The Solo Scale:

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Every year, I love reading the Canada’s 100 Best Restaurant list to see if anything has popped up near me. This last year, when I was searching for a birthday restaurant, Hexagon popped up as an option. This Oakville, Ontario restaurant is located right downtown in the main square. There’s plenty of parking available. However, you could end up at one of the further lots given that downtown Oakville is quite busy in the evenings these days.

When booking, you have two options. It’s either a tasting menu of nine courses or an a la carte option. One of the nice things is that many of the items on the a la carte as on the tasting in bigger portions. If you really liked something, you could return and have one of your favourites!

I’ve tried both the tasting menu and the à la carte and found both experiences fantastic. In truth, I actually preferred the à la carte because I got bigger portions of things I knew I’d love. That said, neither was a slouch. Read on to decide if the tasting menu is right for you!

The Tasting Menu Experience

To begin my experience, I ordered a sparkling wine. This was crisp and light and dry — a great way to start without overwhelming my palate.

Later in the meal, I had a drink called Pachinko. This is a strong lemon cocktail and had a lemon-jelly topper that made it quite unique. This was crisp, bright and very lemony, but had a ginger aftertaste.

Then, it was time for the food. You’ll get your choice of water — still, sparkling, or tap. No matter what you pick, it will come out in its own carafe that will remain at the table for you to refill. The waiters also do a fantastic job of quietly refilling it, to the point that I didn’t even realize that they had been taking it away to replace it when I dined.

For every course, you’ll actually get one of the chefs from the kitchen to come out and explain the course to you, which is a fantastic and personal touch.

The First Course

To begin with in the Winter 2025 menu, the light bites included a tartelette, takoyaki, and tartare. For the tartelette, the roe did make it a little fishy, but not overly so. The spice included helped to balance it out. The takoyaki was a caramelized bite and had iwashi (a Japanese sardine), scored with a knife. It had great brightness from the radish and was deliciously deep-fried in a way that wasn’t too heavy.

With this first course also came the ceviche with caviar, tiger milk and a strong spicy herb oil. Because of the strong flavours, it was a little overwhelming, but the freshness was great. There was a nice little kick of cilantro and accompanied by a level of spice that lingered just long enough on the tongue.

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The Second Course

The next course features cured scallops in a mole verde (made of pumpkin and chilis). The mole was extremely light, though it was prepared with root vegetables. Layered on top was a spinach and fill emulsion with truffles to increase the richness. This again was a star dish. The scallops were perfectly done and paired brilliantly with the lightness of the emulsion and spinach on top.

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The Third Course

In this third course, we moved into a pasta dish. There were four agnolottis filled with koginut squash. On top was a brie with a concord grape marmalade and concord vinegar, with the whole thing topped with pepitas and shaved black truffle.

The pasta here is very al dente (which is my preference, but I know that chewy pasta isn’t everyone’s favourite). The brie was a nice choice because it was a bit lighter and not overly rich, which allowed the flavour of everything else to work so well.

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The Fourth Course

Now, we’re moving into the seafood and meats with a black stripe bass served with squash on the side. The sauce was a polpo made of the bones and aromatics. However, while the crispy blackened skin of the bass was a great texture difference from the well cooked bass and the polpo sauce was rich and not overwhelming, neither were the star. In fact, that happened to be the squash on the side which were light and airy and more delicious than I could have anticipated.

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The Fifth Course

Before the fifth course plate arrived at my table, the chef arrived with the full duck to show it off. I can’t lie, I got a little bit worried when it came, but luckily, they were just explaining the procedure of cooking a peking duck (which happens to be my favourite preparation of duck). At Hexagon, they brine it, spice it, then blanch and flash freeze it twice before cooking.

On the side of this was the other incredible star of the dish that was even tastier than the duck — the bread.

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The Sixth Course

We’re still in the meat course here. This is a slice of wagyu beef from Snake River, served alongside a mole and a rutabaga purée, On the side, you received corn tortillas to make this into a taco! The steak was melt in your mouth and garnished with sea salt and the purée was delicious and peppery.

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The Desserts

If I had to dock points from this tasting menu, it has to be the desserts.

It felt a little rushed at the end, plus I didn’t find any of the three to be so memorable that they took my breath away like some of the savoury courses earlier. If nothing else, I would have expected for the paleta honey dew popsicle to come on its own as a palate cleanser before the other, richer, more flavourful desserts. During the Winter 2025 menu, I received:

Two petit fours. The flavours of these were whiskey caramel bonbon and a horchata macaron. They were both tasty, but because they came with the two other dishes, the flavours melded together in a way that wasn’t ideal.

There was a small basque-style cheesecake. When I returned for the a la carte, I had the summer version of this dish and that was much preferred (as it had more berry notes to give it some contrast). This was just fine and delicious, but again, it felt like a rush to have it together.

Lastly, I received a paleta honey dew with a yuzu cremeux. As you can imagine, the frozen nature of this makes you eat this one first, but you’re constantly aware of the other dishes you have. By the time they explained all of the dishes and left me to enjoy, this was already melting off the stick a little.

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Overall, my tasting experience at Hexagon was a good one. While I do wish that the desserts had been better spaced out (especially as they weren’t about to turn my table for a new party), the food was delicious. There were some dreamy highlights that I came back for in the summer when I returned to dine off the a la carte menu (review on that coming soon!)

Check out the menu for yourself to see the latest offerings. It’s a decently priced prix fixe, which means that you don’t have to break the bank for your visit!

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