The sun is low over the trees as we pull into the parking lot and find a spot looking out over Sandy Cove and the Labrador Sea. We join others who have just arrived, popping down tailgates for a pre-festival chat, walking over the rocks to the sandy beach below, chatting about where we’ve come from, and the weather. Music slips down through the trees to the beach, mingling with conversation and the quiet washing of waves over sand, and, like a magnet, pulls us back to the festival gates where volunteers check our bracelets and we make our way through the trees.

To the winner goes the cod

Despite the late September chill, the evening is aglow. From the festival gates, the trail leads to a large clearing flanked on one side by a long tent and an open building on the other. Musicians set up on the stage while volunteers take trays of ingredients to chef stations where preparation for the evening ahead is well underway. We find a table under the tent where we can take it all in and Dave heads over to chef Steve Quinton's station where he is shucking Merasheen and Salty Rock oysters. The evening is off to the most delicious start.

Tonight is about legends. Six chefs and their teams have come to battle for the honour of being crowned the king or queen of cod. This is Cod Wars, a signature event of Roots, Rants and Roars — an annual celebration of Newfoundland and Labrador’s food, culture, land, and sea that takes place in Elliston on the northeast edge of the Bonavista Peninsula.

Tonight, six chefs and their teams will create a cod dish to outdo others.

At the first station, dozens of bowls await as Chinched Meats chef Shawn Hussey and his crew create a supremely warming dish of cold smoked and poached cod with a rich ‘Nduja broth. They serve it with their take on an Italian bread pudding. The work they’ve put into this dish highlights the effort that participating teams and the many volunteers have put into this evening and the entire festival.

Across the festival grounds, chef Mark McCrowe, renowned local chef and online personality, is plating an elegant lemon pepper cod with a baked potato bacon purée. He serves it with a lamb quarters salad and bakeapple scruncheon vinaigrette, bringing together the land and sea so perfectly. In line, I meet a group of women who first met chef Mark when he catered an event they attended. The anticipation as we wait is palpable.

We move like a school of fish to the next station where St. John’s chef and restaurateur Chris Chafe, crowned King of Cod in 2023, and his team are enthusiastically going full-on classic with a crispy salt and vinegar seasoned tempura cod served with smoked potatoes that hit on our fish and chip dreams with an extra wow. 

We devour while standing, watching as people line up at stations where each team deftly plate and serve, all the while answering questions and taking the odd moment to chat with an old, or new, acquaintance. 

Cod Wars brings together a community of chefs from across the province to explore a quintessentially local ingredient in new ways. Chef Crystal Anstey, of Wild Island Kitchen in Twillingate, serves her dish with a bit of history. Her station is adorned with a salt cod and the gear (and a sign that reads “Make fish not war”). “I’m inspired by my childhood growing up and eating salt cod on Christmas eve,” she tells us, “I’ve always admired the work involved in getting this fish to the table. And salt cod is very sustainable.” Her delightfully bright Insalata di baccala, an Italian salt cod salad, highlights how salt fish is a story shared around the world. 

We take a break to dance, talk some more under the tent and consider how to pick a winner from the stellar offerings. Musicians tonight include Clarenville's Evan Weeks as well as Rube & Rake and Andrew Rodgers.

At their lively station, chefs Margaret Abbott and Amber Fitzgerald join forces to create a lemongrass, ginger, and garlic cod dog of my dreams. They offer up several homemade condiments including a tangy sea arugula and papaya relish and crunchy cod skin bacon bits. This dish surprises deliciously while also recalling nourishing childhood favourites. “The cod dog isn’t necessarily a tradition,” Margaret explains, “but I’ve been in outport communities where I’ve had cod bologna.” 

Our next stop is chef Todd Perrin’s station. Todd and Steven Lee organized the festival for years with the Town of Elliston to celebrate the bounty of this region and the province. The festival also contributes to the local economy at a time when tourism quiets. Today, Todd arrived from St. John’s where he and team prepped at his Rabble restaurant kitchen. They cured cod cheeks with dried shrimp and capelin for their dish of corned cod cheeks with wilted turnip greens served with poached baby potatoes in a butter confit. The result is like a reassuring hug. “Just like Nan used to make,” Todd says.

Behind the scenes, throughout the evening, Roger Dewling makes his rounds to ensure everyone has what they need. Roger is one of the festival organizers. In 2014, he and friend and fellow chef Chris Sheppard entered Cod Wars and won Kings of Cod. They were forever hooked and got involved as volunteers, taking over as organizers in 2019. 

As instructors in the culinary program at the College of the North Atlantic (CNA) in Bonavista, Roger and Chris helped create the culinary lab at the college to generate a local cook program. Roger explains that having the festival here at the end of September often gave students an inside look at a culinary event along with connecting with chefs from across the province and Canada. “Our kitchen manager for Roots, Shelley Humby, is a former student and Red Seal chef,” Roger tells us. The culinary program at the college in Bonavista is on a pause now, Roger explains. It’s clear though that such programs are vital for sustaining local communities, providing an opportunity for people to train and work locally. 

The college is a vital resource for the region. This morning, and yesterday morning, Roger was at the college kitchen at 5:00 am with a team of volunteers prepping food for the festival. The effort is evident everywhere.

To top off the evening chef Aaron McInnis of Stephenville's Happy Belly Bakery, and his team serve up Cherry Almond S’mores, and now a campfire will never be the same.

We hand in our ballots and dance some more, and then — to roaring applause — Chef McCrowe is crowned, or rather trophied, with a stunning cod sculpture by metal artist Ian Gillies. 

Bellies and hearts full, we chat with new friends about a full day that started with a morning forage and ended with a new fish monarch. 

Earlier we foraged 

Earlier in the day we had gathered at the festival gate where revered island forager Shawn Dawson introduced himself to dozens of us dressed for the weather. The morning had brought some rain up the coast but that would not deter any of us. We knew the weather could change to pleasant just as quickly.

Shawn led us to the shore stopping along the way to pick a small, inconspicuous plant with fine feathery leaves and a small yellowish disc floret in its centre. “Pineapple weed” he explained, encouraging us to take in its faint pineapple scent. We crouched down to pick some and pass the plant around. 

He led us along the rocks above the beach, to explore all sort of plants, berries and funghi. Some picked, or tried, crowberries and partridgeberries for the first time. New foragers marveled at finding an odd mushroom might be a relative of the famed porcini. All felt a closeness with the land. 

The Forage is a new event for the festival and this first forage is a huge success. People have come from all over Atlantic Canada and some from even farther. We met a couple from New Jersey, Steve and Colleen, who have been travelling across the island with their Airstream and finding opportunities like this one to get up close with the flora and fauna of this place. We met a pair of friends from Germany—one of whom comes every Fall to forage with Shawn. This year she is volunteering at the festival.

Throughout the forage, Shawn revealed hidden treasures of the coastal plant world and then led us all back to the festival grounds to meet his partner in foraging cookery — Chef Nick van Mele of Ground’s Café in Portugal Cove. Together they prepared a lunch that began with chaga chai latte — cozy like hot chocolate with a rich woodsyness. Chaga is a black funghi that thrives here in Newfoundland, particularly on birch. The latte was the perfect drink as we watched the rain fall outside. 

Nick and Shawn brought a range of pickles including pickled fiddle heads, chanterelles, knotweed and dandelion capers. They introduced each item to our large and super keen group, answering questions and offering samples. They served these with charcuterie alongside fireweed jelly, and pickled quail eggs, and a gorgeous forager’s salad of beach greens and wild berries. To finish — a pineapple weed upside down cake of course.

The first forage of the festival was such a success Roger tell us they’ve added a second for the 2026 festival.

The Hike

The second day of the festival takes us up close with the geography of this place, known for its historic root cellars, grassy cliff edges that drop down to the beach, towering chimneys in the sea and puffins (who have left for til next year). The Hike takes us down Maberly Road, zig zagging down grassy trails along the cliff’s edges. It is a longstanding tradition of the festival that started out as an on-your-own kind of hike where participating restaurants across offered picnic lunches. 

The Hike is now very much here, bringing chefs from across Canada to create picnic offerings inspired by this place. “It is an event within an event,” Roger says. Chefs and teams of volunteers have set up stations along the hike’s route, down trails, by worn fish flakes and to century old cellars dug into the land. Musicians at every station, including Jesse Smith, Jason Ryan and Tyler Humby, help make each stop a destination. 

The sky is blue and sunshine, the breeze brisk and spirits high. A few hundred people make their way in staggered starts, some choosing to hike all the way to the end and picnic their way back while others start at the beginning heading first to the beach. 

Near the beach, Calgary chefs and restaurateurs Sterling Cummings and Makenzie Pavka create a dish of “Wild watercress and handmade udon noodles,” they explain, “tempura casu with Scallion oil, toga rashi, capelin and mushroom infused dashi to go over top, served with a crab and brown butter ponzu hand roll.” Together such delicately layered flavours create an offering that seems of the ocean itself. 

At the Puffin Site, where birders flock during puffin season, a line snakes around the rocks where chefs Duff Goldman and Geof Manthorne of Charm City Cakes and the Food Network are making what they call a spicy Newfoundland chicken sandwich. A group of friends who have travelled from all over to meet here stand in a circle savouring every bite. “It’s the most amazing fried chicken and apple slaw with corn shoots,” Georgia from Vancouver Island says. “It’s sooo good.” She is with friends from Amsterdam, Toronto, Hamilton, and Newfoundland and they are all staying in Bonavista. The Roots team organizes a shuttle so that people who are not staying at the campground can easily get to events.

Along the trail, Saskatchewan chefs and restaurateurs Dale Mackay and Christopher Cho offer an oh so creamy polenta with local foraged mushrooms and black garlic chili oil. The dish is particularly exquisite in the way it highlights the subtle shellfishyness of the lobster mushroom — picked by Shawn Dawson himself.

At the lookoff, chefs Kristen Livingston and Jordan Anderson of Calgary’s River Café prepare seaweed braised lamb neck chili with cornbread and bakeapple butter. The dish is both sophisticated and homey. “We were in Nashville and the cornbread wasn’t as good as it was here,” Chris from Heart’s Delight tells us with a smile. He and his wife are camping at the campground through the festival. “This dish was so good and the bakeapple butter and the view and the people! The whole thing is incredible.”

Dildo Brewery, one of the event sponsors, is here offering up craft beer sampling by Dildo Brewery. People linger for a beer along the old worn fences that once corralled kitchen gardens, cows or sheep long ago.

At the furthest chef station, chef and local legend Roary MacPherson is joined by chef John Higgins next to an old fish flake, above the roaring ocean. John includes Buckingham Palace on his resumé and travels from England for the event. He says this is his favourite place on the planet. They are grilling NL Dogs. “It’s a German styled bratwurst,” Roary explains, “I partner with Anderson’s in St. John’s and we’re serving it with hand cut fries with sea salt and a homemade mustard pickle.” All Newfoundland and all deeply satisfying.

We might never have to eat again.

The Feast

The festival’s closing celebration is a multi-course meal with music, dancing and a whole lot of camaraderie. As we arrive, a storm cloud brings rain. We’ve donned hats and jackets, embrace Newfoundland Distillery cocktails and Nick van Mele’s stellar red curry root vegetable soup. Warmth sets in all over and just as quickly as the rain arrived, it’s gone, leaving a double rainbow that arcs its way over the festival tent.

We find a table under the long tent with wild food enthusiast and fabulous writer/photographer Marsha Tulk, her husband Don and new friends Colleen and Steve from New Jersey. Behind us, other new friends from the west coast and two tables over more from Heart’s Delight. “Festival goers are 30% non-islanders,” Roger says, “and that is growing.” The distance people travel to be here speaks to the level of this event — not just on the culinary front but the setting and community. Steve and Colleen say they can't wait to come back next year.

Music fills the space as volunteers begin tonight’s service setting wine at tables and heading to the kitchen tents for trays of food. Tonight’s musicians include The Ennis Sisters, Breakwater and Sherman Downey.

Beyond the stage, chefs and volunteers are preparing tonight’s courses. Amber Fitzgerald is the front-of-house head of service and she whizzes by walkie-talkie in hand.  

Steve Quinton is in the barbecue pit with a hog, local honey and pineapple weed for basting. Terre’s Matthew Swift brings potato bread and a corn and wild mushroom appetizer. Nathan Hornridge of Pollen Nation Farm creates a stunning salad of foraged and farm greens, with mascarpone, crowberries and candied moose bacon. During the lead up to the festival Roger and a small staff help chefs source food locally for their dishes. “Food cost is reasonable for this size of an event,” he explains, “because we source so much locally from local farms, foragers, producers, and have the privilege of so many amazing people.”

Portage’s Celeste Mah and Ross Larkin make deep fried fish cakes with a French gribiche that is everything I want in a fish cake. And Nick and Katie Walters, from Merchant Tavern make a lamb cevapcici with tzatziki that is wholly satisfying, and delicious. 

Servers bring dishes, setting a plate of the Walters’ lamb dish on the table for our group to share. Servers are volunteers and many of them return every year. “We have Justin on grounds,” Roger says, “Jacob, Steph, and Devon’s grandmother shows up every year. We have six dishwashers at the college who join every year, all local, and we are so thankful for them, for everyone.”

The festival is a huge undertaking with a lot of moving parts that seem to move so seamlessly. Throughout the evening, and the entire event, chefs and sous-chefs, providers and volunteers are seen “giving hands” as Roger says. An expression common in kitchens that refers to the act of stepping in to finish plating and also serves as a metaphor for support in the pinch, and for generosity. “We’re a team and we’re all friends,” Roger adds. “We have a trust, a bond, where we just agree ‘We’re going to do this’. By Monday morning you can’t tell anything happened here.”

The Feast finishes with Hilarie Vatcher’s dark chocolate chanterelle crème brulée topped with a candied rose hip that blows my mind. Now we never have to eat again. We are full in the most wonderful of ways, well-nourished for the next leg of our journeys, and spirits high. 🌊