OUT OF TOWN
Backhouse
This is nose-to-tail, smallplate dining at its best in a most unlikely place: a strip mall that also houses a Subway. Here, locally farmed baby trout are lovely right down to their crunchy tails, and lamb shank ravioli in a shallot jus explode with flavour. Chef Ryan Crawford has been carting around “Roxanne,” his sourdough starter, for 16 years, and it shows up everywhere, including in the flammküchen, wood-fired Alsatian pizzas topped with house-made cheese, sweet onions and bacon. For dessert, pears are poached in local beer and served with malty ice cream and a buttery biscuit, made deliciously bitter with hops. 242 Mary St., Niagara-on-the-Lake, 289-272-1242. $$WVA
The Berlin
Surrounded by farms in the centre of Kitchener, chef Jonathan Gushue has easy access to the freshest ingredients: grilled treviso with munster d’Alsace, plump raisins and dried fruits in an earl grey vinaigrette is sweet, bitter, pungent and perfect with house-baked nut- and fruit-studded sourdough; and local ribeye, cooked perfectly rare, sits on a mound of mixed wild mushrooms, a ruby-red cabbage purée and a single dumpling filled with herbed quark (fresh cheese) and scallions. Pastry chef Eli Silverthorne’s creative desserts are impressive: lavenderinflected fermented honey ice cream and dark chocolate mousse are topped with airy chantilly cream, then finished off with bright-red pomegranate dust. 45 King St. W., Kitchener, 519-208-8555. $$$WVA
Kitchen 76 at Two Sisters Vineyards
This N.O.T.L. vineyard’s immature grapes (their first ones were only bottled in 2010) mean the wine served here isn’t exactly robust, but the kitchen’s straightforward take on Italian comfort food makes for one of the finest meals in wine country. A light, ideally blistered crust topped with basil pesto, creamy ricotta cheese and spinach is perhaps the best Neapolitan pizza this side of the Mediterranean, and superlatives fail to capture the deep-fried joy that is the pillowy, sweet-and-salty cinnamon-sugar beignets. 240 John St. E., Niagara-on-the-Lake, 905-468-0592. $$$WOV