Review – Five Fishermen

The Five Fishermen Restaurant in downtown Halifax

There was a nervous sense of anticipation in the air in downtown Halifax the night we ate at the Five Fishermen. I’m tempted to say the famous Five Fishermen, because anyone who has visited Nova Scotia’s boisterous port and capital city seems to ask, “did you eat there?”.

The anticipation, though, was not just about the promise of fine food. This was the eve of the predicted landfall of Hurricane, an interloper from the Caribbean that had raged up North America’s eastern seaboard for a week.

Yet right now the evening air was warm and still and shirtsleeved citizens were in street cafés, listening to music: the décor of the Five Fishermen was like a captain’s cabin and, as we were shown to our window table, overlooking a pretty square lined with maples, I reflected fleetingly on the band playing on in the ballroom of the Titanic, with disaster already unavoidable.

We declined the $40 all-in selection to venture à la carte. Dinner at the Five Fishermen begins with the complimentary salad and mussel bar, with a choice of sauces for the mussels and dressings for the salads. A lovely touch, but it did seem to render my starter of fresh oysters slightly superfluous. For my main course I chose the haddock, blackened, in Créole sauce, “N’awlins” style.

My partner began with an “exquisite” lobster salad, followed a medley of seafoods.

All were perfectly prepared and professionally presented by a waiter who was polite and helpful without being intrusive.

The wine list was solid and dependable, combining a few Canadian wines with a varied world selection. We chose a South African Viognier, always a good bet with fish.

I was able to shoehorn in a delicate desert of rhubarb and semolina bouchot, which proved delicious.

A peppermint tea was the perfect digestif, if the offer of cream to put in it was rather alarming.

The bill came to an acceptable $167.24 before tip, which we reckoned good value for one of the year’s most enjoyable meals on either side of the Atlantic. Having booked prior to leaving the UK through the excellent Opentable website, our positive feedback will no doubt already have added to the legend of the Five Fishermen.

The Five Fishermen, Argyll Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

www.fivefishermen.com

+1 902.422.4421

Footnote: Hurricane Bill duly arrived the following morning, striking Halifax a “glancing blow”. There were no reported deaths or injuries.