We planned our restaurants in St. John’s as soon as we booked our tickets to Newfoundland and were lucky that Raymonds had moved to summer hours and was open on a Monday night.

Go hungry and don’t hold back, do all 7 courses if you can.  We jumped right in including  wine pairings when they easily adjusted to our pescatarian preference.  The famous lamb was tempting though, they have them raised on a small island off the coast and we’d seen them the day before and the setting was idyllic.

Each course was as delicious as you’d expect but there were a few stand outs.

David thought the scallops with fennel, including a fennel powder was the #1 dish and it was as impressive as it looks.  The fennel powder was a delightful surprise.  

My favourite dish was the pasta with snow crab.  The little blackish pasta rolls were made with onion ash and had the perfect bite you want in handmade pasta.  The snow crab was so sweet and the texture so perfect, it is etched in my memory forever and i can just about taste it as I write this.

One of the meat courses was replaced with squid and herbs.
The squid was I’ve ever had.

Crispy Skinned Cod

The crispy skin cod with onion puree, a mussel in an onion petal and crispy cod tongue was another winner.

I’m not sure what was the most exciting, each plate delivery or the wine pour and description that competed for our attention.  The sommelier realized how keen I was and for a couple of courses poured 2 wines to see which pairing we preferred.  And that leads me to the service.  It simply could not be better.  Everyone working there was fully engaged and keen so share everything they knew.  

Good to know, they have 3 seats at their beautiful bar that they don’t reserve and they serve a full menu there.  Also I would book in a table in the bar in future, it’s a smaller more intimate room.