On a trip to New Brunswick, writer Julie Hatfield and her photographer husband Timothy Leland, experienced three very unique dining experiences. They tell Real Food Traveler readers what to expect when you visit the Canadian province.

Save this article to Pinterest to help you plan your experience of memorable meals in New Brunswick, Canada. Photos by Timothy Leland. Graphic by RealFoodTraveler.com.

Three Memorable Meals in New Brunswick, Canada

• If you think dining in the Eiffel Tower — 410 feet above ground — is a memorable experience, how about a gourmet meal served on the ocean floor after the highest alternating tide in the world has receded? Linger over post prandial cordials and cigars at the end and you will drown under four or five stories of water as the tide races back.
• Sure, you may get a dollop of black caviar along the culinary way at the famous California gourmet restaurant Chez Panisse, but how about a seven-course meal featuring “the best caviar in the world” according to its producer, who also added it to the panna cotta dessert?
• OK, it’s true that the nice guides on the high-end luxury bike tours in Europe provide the most elaborate outdoor picnics imaginable along the way — enjoyed by my husband and I on many such bike trips. But for sweet delight, no outdoor meal we’ve ever had beats the al fresco one we recently enjoyed overlooking the Northumberland Strait in Canada while watching a spectacular performance by a professional ballet company.

These three unusual meals weren’t held in exotic culture capitals far from our home in Boston. They took place just 400 miles to the north in the province of New Brunswick, a travel destination that is making a big play for increased tourism.

And if these meals are any indication, this little province in the Maritimes is going to be a successful culinary travel destination.

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Memorable Meal 1: Everything Caviar with Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar, Inc. 

New Brunswick has a strong tradition of fishing, and our three meals all had direct connections to the sea. None more so than the first one, a seven-course lunch featuring the oldest fish on the planet: sturgeon, a strange-looking creature that has been swimming in our oceans since the time of the dinosaurs. We were treated to a caviar “master class” that offered a variety of sturgeon cuisine, highlighting both its meat and its roe.

The lunch took place on the lawn of Cornel Ceapa, owner of Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar, Inc. along the St. John River. First up was an amuse-bouche consisting of sturgeon tartare, crispy capers, egg yolk and caviar. This was followed by blini, potato, deviled egg and chilled fresh oysters highlighted by a different kind of caviar.

Cornel Ceapa displays retail containers of his caviar.

Ceapa, who holds a PhD in sturgeon biology, gave a “bump,” or dollop, of new caviar on the closed left fist of the eight luncheon attendees, leaving the right hand free to hold a glass of champagne or sake “to clear the palate,” he said.

The third course was smoked loin, gravlax, croquettes and — what else? — caviar.

Sturgeon gravlax flavored with saffron and boreal spices (left), red beets with dill (right), and smoked sturgeon croquettes.

And so it went through the other four courses. There was smoked sturgeon belly, celery root, roasted potato broth, scallion oil, and caviar. There was sturgeon ceviche, caramelized shallots, maple smoke. . . and caviar.

The entree was a serving of both seared wild and farmed sturgeon, together with a thin slice of wagyu beef, aerated yuzu beurre blanc — and a generous portion of caviar. The sturgeon meat, unfamiliar to many U.S. diners because it is banned in some parts, had a delicate taste, a little like sweet pork.

That left dessert: a delicious concoction of white chocolate panna cotta, maple leaf tuile . . . and sturgeon caviar.

“By adding caviar to any food,” Ceapa declared, “you elevate your bite.”  He boasts his caviar is the best there is. “Russia claimed to have the best in the world at one time,” he said, “because theirs was the ONLY caviar in the world.”  Now Russia may not even produce the most caviar. China, France and Italy all claim that honor currently.

Panna Cotta dessert with a maple leaf, edible flowers and caviar.

Memorable Meal 2: Taste the Tides

Our second memorable meal was also of the sea — quite literally. It was served on dry land where the water had been 40 feet deep just six hours before.

Known as “Taste The Tides” dinners, they were the brilliant idea of Roland Firth, food and beverage manager at the park restaurant. The dinners had a trial run last year, and were so well received that these events – held at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in sync with the famous Bay of Fundy tides – will now become regular happenings.

Before it could begin, the chef and staff had to haul the large Blackstone grill, chairs, tables, sea-themed glass centerpieces, tablecloths, silverware for nine diners (24 on some nights) and all the food down a high bluff in three carts with trailers. The biggest challenge, according to chef Anthony Seamone, is “remembering to bring everything.”

At Taste the Tides, Sous chef Joel Gallant cooks in his kitchen at low tide.

Time, after all, is essential when everything — and every diner— must have come and gone within three hours. That’s when the enormous tide starts rolling back in.

Seated at private tables on the ocean floor, we began with hors d’oeuvres of mixed greens, roasted pecans, local berries, red onion and house made cheese. Our salad course was cucumber bites with local lobster and fresh dill, followed by a choice of entrees. Ours was beef tenderloin covered in a lobster sauce, together with celery root puree. Other diners settled on a seafood ravioli of hand-crafted noodles filled with Bay of Fundy lobster, scallops and shrimp enveloped in heavy cream. Vegetables that night were fiddlehead ferns from the garden of one of the center’s maintenance workers.

The author’s meal at Taste the Tides when the ocean floor becomes the dining room.

We barely had room for a strawberry shortcake tower that completed the meal with a drizzle of lilac syrup, made from the lilac bushes of sous chef Joel Gallant. Wines from the local Magnetic Hill winery were paired with each course.

We staggered from the table just in time for the staff to whisk away any hint of a dinner party there on the beach. We won’t forget the magic feeling of a dinner that sadly, but also magically, disappeared under high tide.

Next morning at high tide the former “dining room” was under several feet of water. Just a memory.

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Memorable Meal 3: Ballet by the Ocean

How can you top a dinner on the ocean floor?

It’s not easy, but a gourmet dinner held outdoors on a majestic lawn overlooking a marsh full of wildlife and the waters of the Northumberland Strait in the distance comes close. And while you’re dining, if you add a performance of the Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada on a platform stage set up on the lawn in front of you . . . you may be there.

This event is known as “Ballet by the Ocean,” the brainstorm of New Brunswick businesswoman Susan Chalmers-Gauvin, co-founder and driving force behind the ballet company. The ballet dinner may be one of the few good things to come out of the pandemic. When indoor performances of any kind were banned in 2020, Chalmers-Gauvin thought, “Why not perform ballet outdoors in my front yard?” When she proposed it to her husband, she says, he was silent “for a long time” but then agreed with her, and the dancing dinner is now in its fifth year.

Dancers from the Atlantic Ballet Theatre perform a dramatic work with the water as a backdrop during Ballet by the Sea.

The Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada is the only professional ballet company east of Quebec, and to watch these talented dancers while enjoying a fine dinner created by a popular local chef on a warm summer evening is pure bliss. The elegant meal featured gazpacho containing local lobster, scallops and garden herbs; brioche with seaweed-infused butter; chicken Ballotine with mushrooms foraged from nearby woodlands, and a dessert called “Lavender Pavlova” after the famous Russian ballerina. It was a compote flavored by blossoms from a nearby lavender farm, together with a sprinkle of a local fruit called “hashkap,” and Chantilly cream with fresh mint from Chalmers-Gauvin’s garden.

At Ballet by the Ocean, a Lavender Pavlova was served for dessert.

The food complemented the dreamy ballet performance, which was specially created for a perfect summer evening by the ocean in a setting that could not have been more lovely.

Watch this YouTube video by Ballet by the Ocean and the Atlantic Ballet to see the experience in action.

Can any one meal be perfect?

In our trip to New Brunswick, Canada, we batted three for three. Our neighbors to the north presented us with these unforgettable dining experiences that delighted our tastebuds and filled the rest of our senses with the joy of travel. And by the way, the Canadians we met were unfailingly friendly, clearly not holding recent political shenanigans in Washington against us.

If you go to New Brunswick, Canada, these are the contacts for the three events:

Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar, Inc.
248 Saint John Avenue
Saint John NBE2K1E6
506-639-0605

Taste the Tides
To register, contact Roland,Firth@gnb.ca
131 Discovery Road
Hopewell Cape
506-734-3569

Ballet by the Ocean
Susan Chalmers-Gauvin
susan@atlanticballet.ca506-383-5951 ext. 102
Atlantic Ballet of Canada
PO Box 1783
Moncton NBE1C9X6 Canada

To learn more about visiting New Brunswick, Canada, check out their tourism website.

-Story by Julie Hatfield. Photography and video by Timothy Leland

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