Keltic Restaurant - INGONISH BEACH

The restaurant is located in an old hotel space with dated furniture that is falling apart. The front entrance carpet is wrinkled and bleached from age. However, the servers are efficient, clean-cut, and have pleasant personalities. The food is well-prepared and nicely presented. To improve, the restaurant should update the worn-out carpets, flooring, and furniture to encourage customers to return.

We are very impressed and looking forward to returning again soon. Slightly more formal white table cloths are back, as are white tops and black bottoms for the servers. Service is what I would call casual refined. The menu has sufficient options and variety to choose from. We enjoyed the starter for two that is a lovely seafood medley and broth including shrimp, muscles, and little clams. We had the Duck Confit, and oven roasted cod. The creamy risotto with the duck is perfect. The duck itself excellent and perfectly cooked. Presentations are clean modern with a touch of classical. The cod was fabulous. I enjoyed the house made gnocchi with the cod, although I did find them just slightly chewy. The chef has a new pastry team and they are killing it! Lovely fresh breads to start, and the desserts are fun, interesting, artistic, and super tasty of course. I loved the S’Mores. Smoked marshmallow that tastes like it was toasted over a campfire. Velvety chocolate ganache, creamy creameux, and graham cracker “sand”. Great components and a really fun and playful presentation. The other dessert we had was the raspberry rhubarb. Rhubarb poached in sweet Persecco sparkling wine and a persecco foam. Lovely raspberry purée and accompanying little mounds of cream, with a scoop of ice cream and some flaky pastry on top. The theme of the desserts seems to be deconstructed traditions, and they are well executed. I enjoyed a glass of house Pinot Grigio with the Cod, and a lovely Malbec with the Duck. Great selections when you just want a glass, or don’t have a large enough party for one of the other carafe or bottle selections the have.

For breakfast, a buffet was set up in one end of a large room, and after selecting our food we had to carry it to the other side of the room. The food in the large pans was not kept warm well, leading to dried out potatoes and overcooked fish cakes. The sausage and bacon were decent, but the vegan pancakes and chick peas with curry sauce were not appealing. The bakery items were the highlight of the meal. For dinner one night, I ordered the whole lobster and another night the thermidor, which was a mistake. The food was not satisfactory, and when I mentioned this to our server, there was no offer to replace it. The restaurant felt warm during our second dinner night, despite the lack of air conditioning in the lodge attached to it. The staff seemed new and hesitant to go above and beyond. While dining at the Arduaine, the other restaurant at Keltic Lodge, we had a more pleasant experience. Overall, this was the worst dining we had during our 11-day tour of Nova Scotia. Special mention goes to our server Lily, who was excellent on our first night. Unfortunately, she was not there on the night of my disappointing meal. A manager was present but did not check on our table. See photos with captions for further details.

Had dinner there with my wife. The place is a vast room but tables are far enough apart to have a private conversation. Background music was obviously Celtic. Our waiter was excellent, keeping an eye on us without being intrusive and paying attention to details. Our appetizer of charcuteries and cheese was well laid out with several choices. My wife had a plate of seafood pasta with scallops and shrimps with a sauce she said it was just good. I had the salmon with diverse vegetables. It was also good. We both had desserts and both the apple strudel and the chocolate bomb were excellent. Weather was clear so the view was impressive. Overall a very nice evening.

I just had the worst dinner of my life. Seafood club in the casual dining area. $26z a small hard stale croissant with a thin layer of mayo and a couple shrimp. The problem is there is literally no where else to eat.