What’s new for winter on Winnipeg’s culinary scene
When it comes to new restaurants, concepts, and treats, the pandemic is not slowing down the ‘Peg.
When it comes to new restaurants, concepts, and treats, the pandemic is not slowing down the ‘Peg.
As we start to settle into winter now’s the time to make your dining destination list (and check it twice), because all these spots are saucy and nice.
Celebrity chefs and celebratory spaces
The most hotly anticipated new restaurant in the city is Nola, which just opened in fall 2021. It is located in St. Boniface along Tache Avenue, beckoning diners with street-level windows that run the length of the handsome restaurant, displaying both the bar and open kitchen. In that kitchen running the pass you’ll find chef Emily Butcher, whose recent accolades include finishing sixth on Top Chef Canada and taking bronze at the 2020 Canadian Culinary Championships. Butcher has teamed up with Mike Del Buono’s Burnley Place Hospitality to open the space, which also includes a second outlet of Del Buono’s King + Bannatyne sandwich shop (this one called Second Spot) that shares the Nola kitchen and serves customers through an adjoining room.
Nola’s menu pays homage to Butcher’s West Coast roots, Chinese heritage, and TV cooking chops, with dishes like her loaded baked potato gnocchi (a challenge winner on Top Chef Canada), seared scallops with lo bak ko (based on her winning dish at the Winnipeg leg of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party), and Rueben gyozas – which melds her style with Del Buono’s celebrated King + Bann brisket. The dinner menu is all share plates, while lunch has plenty of bowls, big salads, onion rings and a magnificent fried woodear mushroom po boy.
Another stunner that opened in fall is The James Avenue Pumphouse, perhaps the busiest spot in the city right now for dinner. This room is an absolute stunner, with floor-to-ceiling windows that provide a showcase for the heritage building’s massive circa-1907 gears and pumps that were built to protect downtown from fires. To complement such a cool setting, executive chef Mark Merano's menu includes dressed-up versions of worldly comfort food, with dishes like a sizzling chow mein, Detroit-style pizza, red wine-braised short ribs, and Korean fried chicken. Like Nola above, reservations here are a must, particularly at dinner before a Jets’ game or any sort of event downtown or in the Exchange District.
The team behind the much-celebrated Sous Sol also quietly opened a new concept in August along the hip strip of South Osborne (some of the nearby neighbours include Oxbow Natural Wine Bar, Vera Pizzeria, and BMC Tacos). The menu at Tabula Rasa features plenty of interesting takes on local fish like walleye cheek escabeche, smoked goldeye fitters, and cumin-lime barbecued silver bass. Barman Erik Thordarson’s wine, beer and cocktail list is as pitch perfect as ever.
Sweet endings
We’d be remiss not to mention The Exchange District’s Cake-ology, which came under new ownership this summer from a pastry chef whose CV reads like a who’s who of the international culinary world. In the past few years, chef Austin Granados has worked with NYC’s cronut creator Dominque Ansel, at VEA in Hong Kong (currently ranked by San Pelligrino as the world’s 71st best restaurant), along with a stage at Noma before moving back to Winnipeg to takeover this popular little pâtisserie. His menu includes moan-worthy creations that combine France and Hong Kong, like his mille-feuille with silky lotus seed paste diplomat cream, red date caramel, and micro-planed salted duck egg.
For more new Winnipeg restaurants check out Peg City Grub’s autumn guide and find new weekly stories on the city’s culinary scene here.