Experiences
Experience Stratford through a culinary lens where elevated Fine Dining, curated Farm Tours, exciting Events and our Long Table Dinner Series create unforgettable moments of connection, flavour and elegance.
Nick Benninger, Culinary Director
As a chef at a hotel, I believe it is my obligation to allow our guests the opportunity to eat their landscape, to embrace a genuine “taste of place”.
Our guests come to experience Stratford, Perth County, Ontario, and some of the best farmland Canada has to offer. Our terroir is the fields, orchards, forests, lakes and farms that surround us, and our kitchen strives to tell that story.
One of my culinary heroes, Edna Staebler, understood this instinctively. She cooked what was available, preserved what was abundant, wasted very little and celebrated the people who produced the food. Today, we call this sustainability, seasonality and local sourcing. Edna simply called it cooking. She was as cool as it gets, even if she’d never have said it.
That philosophy guides the food at The Bruce. We work closely with local farmers and producers, buy Ontario product whenever possible and let the seasons dictate our menus. We are proud to be a Feast On Certified Restaurant and to support the people who make our food culture possible.
We also believe in using what we procure. We preserve, ferment, pickle, cure and cook whole ingredients wherever possible. Trimmings become stocks and sauces, surplus fruit becomes preserves, and what is abundant today becomes part of tomorrow’s pantry.
That thinking extends beyond the kitchen, into our bar, pastry kitchen and guest rooms. Even the apples placed in your room come from nearby orchards, where they belong.
For me, sustainability is about responsibility: to the land, the people who work it, our guests and the food itself. If we can serve a meal that could only have been eaten here, then we have done our job. And Edna would be proud.
Our guests come to experience Stratford, Perth County, Ontario, and some of the best farmland Canada has to offer. Our terroir is the fields, orchards, forests, lakes and farms that surround us, and our kitchen strives to tell that story.
One of my culinary heroes, Edna Staebler, understood this instinctively. She cooked what was available, preserved what was abundant, wasted very little and celebrated the people who produced the food. Today, we call this sustainability, seasonality and local sourcing. Edna simply called it cooking. She was as cool as it gets, even if she’d never have said it.
That philosophy guides the food at The Bruce. We work closely with local farmers and producers, buy Ontario product whenever possible and let the seasons dictate our menus. We are proud to be a Feast On Certified Restaurant and to support the people who make our food culture possible.
We also believe in using what we procure. We preserve, ferment, pickle, cure and cook whole ingredients wherever possible. Trimmings become stocks and sauces, surplus fruit becomes preserves, and what is abundant today becomes part of tomorrow’s pantry.
That thinking extends beyond the kitchen, into our bar, pastry kitchen and guest rooms. Even the apples placed in your room come from nearby orchards, where they belong.
For me, sustainability is about responsibility: to the land, the people who work it, our guests and the food itself. If we can serve a meal that could only have been eaten here, then we have done our job. And Edna would be proud.
