This quirky new Collingwood restaurant has a Michelin connection

Lore is the Pine’s (slightly) more casual sister spot

By Caroline Aksich| Photography by Caroline Aksich

| July 14, 2026

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Here’s a closer look at the Digby scallop ceviche dressed with sea buckthorn, chive oil, pickled radish and alyssum flowers

Name: Lore Contact: 100 Pine St., Collingwood, 705-351-8673, lorecollingwood.ca, @lore_collingwood
Neighbourhood: Collingwood Owners: Jeremy and Cassie Austin Chefs: Executive chef Jeremy Austin and chef de cuisine Evaristo Cajili Accessibility: Not fully accessible

Two years ago, the Pine did something almost unheard of: it made enough noise that Michelin inspectors found their way to the tiny village of Creemore, nearly two hours north of Toronto. They left impressed. A star followed, and with it, a new kind of burden for chef Jeremy Austin. His intimate 24-seat restaurant, known for its contemporary Chinese cuisine filtered through a Canadian lens, became a place where every detail mattered—maybe too much.

The exterior of Lore Restaurant in Collingwood

With Lore, Austin wanted to create a place where he could let loose a little without lowering his standards—an escape not from ambitious cooking but from the weight that had come with the Pine’s success. “The Pine is based on pressure,” says Austin. “It’s not like I can leave one day and have it not be perfect. I can’t let it slip.”

He had long dreamed of opening another restaurant, but it would be difficult to avoid the Pine’s shadow. “Cassie and I really wanted another tasting-menu restaurant,” says Austin. “We just weren’t sure this was really a great strategic business move.” Could Simcoe County really support two special-occasion spots?

Initially, he went in the opposite direction: a seafood-focused neighbourhood spot with an à la carte format. But the diners who arrived in Lore’s first weeks had other ideas. They weren’t looking for casual sharing plates—they were looking for the kind of singular experience that had made the Pine a destination. “We were like, Okay, let’s just go full force into that idea,” Austin says.

Diners at Lore, a restaurant in Collingwood

So Lore dropped the seafood act and became what Austin had wanted to make it all along: a contemporary Canadian tasting concept. At the Pine, he had built a reputation for taking everyday Chinese dishes and reimagining them in a fine-dining context. With Lore, he wanted to turn that same curiosity inward.

“I’d spent years showing people that there was beauty and complexity in Chinese dishes they might not have seen before,” he says. “I started thinking, Why wasn’t I doing the same thing with my own culture?” The result: a menu of French onion soup, caesars (the salad and the drink), poutine, and diner-style hot chicken—familiar comfort classics given the tasting-menu treatment.

Lore, though, isn’t the Pine’s formula recast in Canadiana. Courses land on the table family-style, nostalgia takes centre stage and dinner here is punctuated by unabashed moments of whimsy, like a cheeky play on the holiday-party shrimp ring, served on a plate shaped like a pelican—simply because, well, pelicans eat shrimp.

A person adds tincture from droppers into a cocktail

The Food

The other big differentiator between the sister restaurants is the price point. A meal at the Pine starts at $245. Lore offers two menus: Provenance ($125 per person) and Abundance ($165 per person), which shares some DNA with the former but is more luxurious, with higher-end ingredients and more expansive coursing.

The menu at Lore Restaurant is pasted into an old cookbook

“Keeping the price as low as we can while still offering something really special was the main goal,” says Austin. “I want it to feel like it’s a neighbourhood restaurant, not this unattainable goal.”

Here’s a look at the Provenance menu, which is still being tinkered with—because even at Lore, Austin can loosen his grip only so much.

Each guest gets a Sun Seeker oyster from Fanny Bay, BC, topped dashi foam and with Big Mac-inspired sauce the kitchen’s dubbed “Mac-onette,” and a scallop ceviche on the half shell — The meal opens with a duo of bivalves. Each guest gets a Sun Seeker oyster from Fanny Bay, BC—topped with dashi foam and a Big Mac–inspired sauce dubbed “Mac-onette” (right)—and a Digby scallop ceviche on the half shell, dressed with sea buckthorn, chive oil, pickled radish and alyssum flowers (left)

Steak frites, but make it tartare: hand-chopped Martin Family Farms’ hanger steak seasoned with leeks, lovage and dried shrimp vinaigrette is piled onto an haute hashbrown — Steak frites, but make it tartare: hand-chopped Martin Family Farms hanger steak, seasoned with leeks, lovage and dried shrimp vinaigrette, is piled onto a haute hashbrown

These French onion cigarettes pair caramelized onion, parsnip and cheddar cream inside a brown butter-maple brick dough — The snacks portion of the menu manages to be both painstakingly precise and totally unserious: there’s no cutlery required, and sometimes the plates have fingers. These French onion cigarettes combine caramelized onion, parsnip and cheddar cream inside a brown butter–maple brick dough

A reimagined shrimp ring at Lore Restaurant, served on a pelican-shaped plate — The irreverence continues with the Holiday Shrimp Ring, a cocktail-party classic reimagined as a dainty (but still very fun) bite. The delicate pastry rosette holding the matane shrimp salad is made with dehydrated shrimp, so the morsel manages to squeeze a whole party platter’s worth of shrimpy nostalgia into a single bite. According to Austin, this dish could be improved only if it somehow arrived lightly frozen in the centre, just like every great holiday-party shrimp ring

The second scallop dish of the night, also made with Nova Scotia–sourced mollusks, comes in nugget form. The crispy, tempura-battered bite comes with a swipe of smoked plum jam, which is a wink at McDonald’s chicken nuggets, the gold standard of nugs in Austin’s eyes — The second scallop dish of the night, also made with Nova Scotia–sourced mollusks, comes in nugget form. The crispy tempura-battered bite comes with a swipe of smoked plum jam, which is a wink at McDonald’s chicken nuggets, the gold standard of nugs in Austin’s eyes

Deep-fried frog legs — The Provenance menu is mostly a set parade of dishes, but there are a few choices to make along the way, including between these honey-garlic frog legs (served with a black garlic–ranch dipping sauce) and the fanciest of chicken wings

Here are the Wings à la Royale, stuffed with lobster and anointed with fermented chili beurre blanc, chili oil and chimichurri aïoli. — Here are the Wings à la Royale, stuffed with lobster and anointed with fermented chili beurre blanc, chili oil and chimichurri aïoli

Albacore tuna swims in a punchy fermented tomato vinaigrette, with pickled celery ribbons, borage leaves and sunchoke chips — Finally, it’s time for the courses that require cutlery. The caesar, Canada’s beloved tomato-and-clam-based hangover helper, gets reimagined as an Albacore tuna tartare. The fish swims in a punchy fermented tomato vinaigrette, with pickled celery ribbons, borage leaves and sunchoke chips.

Meat from a heritage hen is rolled ballotine-style (combining white and dark meat), then roasted and topped with maitake and Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms, pickled Tropea onions and tarragon oil — According to Austin, diner-style hot chicken is a breakfast food (we’ll take his word for it). He gives the greasy-spoon morning meal a black-tie makeover: white and dark meat from a heritage hen is rolled ballotine-style, then roasted and topped with maitake and hen of the woods mushrooms, pickled Tropea onions and tarragon oil. The whole thing sits in a luscious pool of velvety jus (made from chicken bones and cow’s foot), with cured trout roe adding tiny bursts of umami-packed salinity to every bite

Charred broccoli tossed in an aged cheddar dressing, with trout bacon and black walnuts — The Ubiquitous Caesar Salad sounds like a promise of romaine and croutons. Instead of familiarity, Lore serves up a side of charred broccoli tossed in an aged cheddar dressing, with trout bacon and black walnuts

Dry aged B.C. Arctic char topped with butter béarnaise, beetroot vinaigrette, house-made beetroot "capers" and fresh borage. — Dry-aged BC Arctic char is topped with béarnaise, beetroot vinaigrette, house-made beetroot “capers” and fresh borage

A sugar-dusted profiterole, topped foie gras ice cream and sun-dried Niagara cherry marmalade — The riffs continue right into dessert, where the Beaver Tail goes bite-size and bougie. The Canadian classic is transformed into a sugar-dusted profiterole, topped with foie-gras ice cream and sun-dried Niagara cherry marmalade

This rich Jersey milk soft serve waits for no one, melting almost instantly thanks to what it doesn’t contain: stabilizers. The house-made swirl gets finished with a tableside pour of East Coast kombu caramel. — This rich Jersey milk soft serve waits for no one, melting almost instantly thanks to what it doesn’t contain: stabilizers. The house-made swirl is finished with a tableside pour of East Coast kombu caramel

The Drinks

The kitchen’s obsession with Canadiana spills over into the drink menu. None of the cocktails are made using imported citrus—house-made shrubs, herb oils and tinctures sub in for any necessary acid.

The Humble Carrot cocktail at Lore — In the Humble Carrot, fermented carrot juice meets brown butter–washed Signal Hill whisky, finished tableside with chili and lime-leaf oils. The resulting drink is rich, citrusy and bright, with a velvety mouthfeel. It’s dangerously drinkable and feels (almost) healthy. $21

The wine program champions Ontario’s new guard of winemakers (the Roost, Dobbin Estate, Black Bank Hill) without being bound by a CanCon commitment. The wine list also includes a few bottles from traditional European wine regions, like Beaujolais and Kamptal, but even those were chosen with Canada in mind and sourced from appellations with similar growing conditions to Niagara or the Okanagan.

There are also a number of alcohol-free cocktails on offer, including this effervescent Pink Lady, a welcome drink made from fermented rhubarb and jasmine

The Space

The 36-seat room feels like an elegant seaside Scandinavian cabin: white oak, creamy neutral tones, live edges and the odd repurposed wooden beam.

Inside Lore, a restaurant in Collingwood

Austin and his wife and fellow owner, Cassie, designed the space themselves. Austin sketched out the white-oak tables with his dad before having them built, and his dad also built much of the bar and shelving.

There are still hints of the seafood restaurant that almost was: cloud-like linen light fixtures meant to inspire a seascape, a giant clam shell perched in the dining room and an oyster logo (many of the servers wear a golden oyster pin) that Austin will wax poetic about if prompted.

Dried flowers as decoration in the dining room of Lore Restaurant

This quirky new Collingwood restaurant has a Michelin connection

Caroline Aksich

Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.

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