Niagara Wine Region Restaurants
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Niagara Wine Region - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in Niagara Wine Region - browse our top choices for Restaurants during your stay.
The huge windows framing the Twenty Valley conservation area are reason enough to dine at this restaurant, regarded as one of the best around Toronto, on Jordan's boutique-lined Main Street. Regional specialties and local and organic produce are emphasized on a seasonal menu that has included Wellington County boneless rib-eye steak served with mushroom-and-onion fricassee and blue cheese butter. The dining room, reminiscent of the French and Italian countryside, is lovely, with a soaring ceiling, whitewashed beams, and a view of the gardens. Cave Spring Cellars, which has a shop next door, provides many of the wines.
Frequently cited as the best restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake—an impressive feat in a town with so many excellent restaurants—Peller Estates manages refinement without arrogance. The stately colonial revival dining room is anchored by a huge fireplace at one end and has windows running the length of the room overlooking a large patio and the estate vineyards. A menu of ever-changing expertly prepared entrées often weaves the Peller Estates wine into modern Canadian cuisine.
Exquisite progressive Canadian food and venerable wines are served by an enthusiastic staff on this bucolic property with three 19th-century Mennonite stone buildings. Sit on the large outdoor patio overlooking vineyards and Lake Ontario beyond or in the glassed-in restaurant, where many of the tables have a similar panoramic view. The menu is locally sourced and seasonal: think venison haunch with heirloom beets, torchon, smoked cauliflower purée, and blackberry reduction. Desserts, like spiced pumpkin cheesecake served with mascarpone gelato, are the perfect demonstration of simplicity and innovation.
This brainchild of chef-owner Stephen Treadwell (formerly of the prestigious Auberge du Pommier), his chef de cuisine Matthew Payne, and his son, wine sommelier James Treadwell, Treadwell embodies the farm-to-table philosophy. Sit down for dinner on the sidewalk patio or in the sleek dining room and indulge in some of the best that southern Ontario has to offer.
Niagara-on-the-Lake's first winery restaurant is still one of its best. After a complimentary winery tour and tasting, you can indulge in the spacious, light-filled dining room with big double doors framing vineyards almost as far as the eye can see. The menu of locally inspired cuisine changes every six weeks. Tasting menus are available to try such culinary masterpieces as wild Pacific halibut with local asparagus and morels.
You can request a Yorkshire pudding to accompany any meal at this tavern just off Queen Street, which should tip you off to its British leanings, played out further in the decor: a warren of rooms with creaky floors and well-used wooden tables and chairs, low ceilings and exposed beams, and convivial chatter throughout. Ontario's oldest operating inn sets out pub fare such as shepherd's pie, bangers and mash, and steak-and-kidney pie. Entrées change periodically but always include the house specialty, prime rib of beef au jus.
Niagara-on-the-Lake's only waterfront restaurant, the regal Tiara sits beside a marina with a view of the Niagara River beyond the sailboat masts. The elegant, amber-hue Georgian-meets-contemporary dining room is buttoned up but accented by a pretty stained-glass ceiling and near-panoramic windows that give nearly every table a water view. The outdoor tables next to the marina, however, are the ones to request to go with the exquisite French-influenced menu. Round out the meal with homemade ice cream topped with seasonal berries.
For alfresco dining, it's hard to beat Zees Grill for its huge wraparound patio with heat lamps across from the Shaw Festival Theatre. More informal than most similarly priced restaurants in town, its seasonal menu brings panache to homegrown comfort foods such as grilled swordfish with purple potato hash and buttered baby bok choy or beef ribs with shallot, garlic, and fingerling potato hash. Appetizers follow a similarly elegant, yet whimsical, philosophy.
The real treat at this modern Italian restaurant is to sit on the large patio out front, set back from Queen Street across the lawn under the shade of tall trees. Nibble on antipasti such as Atlantic salmon carpaccio and classic caprese salad (with tomatoes and mozzarella), and then dig into the seasonal menu, always full of fresh (made daily) pasta, pizza, grilled fish, chicken, veal, and lamb dishes. A light fish course like the oven-roasted Chilean sea bass with black olives and cherry tomatoes is perfect for spring and summer. Find the perfect bottle from the extensive wine list to go with the meal and leave space to indulge in the kitchen's classic Italian desserts.
Authentic Chinese food is a welcome change of pace in this Victorian-flavored town packed with restaurants serving mostly Continental or British pub cuisine. Delicate Cantonese dishes are prepared in the small dining room set back from busy Queen Street. Favorites such as lemon chicken, black-pepper-and-garlic beef, and shrimp and scallops sautéed with vegetables and served in a crunchy noodle basket are delicious and not overly "Canadianized." The yellow walls are hung with a few framed Chinese prints, but the plastic patio furniture out front cries for an update.
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