In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a research company I founded had as a client the specialty television division of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc., a large Canadian media company. Every year for four years, we analysed and reported on media coverage of its three major properties, Life Network, Food Network and HGTV. Perennially, the most widely covered show on Food Network was a charming reality television series set in a gorgeous little hotel in Bay Fortune near the eastern end of Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest and most pastoral province. Because of our research, I came to know all about Michael Smith, the American-born star of The Inn Chef even though I never watched a single episode.

I had already become acquainted with Smith’s cooking; my first taste of it was in September, 1997, the year before filming began, during a visit to the Island when my parents treated me to a birthday dinner at the inn. I came back a few years later with my wife, Linda, and our two sons, and again enjoyed a multi-course dinner that featured creativity, local ingredients and fresh flavours.
Smith moved on from the inn, opening a restaurant called Maple Bistro in Halifax, where Linda and I enjoyed another amazing dinner, and to star in more than a handful of other culinary shows as well as appearing as both a challenger and a judge in various cook-off contests. He came back to the Island in 2015, buying the Inn and turning its restaurant into a showcase for his devotion for sustainable food production and local ingredients.

When Linda and I were on the Island in 2017, having dinner at the Inn was high on our agenda. Imagine our disappointment when we were told the dining room no longer served dinner every night; that there was only a single Saturday night event called Fireworks Feast and it was sold out for the only Saturday we would be on the Island during our week-long stay. Disappointment turned to anticipation when our waiting-list status snagged us a booking, and we both agreed that our dinner that night was one of our best in a year that also saw us experience extraordinary meals in some of South Africa’s best restaurants.



When we knew in January that we were returning to Prince Edward Island this year after a seven-year absence, we also knew we wanted to experience the Fireworks Feast again. A sharp price increase to $255 per person did cause us to pause for a while but we threw fiscal caution to the wind and went for it.

Smith’s Fireworks Feast is a four-hour immersive culinary experience that begins at 4pm with a tour of the Inn’s ever-expanding organic farm led by enthusiastic and personable resident farmer Kevin Petrie. Shadowed by his old farm dog for whom he regularly provides water and treats, Petrie takes guests around the farm detailing how the restaurant makes use of every possible part of every plant depending on the season and its stage of growth. His enthusiasm is infectious.

Perhaps our favourite part of the experience comes next. For a full hour, a series of outdoor stations serve up a variety of hors d’oeuvre anchored by an all-you-can-eat oyster bar, this year serving up three varieties, including our new PEI oyster favourite fished right in the bay in front of the inn that gives it its name.



Also served up were roasted Island mussels and oysters, house-smoked salmon, four varieties of miniature tacos and more. The bar is open and well stocked with local beers and spirits. I love a creative bloody caesar, non-alcoholic of course, and the one on offer was spectacular, including a spicy-hot pickled bean that I have now replicated at home using a Carolina reaper and habañero hybrid for the heat.

Before heading in for dinner itself, Chef Smith gathers his guests on the front lawn of the Inn and demonstrates the art of sabering the cork from a bottle of sparkling wine before inviting a guest to try their hand at it. Guests then raise their glasses of bubbly in a toast to the farmers, fishers, foragers and others who have provided the ingredients for dinner. (The Island’s famous Anne of Green Gables raspberry cordial is on hand for the teetotallers in the crowd.)

While dinner was certainly what we expected by way of creativity, artful presentation and delicious seasonal flavours, we both had the memory that our first experience of it seven years ago was just a wee bit better. Bread, chowder, salad and meat courses all delight. The salad course was especially artistic. Dietary restrictions, on which we were quizzed both when we booked and when we arrived (we have none), are creatively tracked by an amusingly analog lego display on a pillar between the open kitchen and the dining room.

The evening winds down with homemade marshmallows roasted on an open fire. Our short drive back to our north shore cottage at the mouth of St. Peter’s Bay was delightfully punctuated by the appearance of a couple of iconic Red Island foxes, the province’s official animal, that popped up on the roadside and posed for us for a few minutes.