--- description: Find out why Naagan is on TIME’s list of the World’s Greatest Places 2026. title: Naagan: World's Greatest Places 2026 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7238d00e0172438/69ae9e4dfca7bc437bbd3454/Nagaan_WGP_2026.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Mar 12, 2026 # Naagan Owen Sound, Ontario by [Elaine Glusac](/author/elaine-glusac/) ## Elaine Glusac Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Courtesy Naagan Fine dining exists to astonish, and [Naagan](https://www.naagan.ca/ "undefined"), in tiny Owen Sound on Ontario’s Georgian Bay, delivers a parade of dishes so transporting that many of the 17 diners served each night willingly make the four-hour round-trip drive from Toronto for its 12-course menu. Chef and owner Zach Keeshig, who is Ojibwa, frames the meal as a deeply personal expression of Indigenous cuisine, drawing on foraged, regionally native ingredients, and techniques honed in high-end kitchens. A mushroom-shaped tart made with birch bark fungus sits atop fallen birch branches amid a dry-ice fog that evokes mist in the woods. A partridge leg coated in puffed wild rice clutches a bouquet of wildflowers in its claw. Sweetgrass—a medicinal herb traditionally used in smudging ceremonies and prized for its vanilla-like aroma—appears in an ice cream served atop a box of beach rocks and finished with caramelized bee pollen. Each course arrives with context about the cultural role of game and plants, and the evening ends with a kitchen tour of the intimate, pine-edged space, where drying plants hang from the rafters. The experience is elevated, but Keeshig’s goal is mainstream. “I think it’s time for Indigenous food to have its moment,” he says, “and be \[part of the\] conversation when people are thinking, ‘Do I want French or Italian or Chinese tonight?’” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places/2026/naagan/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places/2026/naagan/"},"headline":"Naagan","datePublished":"2026-03-12T10:56:42.992Z","dateModified":"2026-03-12T10:56:43.070Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places/2026/naagan/","keywords":["World's Greatest Places","Canada","list","franchise"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7238d00e0172438/69ae9e4dfca7bc437bbd3454/Nagaan_WGP_2026.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Elaine Glusac","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/elaine-glusac/"}],"creator":"Elaine Glusac","articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7238d00e0172438/69ae9e4dfca7bc437bbd3454/Nagaan_WGP_2026.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/worlds-greatest-places/","name":"World's Greatest Places"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places/2026/naagan/","name":"Naagan"}}]}] ```