Pre-pandemic, Incoho carved a niche with nearby office crowds, serving them their breakfasts and lunches. At night, diners from all over Niagara would show up for communal, single-seating dinners. Months into the pandemic, Schmoll and Syegco had adapted fully to slower, quieter takeout and patio service while keeping busy with other projects as they adapted to the new reality.

They bought excess food that farmers had grown to sell to restaurants forced to scale back inventory amid pared-down service. Schmoll and Syegco wanted to keep the pipeline open for local suppliers, so instead of putting those harvests on the menu, they turned them into meals for charities and first responders trying to stay afloat themselves in the new reality.

“We can either be negative or adapt. We chose to adapt,” Schmoll said. “We’re still around. It’s just trying our best to make it work.”

That’s meant putting on bake sales and offering all the carbs one could crave during hard times. There are fewer hours devoted to serving breakfast and lunch menus that change regularly, but the patio with new heaters and a covering is open for anyone who gets to Incoho for their morning or midday meals of breakfast sammies with egg, tomato, cheese, choice of bacon and seasonal greens or market bowls starring fresh vegetables and grains.

There are many beginnings to go back to in McLeod’s storied career as a chef. The real beginning was sitting in the exalted dining room of Canoe when McLeod was a teenager. He was wowed by the towering Bragard hats and flawless choreography of the kitchen brigade. Soon after, he took a job washing dishes at an Italian restaurant in his native Whitby, working up the ranks to short order cook. Next came graduating from George Brown College’s culinary program, then working in storied kitchens throughout Toronto. By the mid-aughts, McLeod turned his attention to Niagara.

McLeod took full advantage of what the wine region and buckle of Ontario’s fruit belt had to offer, spending six years in the kitchen at Andrew Peller and connecting with winemakers and other chefs in the area. After a few years helming high-end kitchens in Stoney Creek and Burlington, including at Spencer’s on the Waterfront, McLeod found himself back in Niagara with dreams of a place of his own.

Bolete was it and it was a culmination of everything he’d done to that point: show-stopping food paired with the best Niagara vintages, but without the conventionality of the dining room that originally drew him to the profession.

People could sit at the bar at Bolete and watch McLeod and his team work. Or they could luck out and have him serve their entrée to them at a table. Soon after opening, Bolete ranked among the go-to dining rooms in the downtown. But then the pandemic hit and it was another beginning for McLeod, who was forced to lay-off his staff and translate fine dining to takeout.

Doing that, though, means not taking shortcuts in the kitchen. So in the case of Patio Andaluz’s signature paella, which serves two, that means nothing hits the pan until an order comes in for any one of the three types they offer. It can take up to 45 minutes to make the Paella Valencia with chicken, the seafood-filled Paella de Mariscos, or the vegetarian version, Paella de Verduras, which Lopez admits is an exercise in patience for some diners. But the wait is worth it when the result is nothing short of what’s served on the other side of the Atlantic.

“We don’t want to change it. From a business perspective, we should, but we wanted to do it the way we do it for us at home or for our friends,” she said. “It’s been a challenge but we take much pride in what we do in terms of the cooking we do. We call it comfort food because it’s authentic.”

That MO of keeping things real in the kitchen extends to Lopez’s beloved tacos, too. The Tacos Baja, for example, are a nod to the Cal-Mex fish taco from the Baja Peninsula. The tacos al pastor honour the marinated pork tacos known throughout Mexico but with different regional variations, such as cooking the meat with pineapple as they do in Guadalajara. There are also the beefy tacos de asada, tacos charros filled with chicken, and tacos veganos filled with plant-based chorizo and refried beans so no plant-based eater misses out.

All the salsas topping those tacos are made daily in small batches, ensuring the freshness synonymous with true Mexican cooking.

The Patio Andaluz menu is rounded out with tapas served on larger plates specifically for sharing, including classic Papas Bravas, those cubed potatoes blanketed with salsa brava, and Tia Susi’s white clams with white wine sauce, a menu contribution from Bueno’s Aunt Susi in Spain.

Combined, Patio Andaluz’s dishes are calling cards for locals but also for diners, including Spanish and Mexican families from Hamilton and Toronto seeking flavours that aren’t easy to find beyond Spain and Mexico’s borders.

“This tells us we’re on the right track,” Lopez said. “They say ‘Now we know where to get paella. Having people from our home countries say this is where we can get food make us so proud and happy. It’s a pleasure when someone comes to the restaurant and they try (the food). It’s wonderful to see their faces change and they leave happy.”

Think of shared plates — all you can eat meat and vegetables — that diners cook themselves at the table while catching up and connecting with each other over every bite. All of it is served with banchan, those small Korean side dishes that include the essential of any Korean meal, kimchi. While typically made of napa cabbage seasoned with chili pepper, kimchi comes in many forms and Bang highlights its versatility with a handful of varieties, including spicy and non-spicy versions made with daikon radish, at Korean BBQ Town.

Korean table barbecue is the ideal cold weather dining as the chill in the air becomes harder to ignore at this time of year. It’s also one of the most social dining experiences in the city, and after months of people hunkering down to flatten the COVID-19 curve, diners have been seeking Bang’s Korean barbecue for the taste of normalcy it offers them and their social bubbles.

“They’re craving table barbecue and gathering,” Bang said.

“They’re eating, they’re cooking, they’re talking because it’s been a long time since they’ve been together.”

Bang, a graduate of Niagara College’s hospitality management program, came to Canada as a young adult in 2005, settling first in Windsor with his sister. The hope was to eventually open a restaurant, so he searched for culinary programs throughout Ontario to prepare for that dream.

Even as the weather turns colder and gives kitchens different ingredients with which to work, the approach to food at The Twisted Pig remains the same. The fall spin on that classic Caprese stars beets, burrata, crushed pistachio and basil, for example. There are other comforts, too. They tend to come in carb form, including the fan favourite gnocchi gorgonzola, featuring hand-made potato gnocchi, gorgonzola cream sauce and Rosewood Estates Winery wildflower honey.

That dish has been so popular since The Twisted Pig opened that it’s already cemented a permanent spot on the menu alongside a seasonal version Mike makes from scratch every day.

“It’s next level and not something you’re going to make at home, spending a couple hours making gnocchi,” he said. “We’re the opposite of a chain restaurant. Everything is made from scratch and with love.”

And of course there’s pizza, given the wood-fired oven that was already in the restaurant when they bought the building in early summer. There’s classic Margherita, more current Hawaiian for those who don’t have a problem with fruit on their ’za, and everything in between that shines on crust covered with San Marzano tomato sauce and fior di latte.

All of it can be accompanied by wine, “the backbone of Italian cuisine,” including some of Niagara’s best vintages. And all of it can be eaten in the restaurant or taken to go. Specializing in Italian wasn’t a stretch for the couple who met while working at Il Fornello in Oakville. Mike led the kitchen of the popular Italian eatery after working his way up the ranks from a 17-year-old dishwasher to head chef, with culinary school and stints working in Kelowna, B.C. in between.

Even better, dinner could be enjoyed with a milkshake, too.

The Ruffino’s Carhop also helped fill a void for Crawford, who enjoys interacting with diners — something that just doesn’t happen with the takeout-only model.

“It allows (guests) to see their friends and not over zoom. That’s why people have dinner together. It’s to be with other people. This lets you have dinner with friends again,” Crawford told the St. Catharines Standard after launching the concept.

To bring the the Carhop into the modern age, the sounds of DJ Marinko spinning the restaurant’s soundtrack of old-school Rockabilly can be streamed on car stereos while guests nosh on ’za and noodles.

But if it’s dining in house that people are truly missing, Crawford has made sure he has a seat at the table — not just the window tray — for everyone.