Food Day Canada - Celebrating Canadian Food

ANNOUNCING! The Good Food Innovation Awards 2016

Want to eat ‘Canadian’? Get ready to salivate! As we look forward to 2017, the summery menus of this year’s Food Day Canada chefs remind us of our immense Northern Bounty. Canada IS food and the world is, and will be, richer for it. With the greatest number of Innovation Award winners in our history, the menus reflect a culinary diversity unlike any other nation on earth. Congratulations to all the winners! You can check out their 2016 menus on the links provided. First of all, welcome to the new Gold Award winning chefs! They join a constant and exceedingly talented roster. Theirs is not world class cuisine, it’s Canadian-class cuisine in all its incarnations from Chef James Walt’s British Columbia Barkley Sound Sockeye that was pan-seared and served with fresh pea agnolotti at Araxi in Whistler to the fabulous wood-fired loin and seared pork belly of Chef Michael Smith at Fireworks on Prince Edward Island in the tiny community of Bay Fortune. Then there was the week long menu at Toronto’s now-iconic Canoe and spectacular pan-Canadian offerings at Ottawa’s Fauna which began with East Coast oysters and ended with an Okanagan plum tart. Check out the wine pairings! Jason Parsons, Peller Estates’ Executive Chef has a whole winery cellar to play with and his dishes were created with some of their best in mind. Imagine a perfect peach and tarragon gazpacho dolloped with goat cheese mousse and paired with a Private Reserve Pinot Gris! From the Fenwick cauliflower and buttermilk bisque with smoked sockeye to Featherstone Verjus curd and Mennonite-grown blackberries, Zest’s chef, Anthony Greco went all out. His entire menu framed the notion of Canadian cuisine at every course, celebrating the regional riches of Niagara, something that Chef Greco is known for all year round. Back on the Gold list for this year are Chef Pierre Richard of Little Louis’ Oyster Bar and Chef Mark Filatow Waterfront Wine joining the veterans, Chef Francis Wolf of Manoir Hovey’s Le Hatley ; Jason Bangerter of Langdon Hall Country House Hotel; the team effort headed up by Charles Part and Jennifer Warren Part at Les Fougères; Chef/forager Nancy Hinton of Les Jardins Sauvages; Chef Jonas Stadtlander of Sooke Harbour House; Chef & cheesemaker/hunter/gardener Derek Bendig of Siwash Lake Wilderness Resort; Chef Josh Crowe and Barb Irwin of Montreal’s Taverne Monkland; Pierre Olivier Ferry of the spectacular Jardins de Métis on the shores of the St. Lawrence River and Chef Warren Barr at The Wickaninnish where diners are treated to the panorama of the wild west coast of Vancouver Island! Sleek and well curated menus are the characteristic of the Silver Award winners, each with its own particular food voice. From the east coast come Shadow Lawn, a beautiful country inn in Rothesay, New Brunswick and the Windjammer in Moncton’s Delta Hotel. Both have been dedicated to the art of local cuisine on a year long basis for years. From Ontario there’s London’s Abruzzi who shared the proceeds of a week long FDC menu with Growing Chefs Ontario; Kitchener’s Fork and Cork Grill, Mercer Hall in downtown Stratford where Chef Ryan O’Donnell has created a very real culinary destination. Then there’s Guelph’s Miijidaa which honours many of the ingredients of Ontario’s First Nations; Niagara’s Treadwell and Toronto’s Boralia, Indie Ale House and Buca Yorkville. Klondike Kate’s has been a bastion of great FDC menus for years in the north while Rouge created a splendid, full-on summer menu in Calgary. RauDZ Regional Table has been a pioneer of all things local in British Columbia for literally decades. One of Vancouver’s most creative chefs, David Gunawan Royal Dinette, in this his first year as a Food Day restaurant, also claimed a silver. Food Day...

Deane House, Calgary

This autumn Sal Howell of the renowned River Café and her tireless team opened Deane House at the confluence of the Bow and the Elbow rivers, a traditional meeting place for the both First Nations the fur traders, a location that defines the early history of Calgary. It was at this watery crossroad that Fort Calgary was constructed in 1875 by the Northwest Mounted Police and the community sprang up around the fort clustering along the banks. Deane House was constructed in 1906 for the then Superintendent of Fort Calgary, Captain Richard Deane. It’s possibly the only remaining building from the Fort Calgary site still intact and was designated a Registered Historic Resource in 1978. The restoration of Deane House was a multi year dream punctuated by a major flood that hit all the national media and countless delays that would cause other less-determined people to simply walk away. But Ms. Howell is not faint of heart. The results of the restoration, her relentless haunting of Prairie antique outlets and the honing of the menus to source the best local ingredients is something for which all Albertans can be mightily proud. Today this region is known as Inglewood and it has some of the oldest architecture in this hyper-modern Prairie city. It’s also one of the most vital culinary communities and is home to Rouge, The Nash and Knifewear, a must-visit shop for any chef including Sal’s Executive Chef, Jamie Harling. Jamie, a veteran of Food Day Canada, is a talent...

Indie Ale House, Toronto

The Indie Ale House is just west of The Junction where Dundas Street West is home to several terrific food stops including Honest Weight and Farmhouse Tavern. The talent in this modest kitchen is phenomenal…and, for a brew pub, unexpected. Executive Chef Todd Clarmo has been one of our heroes since his days at Oliver & Bonacini’s Canoe where he, with his friend Anthony Walsh, launched the first restaurant in Toronto that served forth...

Rouge Restaurant, Calgary

Chef Paul Rogalski “Chief Culinary Officer/Co-Owner of Rouge writes: “The foundation of great food starts with the ingredients. Preparing them with respect is the foundation of cuisine. For this very reason my menu will be created as close to the moment as possible as I explore what the best available ingredients are”. Rouge inhabits the former home (c.1891) of A.E. Cross one of the Provinces most successful businessmen. The Cross House is a designated...

Absinthe Café, Ottawa

Chef Patrick Garland’s steak frites have been dubbed as one of the city’s 101 must-try-before-you-die ‘tastes’ by Ottawa magazine. I’d say that it’s not just the steak that’s important in this busy, with-it restaurant. Garland has a menu filled with lots of other great Canadian flavours including an array of house-made charcuterie. The menu changes constantly. According to Anne DesBrisay, the author of Capital Dining, “Absinthe applies imagination, technique to market cuisine – a bistro...

Les Jardins Sauvages, Saint-Roch de L’Achigan, Quebec

One of the neatest restaurants in Quebec, Les Jardins Sauvages, is owned and operated by Chef Nancy Hinton and forager/farmer François Brouillard. Aside from being a country eatery, they create and sell a line of products derived from wild plants and mushrooms at a farmer’s market stall at Marché Jean Talon in Montreal. Chef Nancy Hinton, a winner of the University of Guelph Innovation Award, grew up in Quebec City and trained under the tutelage...