Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants 2024: The winners

As part of a celebration held on November 4 in Toronto, Canada’s largest airline unveiled its list of the 10 best new Air Canada 2024 restaurants. Montréal’s Sabayon took first place, with Toronto’s Mehl and Mont-Tremblant’s Maison de Soma coming in second and third respectively.

The mystery critic, Tara O’Brady in 2024, personally visited over 30 restaurants in 2024 to assess all aspects of the dining experience. Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants celebrates its 23rd anniversary in 2024. It is the longest-running and one of the most respected restaurant rankings in the country.

As we mentioned in our introduction and in our favourites from the long list article, first place goes to Sabayon, the now-iconic restaurant in the Québec metropolis, run by celebrated pastry chef Patrice Demers and sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin. The restaurant, which offers afternoon tea and evening supper, focuses on local seasonal produce served in an intimate atmosphere. This small establishment, which seats around fifteen people, is sure to become the place to eat in Montréal for years to come. In second place, Toronto restaurant Mhel, founded by Seung-min Yi and Young Hoon Ji, offers Korean-Japanese dishes served with a touch of magic. In third place, Édith Foliot and Didier Lortie’s Maison de Soma, nestled in the heart of 240 hectares of land in the Laurentian mountains, is redefining the farmhouse dining experience. This winning experience seems to have changed a little, as La Presse food critic Ève Dumas recently noted in this article (in french) after a visit.

“At Air Canada, we are thrilled to share the very best of our country with the world and for more than two decades, this program has shone a spotlight on Canada’s vibrant, world-class culinary scene,” said Andy Shibata, Vice President, Brand at Air Canada. “Food is an enriching part of travel experiences and through this program which supports new businesses, we hope to inspire travellers with even more compelling reasons to explore our country.”

Soon to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants programme evaluates newly opened restaurants across the country between late spring 2023 and 31 May 2024. Based on the reviews of a single anonymous reviewer, the Top 10 Restaurants list takes into account all aspects of the dining experience, from culinary vision and ingredient quality to service and overall team spirit.

This year’s 10 Best Restaurants were selected by award-winning cookbook author, Wall of Bakers judge and food journalist Tara O’Brady. The critic conducted a food tour of more than 30 restaurants in 16 cities across the country, including a cliffside B&B in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland and Labrador, and a bustling kitchen in Victoria’s Public Market.

“Every restaurant I visited told an eloquent story about its community, championing local ingredients and diverse culinary traditions,” said Ms. O’Brady. “Notably, this year is the ‘year of the couple,’ with five of the Top 10 (and each of the top three spots) run by restaurateurs who are partners in both life and business.”

The Special Mentions

• Dish of the Year: Sabayon’s signature dish is a grilled oyster mushrooms on potato purée, topped with a caramelized arlette wafer and capped with a cloud of sabayon sauce..
• Dessert of the year: Mhel pudding, a Japanese version of crème caramel made velvety smooth and sweet with Ontario cream and maple syrup.
• Cocktail of the Year: Somananas from Maison de Soma is a taste of the tropics rooted in the Laurentians, thanks to pineapple grass blended with Rosemont whisky, amaretto from Distillerie Mariana and Bourgoin verjuice.
• Design of the Year: At Bar Prima, Toronto-based designers Futurestudio offers a nostalgic throwback to the Italian luxury of yesteryear.
• Side dish of the year: Takja BBQ House’s banchan, small dishes with intense, fermented flavours, all designed to mix with fresh grilled meats.
• Concept of the year: Fat Rabbit in St. Catharines is no ordinary restaurant. It’s a steakhouse, butcher shop, open-fire caterer, delicatessen and liquor shop all rolled into one.

Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants 2024 Top 10:

1. Sabayon (Montréal, QC): Intentionality is the thread through each aspect of this brilliant 14-seat Montreal restaurant, which offers tea and dinner services by renowned pastry chef Patrice Demers and sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin. It’s all in the details here, from cobalt blue cutlery rests handmade by the couple, to Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants’ Dish of the Year, grilled oyster mushrooms capped with a caramelized arlette and a cloud of sabayon sauce.
2. Mhel (Toronto, ON): The Toronto restaurant features an open kitchen where chefs with six burners and two charcoal grills add up to Korean-Japanese alchemy. Mhel also offers Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants’ Dessert of the Year: purin, a sweet and simple Japanese rendition of crème caramel.
3. Maison de Soma (Mont-Tremblant, QC) : A farm-to-table restaurant at its finest, on a 600-acre property in the Laurentians, where nearly every ingredient is cultivated. Whether serving a crunchy and custardy take on okonomiyaki, a Japanese cabbage pancake, or a tropical tasting Somananas sour (Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants’ Cocktail of the Year), Maison de Soma upends expectations.
4. Takja BBQ House (Toronto, ON): This high-end Toronto Korean barbecue (KBBQ) spot showcases grilled house-dry-aged meats, seafood and seasonal veg and Air Canada Best New Restaurants’ Sides of the Year: shareable banchan small plates, including kimchi two ways, mustard greens, spicy jalapeño muchim and a scallion salad.
5. Café Malabar (Victoria, BC): Press the button for service at a kitchen stall in Victoria Public Market and moments later a parade of coastal Keralan dishes arrives at communal tables, from clay pots of fish chatty choru to flaky egg puffs and lacy rice hoppers.
6. Parapluie (Montréal, QC) : At this saucy, white table-clothed bistro in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood, platonic ideals of boulangerie bread and frites accompany eight-minute-20-second eggs in cloudlike tarragon emulsions and barely-torched trout in delicate pools of horseradish dill cream so you can soak up every last drop.
7. Bar Prima (Toronto, ON): A heady mix of determination and bygone glamour are what make Toronto’s Bar Prima a primo spot and judge Tara O’Brady’s pick for the Air Canada Best New Restaurants’ Design of the Year, where classics like beef tartare come spruced up on a bed of chives, laced with fermented chili and punctuated with sardine and bone marrow cream.
8. Fat Rabbit (St. Catharines, ON): Led by chef and co-owner Zach Smith, Fat Rabbit is not your average restaurant. As a full-time grill house, zero-waste butcher, live-fire caterer, and grocer, this multi-hyphenate earned Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants’ Concept of the Year.
9. Gary’s (Vancouver, BC): The first restaurant from industry veterans Bailey Hayward and Mathew Bishop brings supper club vibes to Vancouver’s South Granville neighbourhood, where locals and visitors alike can spring for dishes like crudo, gem salad, hen-of-the-woods, and rabbit.
10. Crumb Queen/Andy’s Lunch (Winnipeg, MB): At this one-two punch of an eatery in Winnipeg, the day begins with Cloe Wiebe’s naturally leavened boules and blink-and-you-miss-them viennoiseries. An hour before noon, Andrew Koropatnick clocks in with sandwiches on split housemade pizza bianca, shareable pastas, salads and supplì.

The 2024 edition of Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants is generously supported by Diageo Canada, as returning gold level sponsor.

The full list can be viewed in Air Canada enRoute magazine’s November 2024 issue and online at CanadasBestNewRestaurants.com.

Source : Air Canada