The Port Tavern

Put the steak tartare and the crispy Korean shrimp on one table and you have The Port Tavern in two plates: a French classic with a hen's yolk and toasted ciabatta, and a sweet-and-savoury starter lifted with sesame aioli, coriander, and lime. Mark McEwan's restaurant at the foot of Thornbury Harbour wears a pub name over a menu far wider than the sign suggests, reaching from bistro standards to global small plates to deep tavern comfort. And it does all of it in two settings that trade places with the seasons: a patio that looks straight out at Georgian Bay in summer, and a stone-fireplace dining room that takes over when the water turns grey.

The French side of the menu is real, not decorative — baked snails, tenderloin au poivre, French onion soup, a tuna niçoise — and the tavern classics hold the centre: fish and chips, a shepherd's pie of lamb and beef under whipped Yukon Gold potato, and a dry-aged steak burger regulars order by name. Then the map widens. Duck bao, jerk chicken, lamb samosas, chicken tikka, salmon poke, and tostadas give the starters a global reach a harbour tavern has no obligation to attempt. A warm sourdough and a caesar built for two round out the sharing plates. Truffle fries with grana padano and a bone-in pork chop milanese fill in the middle, and the raw and seafood side runs deep for a place off the water: tuna crudo, sashimi bombs, crab cakes, and oysters that get a night of their own.

That spread could read as a kitchen trying to please everyone. It doesn't, because the cooking underneath it is consistent — composed enough for a starter course, never formal about how it's served. It's the McEwan signature: a clear point of view that never tips into white-tablecloth territory. The weekly calendar makes the same argument in a different key — half-price wine beside a twenty-dollar fish and chips on Tuesdays, a prime-rib dinner you can bring your own wine to on Wednesdays, martinis and half-price oysters on Thursdays. A winter prix-fixe lunch keeps the midday tables working after the patio closes for the season, and together they give a regular a reason to pick a weeknight rather than let one drift by.

The layout gives a table more than one way to spend an evening. Beyond the main dining room and the harbour patio, there's a lounge and the Stateroom, a private option that lets a birthday or a work dinner claim its own corner without leaving the building. The patio welcomes dogs, reservations and private-event bookings are both straightforward, and on the right night there's live music and a cocktail list worth arriving early for. It's useful flexibility in a town where a summer Saturday and a February Tuesday call for very different plans.

Mark McEwan's name is the throughline. Among the most recognized chefs in Canadian dining, he opened The Port Tavern in 2024, carrying that reputation to the water without dressing it up as fine dining. A working harbour, rather than another city dining room, is a deliberate choice of address: Thornbury fills with cottagers and boaters through the summer and quiets in the off-season, and a tavern that can turn out a patio lunch off the water and a fireside dinner is made for a place that lives in two speeds.

So the order shifts with the calendar: tartare and a martini on the patio when the bay is the whole point, shepherd's pie by the fire when it isn't. Either way the kitchen behind them is the same, which is what makes The Port Tavern a harbour pub worth booking for the cooking, not just the view.