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Foodways

Community Businesses

Fogo Island has a singular set of cultural foodways that are essential to our community identity and heritage. The foods we grow, hunt, forage, and fish make us who we are as Fogo Islanders and Newfoundlanders & Labradorians.

The food ecosystem of a community is where the environment, health, culture, and the economy converge. And we know firsthand that a healthy food system reinforces the values of a healthy economy. For this reason, Fogo Island’s foodways have always been integral to Shorefast’s work.

Over the years, our food programming ethos has been most visible through Fogo Island Inn’s kitchen. By activating the cultural heritage and natural assets of the place, we have helped create a new regional cuisine, brought forward contemporary ways of using local ingredients, broadened what can be grown on the island, and created new markets that support local growers and fishers. Our community Food Circle events, sustainable seaweed growing initiatives, and our involvement in the annual Partridgeberry Festival are additional examples of how Shorefast is working to showcase and activate local foodways. 

The Storehouse – a new restaurant

As part of Shorefast’s ongoing commitment to Fogo Island’s foodways, we are opening a restaurant in Joe Batt’s Arm that will offer simple, healthy dining options that celebrate local foods through a contemporary interpretation. Seafood, berries, and root vegetables in familiar preparation will take centre stage, including local favourites such as fish and chips

The restaurant will also be a community hub, offering a friendly gathering place for community members to come together for fun and social learning opportunities including cooking classes, recipe-sharing, gardening tips, and nutrition workshops.

The restaurant’s name references Storehouse Island, located out near Little Fogo Islands and our traditional fishing grounds. The Island is a well-known navigational marker that was often also used as a place where fishers would store their supplies while they fished, coming back to cook before heading out to fish again. More widely, a storehouse is understood as a place to store goods, or information and knowledge – an apt metaphor for a restaurant committed to deepening community knowledge. 

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