New York has Brooklyn and San Francisco has Sausalito.

Most global maritime cities have a smaller sibling located across the water, accessible by bridge or ferry. These lesser-known locales are the cities, towns and boroughs where housing is affordable, where the “real” people live; places that, as the bigger city grows, become avant-garde, touted by the press as “cool” and “up and coming” or billed as their bigger sibling’s “best-kept secret”.

In Nova Scotia, Halifax’s best-kept secret is Dartmouth.

The former city of Dartmouth (contentiously, it was amalgamated into greater Halifax in 1996) has always been a great place to live, but since the opening of ultra-hip café Two If By Sea in 2009, Dartmouth’s downtown core has been slowly sprouting, with each new restaurant or bar adding an element of personality to what locals lovingly refer to as the “dark side”.

Those who live in Dartmouth are now finally staying in Dartmouth for their evening cocktail, while people from Halifax are taking the ferry or the bridge for a great night out.

In November 2017, on the opening night of the new 1950s-inspired restaurant and cocktail bar The Watch that Ends the Night, chef Mark Gray suggested to local newspaper The Chronicle Herald a culture where diners would start at Battery Park to have a pint, go to The Canteen for dinner, and then head to The Watch That Ends the Night for a late-night snack and cocktails.

Since Gray himself has moved from “up and coming” to being one of Halifax’s most respected chefs, we took his prescription, and discovered three fantastic places to dine in Dartmouth after dark.