Category: Weekly Dish columns from The Edmonton Sun
Weekly Dish columns from The Edmonton Sun
Hot Chefs Cool bEATS food festival, Shaw Conference Centre, April 21, 2012Food: 4 of 5Ambience: 4 of 5Service: 4 of 5Much like that re-invented Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, our culinary world evolves.Previous fundraisers for Culinary Team Canada — an Edmonton tradition thanks to long-time organizers Shaw Conference Centre Executive Chef Simon Smotkowicz and NAIT’s Vinod Varshney — were swish, gala events with fancy dresses, business attire and starched linen.Suddenly, it’s not about old-school elegance any longer.It’s about having fun, bringing out the kid in us.It’s about dropping the price tag, as fewer and fewer companies and individuals are willing to shell out for those $300-plus charity event tickets.Hats off to Hot Chefs Cool bEATS co-chairs Simon and Vinomania’s Gurvinder Bhatia.Like Premier Alison Redford’s campaign managers, they figured out where trends are going, and got there first.On Saturday evening, Hot Chefs Cool bEATS was one big, informal, fun street party — and all the better fo ...
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The Dauphine Bakery and Bistro(780) 421-4410
10129 104 st
Edmonton, AB T5J0Z9
Mon to Sat. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday open until 7 p.m.
As the Queen of Tarts of the 104 Street Downtown Farmers’ Market, Linda Kearney’s lemon tart pies were usually sold out before noon.
Fortunately, Kearney had the energy to expand into a permanent bakery and bistro, which sadly, for copyright reasons, cannot use the “Queen of Tarts” moniker.
The Dauphine is just steps away from her summer market booth, and what a fine addition to the year-round dining scene it is.
The ambience is surprising and delightful.
The street-front doors of the old building on 104 Street open onto a wide set of cathedral stairs, leading into an airy loft basement that is anything but — huge ceilings and natural light from the storefront windows create an inviting bakery with the floor space of a warehouse.
The main dining space is a niche alongside the great staircase, just seven or eight tables, pl ...
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(This blog posting is a follow-up to the Weekly Dish column in the Edmonton Sun on Wednesday, April 4, 2012, entitled "Alberta's Garlic Advantage" in print, and "Garlic Festival an all-Alberta affair" in the on-line version)
The Sorrentino’s Garlic Festival, in its 21st year, has become part of the very fabric of this city.
And along the way, a textbook case of great marketing that should be thoroughly studied by any student of marketing and promotion.
Most restaurants owners – 99% of them –lack the energy and imagination to separate themselves from the pack. It’s enough, they think, to simply open their doors, provide adequate service, good food and enough advertising to get by.
Then there’s Sorrentino’s.
Among their many other entrepreneurial strengths, Carmelo and Stella Rago understand the power of being different.
Inspired by a world-famous garlic festival in California, Carmelo found the extra energy and extra effort to start that first Garlic Festival two deca ...
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Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
A standing Edmonton restaurant joke has to do with the weeks, if not months, one must wait for a reservation at Corso 32, Jasper Avenue’s tiny, contemporary Italian restaurant that earned a five out of five rating from this column.
Three months ago, Cibo opened in the off-downtown Oliver Square (close to Hudson’s Pub).
Obviously cousins Mike Giampa and Rosario Caputo were inspired by what Daniel Costa was doing at Corso.
They’re young, like Daniel, but hospitality veterans – Rosario as a NAIT-trained chef, Mike as a long-time server and maître d’.
They grew up, like Daniel, in Edmonton’s thriving Italian culture, where good food is a way of life.
Cibo (meaning food or nourishment in Italian) is not only good. It’s excellent.
It’s almost – almost – as good as Corso.
Given how foodies genuflect at the mere mention of Corso, this is high praise.
Cibo is most pleasing atmospherically. ...
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There’s a certain mantra that happens in this town every day.“Let’s meet for lunch.”“Sure. Where?”“I dunno, something different?”“Can’t think of anything ... let’s go to Earls.”Ah, Earls.The city’s default restaurant. Top of mind, top of choice.And with good reason.Earls — seven locations in town now — has been a name in this town since 1982.The now 63-strong restaurant chain started in Edmonton, circa 1982, as a playful beer, burgers and toy parrots joint on Jasper Avenue around 122 Street.Earls, 30 years later, continues to make good food.It was good when it was burgers, it’s still good with its pastas and steaks, trendy wok stuff, interesting sandwiches and nods to ethnicity.To review Earls, our party visited Edmonton’s Earls classic.Earls Tin Palace opened in 1986 at Jasper and 119 Avenue and is now among the most enduring restaurants in town.The Tin Palace has much going for it, mostly the location: just off downtown in resident-rich Oliver, plus oodles of indoor and outdoor space, plus free parking.The ...
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Shane Chartrand is newly arrived as the executive chef of Murrieta’s West Coast Bar + Grill on Whyte Avenue.
The Fantasyland Hotel’s L2 Grill, under Shane’s direction, was named in this column as the city’s top restaurant in 2011.
New management at the hotel led to a change in culinary philosophy not compatible with Shane’s talent.
Fortunately, the executive chef job at Murrieta’s came vacant. Shane was head-hunted for the position.
While Murrieta’s is part of a three-restaurant group – with Murrieta’s in Calgary and Canmore – the owner believes each chef should have full rein over his or her kitchen.
The Weekly Dish went to dine at the “new” Murrieta’s last weekend, not realizing Chartrand’s spring menu, his first, was still weeks away.
Not to worry, we were offered a “sneak peek” at the menu to come, with pricing comparable to the current offerings.
Oh boy … a w ...
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After a string of superlative Edmonton dining spot reviews, of East, Corso 32, Culina Mill Creek and Cafe Amore, the Weekly Dish has run into a major disappointment.Sofra, the much-praised, cute but elegant Turkish restaurant just south of MacEwan University, is not what it is cracked up to be.On a Saturday, before the 50-seat restaurant had filled, service was slow and somewhat shoddy.The food was OK, but by no means lip-smacking. The bill reflected champagne prices ($25 to $30 for the fish/meat entrees) for beer food.I was surprised, given this restaurant’s good reputation, from both word-of-mouth and on the Urban Spoon website.Sofra sits in a storefront unit within one of the city’s first downtown condo complexes, on 106 Street south of 104 Avenue.It’s actually a dull building, but to walk into Sofra is to be transported into a pleasant, lofty, bi-level bistro — with hardwood floors, a burnt apricot colour scheme and a balcony with private dining spaces.In the middle, guarding the stairs to basement washro ...
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Are you slightly apprehensive when you return to a restaurant with wonderful memories from a year or two before? Has the restaurant changed hands? Is the chef still on top of his or her game? Does the owner still take pride in the kitchen and service?Over the years, we've had two or three excellent evenings at Culina Mill Creek.But it had been a while. And executive chef/owner Brad Lazarenko has been busy elsewhere, restlessly partnering in other culinary ventures in Edmonton and B.C.Would Culina be forgotten?The good news, the beguilingly great news, is Culina Mill Creek's high standards have not dropped a whit.In fact, Lazarenko has such trust in Culina Mill Creek's chef de cuisine Christine Sandford that the upcoming spring menu, a complete overhaul, will be all hers.I love the look of Culina Mill Creek. It's equal parts rumpus room/taverna, with dated stucco walls and the occasional '70s swag lights piercing the gloom.One enters through a curtain-created vestibule into a compact space Ñ there's only 42 se ...
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