A lot has changed at restaurants since the pandemic

Before the pandemic, I went to restaurants much more often. A family night out at a casual pizza or sushi place was a cheerful option on evenings when I was too tired to cook. But now I think hard before booking a table: will the experience bankrupt me? And if yes, will the meal be worth it? Food critic Chris Nuttall-Smith writes about the soaring price of restaurant meals among other new developments in the world of dining in this essay for the June issue cover story. Several months ago, he set out on an epic, 50-restaurant, coast-to-coast eating jag for Maclean’s, gorging his way from Quidi Vidi, Newfoundland, to Ucluelet, B.C. His goal was to take the temperature of the country’s remade dining landscape. Here’s what he learned.

—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief

Nuttall-Smith and friends feast on Hong Kong–style lobster at Fishman Lobster Clubhouse, a Chinese party spot in Scarborough, Ontario.

The Canadian government has mandated that all new passenger vehicles sold in Canada be zero-emission vehicles by 2035. City dwellers, who have greater access to charging stations every day, are converting first. But even current EV owners suffer from so-called “range anxiety”—the fear that their EV will not have enough battery charge to reach the destination. Can cross-country trips really work in EVs? A Québécois photographer named Patrick Nadeau decided to find out, driving his EV 15,000 kilometres from Quebec to Puerto Vallarta last fall, with surprising success. “I just needed to plan my trip really well,” he tells Maclean’s.

When a B.C. construction worker discovered a marina of houseboats not far from where he was living, he decided to sell his four-bedroom country house in Nelson and build a floating home himself. He first crafted a 16-by-40-foot barge out of fibreglass and cedar. On top of that, he built a two-storey, three-bedroom, 700-square-foot wood-panelled home with an open-concept kitchen and a wraparound deck covered in flower beds. “I had a choice,” he tells Maclean’s, “remain chained to a mortgage, or take on this new challenge.”

Toronto-born Josef Adamu was a struggling model living in his mother’s basement when he started Sunday School, a creative agency that works with companies on visually striking projects, with a strong focus on stories and subjects from the African diaspora. In just a few years, the agency was heading campaigns for global brands like Nike and Sony. Now, Adamu’s first major hometown exhibit is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

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