Haisai Restaurant and Bakery

Came here with friends who live close to this area. Hard to explain the positive energy and how wonderful the food here is. The entire place, from the ceiling to the floor to the food to the menu, is handmade, local and from its own farm. If you’re anywhere near this establishment, come. You won’t be sorry!

Wonderful place to visit, especially as part of a Toronto day trip. It’s not Eigensinn, but much cheaper and very friendly. I enjoyed the pizza especially and the mixed green salad. Mains were a little skimpy but delicious. The dim sum was ok. The ham and speck are wonderful and the desserts worth it.

We went to the restaurant after hearing about Michael Stadtlander’s Eigensinn Farm Restaurant and therefore had very high expectations — especially since we needed to sleep over to be able to experience the delights of Michael’s cooking.
There is only one sitting in this 30 seat restaurant — starting at 7pm — everyone arrives at the same time to a very warm welcome from the staff and the charming Nobuyo (Mrs Stadtlander).
Haisai is licensed — so no need to worry about what wine to bring to pair with the food. The wine is local Ontario wine — which always surprises me how good it can be. You can buy by the glass or half bottle but they don’t specifically pair the wine with the 10 course tasting menu. The wines that Nobuyo recommended were excellent.
The food was very good — especially for winter — we were expecting potatoes and pulses since they apparently use only local food — however there were a couple of seafood (no sea close to this part of Ontario) dishes and there was good variety.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was very nice — the people were very happy to be there and there was a happy buzz in the place. The decoration of the dining room was «interesting» — embedded in the walls (near us) were an old clutch plate and parts of meat grinding equipment, tree branches and animal horns — a bit like a cave decorated with whatever was lying around — albeit a comfortable cave.
Was it the best meal I ever ate? — no but all in all it was an experience I wouldn’t have missed.