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The three-course meals, wine included, have been written up in travel guidebooks and at least one Japanese magazine. They are, repeat customers and one-off diners say, scrumptious.

“We can handle six for dinner,” Mr. Offer says. “We do a salad course first. Everything is from the garden. It is picked two hours before you eat it. How many city people get to experience that?

“We do salmon with peppercorns, a pan-fried sole with buttered almonds, beef tenderloin with mushroom caps in a red wine sauce. It is all tasty, and approved by me and my wife, because if we don’t like it, we don’t serve it.”

The problem? The P.E.I. Health Department doesn’t like it and, on May 18, phoned to inform the Offers that their operation was in violation of provincial health regulations and was to be shut down immediately. A letter followed, summarizing the grievance.

“A restaurant, including a by-appointment dining experience for the public, would need to be completely separate from personal private living quarters. The restaurant would need to be a stand-alone operation with its own kitchen, food storage, dining area, washrooms.”

In other words, Paul, 68, and Jean, 65, can’t be eating their morning cereal in the same kitchen where they cook their by-appointment dinners, a spot of logic that makes muddied sense since, as a Bed & Breakfast, they were doing exactly that for more than 30 years.

“I don’t get it,” Mr. Offer says. “Our reputation with the Health Department is spotless, absolutely spotless. Anybody that knows us is absolutely astounded by this.”