THE FLAVOUR
The maverick chef Adventures out West and a long culinary journey equip Jamie MacAulay to celebrate Nova Scotia’s culinary heritage
BY COLLEEN THOMPSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRUCE MURRAY/VISIONFIRE
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igns of the Nuevo Scotia are impossible to miss at Drift. The restaurant, part of the Muir Hotel in downtown Halifax, boasts a menu reinventing classic Nova Scotian fare. Chef de cuisine Jamie MacAulay brings elegance and refinement to staples like hodge podge and rappie pie. But tucked into the corner of Drift restaurant on a Monday afternoon, MacAulay and I are talking about the cuisine of the American South. Chefs have transformed once-maligned dishes, like okra soup and shrimp and grits, with vision and a strong sense of place. The Drift menu reminds me of a recent trip to Dixie. It’s a menu upending the status quo but remaining true to its heritage. If you want the world to know you exist in the culinary world, you have to look at where you come from and what you have. Then, you have to strip it back, refine it, and present it in a contemporary way. Unapologetically. “We have everything we need right here,” says MacAulay. “The dishes, culinary traditions, ingredients, terroir. The saltwater bounty. We need to stand proudly and shout about it.” It’s hard to imagine the soft-spoken, calm MacAulay raising his voice, but his food is making plenty of noise. Drift is feeding a story, and there are elements of this beautiful, wild place peppered throughout. From the rugged coastline sculpture hanging over the chic bar, the curved shiplap ceiling giving the appearance of a ship’s hull, raw elements of fluted
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granite, wood, and leather juxtapose the muted tones of the seascape palette. When developing the menu alongside Anthony Walsh (corporate executive chef of Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality), MacAulay turned to recipes inherently familiar from childhood. “Like many Nova Scotians, I grew up eating boiled dinners — still the ultimate comfort food for me,” MacAulay says. “Mom is from Cape Breton, Dad is from Shelbourne, and they met in Dartmouth, so it’s this kind of weird collision and melding of recipes from coast to coast.” He’s spent hours discussing regional food with his parents. “It’s been this incredible experience delving into food memories,” he adds. “When I said I was putting hodge podge on the menu, they looked at me appalled and said, ‘You’re not going to make it with Carnation milk, are you?’” Hodge podge did make it onto the menu, made with cream, haddock, scallops, mussels, wax beans, leeks, and potatoes with a light aromatic celeriac broth. Rappie pie received the nod, too, with its slow-simmered chicken served alongside chow-chow and root slaw. There’s also tuna sashimi with pops of bright orange sea buckthorn and a mushroom tart with dulse yogurt. And seared
