A Chef’s Guide to Eating Like a Local in Prince Edward County
Prince Edward County has spent the last decade building a reputation as one of Ontario’s great weekend escapes — a place where vineyards roll down toward Lake Ontario and farm-to-table tasting menus have become the norm rather than the exception. But ask someone who actually cooks in the county where they eat on a night off, and the answer looks a lot less polished than the marketing.
That’s the case with Justin Tse, executive chef and culinary director at Delphine, the flagship restaurant inside Picton’s newly restored Claramount Club. Tse’s own resumé reads like a world tour of fine dining: stints in Michelin-starred kitchens in Chicago and the UK, a finalist spot in the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition, and a decade spent cooking in Nunavut for high-end travelers well above the Arctic Circle. He’s also a third-generation chef — his family ran several Chinese restaurants, and he was folding wontons and peeling vegetables at his father’s side long before he set foot in culinary school.
None of that history shows up much in his personal list of PEC favourites. Tse moved to the county in 2023, first running the kitchen at Wander the Resort before stepping into his current role at Delphine. In his words, the move brought him closer to a food culture built on direct relationships with the people producing it — the honey, maple syrup, meat, fish and sourdough that show up on his own menu. But when he’s not working, his cravings run toward comfort: proper Portuguese breakfast, drive-in tacos, and a Mexican spot he was loyal to before he’d even decided to stay in the county for good.
Here’s where he goes, in an order that doubles as a solid one-day itinerary if you’re planning a trip.
Luso Bites — Picton
Tucked inside Picton’s historic Armoury building on Main Street, Luso Bites is run by owners Steve and Gabriela, who’ve built a menu of Portuguese classics rarely found in this part of Ontario. For Tse, it’s introduced him to a category of food he’d never really encountered before: Portuguese breakfast.
His go-to order is a plate built around chorizo, two eggs, a Portuguese riff on patatas bravas, and toasted sourdough with quince jam, fresh cheese and Azorean red pepper sauce. He pairs it with the salt cod fritters — potato, scallion and parsley fritters served with a molho cru dipping sauce, essentially a Portuguese cousin of chimichurri — and describes the combination as landing somewhere close to a Portuguese surf-and-turf. You can eat in or out on the patio, but Tse’s preferred move is to order it to go and eat it at a nearby park or beach.
The bifana pork cutlet sandwich and the pastel de nata custard tarts are also on his regular rotation.
206 Main St. W, Unit 1K, Picton — lusobites.com
Mustang Drive-In — Bloomfield
The Mustang has been a PEC landmark for years, but Tse credits its recent change in ownership — now run by two chefs, Ian and Arvy — with sharpening a menu that already had nostalgia built in. Alongside the drive-in classics, there’s now a lineup of Tex-Mex and Indian-inspired tacos, loaded nachos and smash burgers, plus soft-serve, popcorn, and a resident cat that hangs around the beer garden.
Tse’s order is a shared plate that covers the range of what’s on offer: pork al pastor with a tandoori twist, chicken tinga, barbacoa, and something called the Anaheim Delight — a taco stuffed with refried beans, Anaheim peppers and melted cheese curds. He’s particularly taken with the tandoori pork and pineapple pairing, and calls the braised beef notably tender. His advice: arrive early, catch dinner at sunset, and stay for the drive-in’s classic double feature.
1521 Prince Edward County Rd. 1, Bloomfield — themustangpec.ca
La Condesa — Wellington
This is the spot with the most history behind it. Tse arrived in PEC for what was supposed to be a three-month consulting contract; he ended up eating at La Condesa once a week for all twelve weeks of it, needled the whole time by chef-owner Sam about never being allowed to leave once his contract wrapped. Three years later, he’s still in the county.
His order rarely changes: crispy fish tacos made with hand-formed corn tortillas (a detail he says sets the kitchen apart from a typical taco spot), Mexican street corn in season, and a tuna tostada with marinated raw tuna, avocado and lime, finished with the restaurant’s house hot sauce for anyone who wants the heat. Because the tacos are made to order, he recommends ordering them one at a time rather than all at once.
270 Wellington Main St., Wellington — lacondesarestaurant.com
Bloomfield Public House — Bloomfield
For a proper sit-down dinner, Tse’s pick is Bloomfield Public House, run by Laura and Elliott inside a converted old bank building — complete with the original vault door still visible near the chalkboard menu. He singles out the service as much as the food, noting that Laura seems to know every regular by name, and that the kitchen’s strength lies in how well it balances flavour rather than any single showpiece dish.
His picks span the menu: a lamb tartare served over crispy potato croquettes; a hamachi crudo with pickled cauliflower, brown butter, dill and chili that he calls one of his best bites of the year so far; a whole grilled sea bream for two with courgette, radish, basil and harissa vinaigrette; and a chocolate mousse dessert with toasted marshmallow, peanut butter crunch and blueberries that he describes as an elevated take on a PB&J. His recommendation for a table: order everything, family-style, with people who show up hungry.
257 Bloomfield Main St., Bloomfield — bloomfieldpublichouse.ca
Taken together, Tse’s list is a useful corrective to the version of Prince Edward County built mostly around destination wineries and tasting menus. The four spots he keeps coming back to are unpretentious, produce-driven in their own way, and — in three of four cases — built around some version of a taco. If you’re planning a trip to the county, following a working chef’s actual rotation isn’t a bad way to spend a day.