prep […]

