Reta’s
Top Chef Canada Season 8 finalist Stephanie Ogilvie has found a new home in Halifax’s charming Hydrostone neighbourhood. The chef is loving the freedom of running her small fine-dining destination in the city’s north end.
BY LAURA OAKLEY
PHOTOS MICHELLE DOUCETTE
Ogilvie named Reta’s restaurant in honour of her grandmother. “Her place was always a welcoming kind of home for people to stop in and have a cup of tea, and a bite of lunch, and then kind of carry on,” says Ogilvie, remembering her grandmother’s unwavering hospitality. “There seemed to always be people coming in and sitting down and chatting and sharing a meal,” Ogilvie recalls spending time in the kitchen with her grandmother in Petitcodiac, New Brunswick, where she was born.“I would always be cooking with my grandmother, so it was a huge influence for me.”
The single-room dining space at Reta’s does give homey vibes. Eclectic framed artwork and mirrors of various shapes and sizes decorate the white walls, and there are potted plants and knick-knacks throughout, akin to someone’s living room. Two stained glass panels reinforce the large windows facing Gottingen Street, and plenty more greenery lines the windowsill. From the wooden beams above, vine plants dangle over the tables. Ogilvie designed the space herself, repurposing some of what was left behind by Jekyll & Hyde, like the church pews and wooden booths, but incorporating artwork she had been collecting, and significantly brightening the space with lighter paint.
Before opening Reta’s, Ogilvie held a couple of pop-up dinners as Hop Scotch Dinner Club, a business she and Brock Unger started in 2018, “to get a feel for how the kitchen works, what we needed, and what we need to change immediately.” Says Ogilvie. “We were fortunate that we had a bit of time to get a feel for it and figure things out.” She officially opened the doors as Reta’s last February. The restaurant, located on the ground level of the St. Joseph’s Square building, has roughly 40 seats, and there’s a small patio outside with another dozen. The menu mainly highlights seasonal produce. While there are a few customer favourites that have already emerged—and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon—the rest is shaped by what’s available and what’s currently exciting the culinary team. Shopping at the nearby Warehouse Market and hitting up the other farm markets in Halifax makes it easy to stay inspired.
I visit on a Friday night in July, and the restaurant is alive with chatter when I enter. Seated in a booth, I’m warmly greeted and quickly sipping on some cava. The menu has four sections: snacks, appetizers, mains, and desserts (with four options each, except three desserts). The offering is upscale and diverse, but prioritizes local veggies and foraged items. I know from chatting with Ogilvie that the rotating tartelette (in the snack section) has just changed over to summer pea with mint pistou and buttermilk, which I am excited to try. I also opt for crab rolls, and Ogilvie sends out the beef tartare, as well—a new addition to the menu just the week before.
Up first: Two adorable, crispy little tartelettes filled with plump summer peas coated in mint pistou (similar to pesto but made without nuts or cheese, and in this case, mint instead of basil). The classic pea and mint combination is lovely; the tartelettes come dotted with buttermilk emulsion and edible flowers. The New England-style crab rolls are similarly charming, due to their small size, and filled with snow crab salad. The crab is tossed in aioli seasoned with a spicy house-made Old Bay blend, with diced pickled celery lending crunch and tang to each bite. Fresh dill and parsley garnish the two wee rolls.
The beef tartare is intriguing, featuring the flavours of salsa macha—a Mexican condiment similar to chilli crisp, made from toasted chilli peppers, garlic, peanuts, and sesame seeds. It works incredibly well against the lush beef that’s infused with smoked bone marrow, along with scallions and torn green shiso leaves (an herb with a curry-like flavour). Topped with tangy pickled red onion and served with lettuce wraps, it’s a refreshing yet rich and nutty take on tartare—I love the texture of the crunchy peanuts with the tender beef.
“The lamb—people have had emotional experiences eating it, so I have this battle if I want to change it, but I also don't want to hurt anybody's feelings,” says Ogilvie of the long-standing appetizer. It’s visually stunning, topped with a bright herb salad containing a rainbow of edible flowers including marigolds, begonias, and nasturtiums. Prepared like a terrine, the lamb is incredibly tender and sits atop creamy labneh. On top of the lamb, a chunky pistachio gremolata creates the perfect texture balance.
It’s not often I eat swordfish, and Ogilvie sounds quite happy with it as a newly introduced main course. Surprisingly, it arrives with a potato rosti that comes separately to the rest of the dish in an individual cast-iron pan (more adorable food). It looks perfectly cooked, with tiny leaves of sage carefully placed on top. The inside proves to be buttery and soft, with the outer layer delicately crispy. The swordfish is meaty but tender, atop butter-sautéed French green and yellow beans with white anchovies and oregano. A quenelle of cayenne and caper-spiked café beurre de Paris sits on top of the fish, offering a nice salty punch with a bit of heat for the succulent fish. The duck breast is another alluring plate, topped with roasted carrots glazed in chamomile honey, toasted buckwheat, sliced duck breast, and colourful carrot greens. The sweet carrot elements emphasize the tender and sweet duck—it’s a lovely summer dish.
I order a glass of vintage port—it’s time for dessert. To my surprise, there is a feature not on the menu: raspberry pavlova. It is gorgeous to look at. The hollow dome of baked meringue is sprinkled with dehydrated raspberry powder and sits atop a nutty almond cake covered in custard and fresh raspberries. Once you break through the dome and get a bite, the meringue truly melts in your mouth. The rich custard nicely tempers the intense flavour of the raspberry. I also tried the burnt honey tart with milk foam, topped with a quenelle of honey Chantilly and tiny squares of black tea gelée. While this is a sophisticated dessert, playing with interesting textures and balancing the honey with bitter tea, the raspberry pavlova is the winner for me.
Ogilvie and her team are still settling in at Reta’s, but from what I could tell, the neighbourhood is grateful to have it (as a resident of the north end, I'm also thankful). A laid-back, cozy, welcoming atmosphere paired with the skill level of a fine-dining chef like Ogilvie seems an excellent match for the area. “Looking back, [the Hydrostone] is somewhere I always thought was out of the realm of possibilities, because it is such a small community,” says Ogilvie, who had been on the lookout for a while for a brick-and-mortar home for Reta’s. “I think that there were very few locations that would be fitting and would become available.” The space came up for grabs when Ogilvie was working at the famed Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, but she had friends back in Halifax who were keeping eyes out for her. “So it was serendipitous that this [location] became available,” says Ogilvie. Hopefully, for both Ogilvie and the community, Reta’s becomes a north end staple. You can visit Reta’s at 3061 Gottingen Street, Wednesday through Sunday, for dinner starting at 5 p.m. Reservations are recommended.
Reta’s
3061 Gottingen Street, Halifax
RESTAURANT $$$-$$$$ D (GF/V)
retasrestaurant.com
