Salutes and Shout Outs

Snippets of good news from our everchanging food and beverage scene! Congratulations to Giselle Courteau, co-founder of Edmonton’s Duchess Bake Shop, whose cookbook, Duchess At Home, was featured in our Holiday Gift Guide last year, and now it has won a silver award at the 23rd Taste Canada Awards!

Sidewalk Citizen has won an International design award at Hospitality Design (HD) magazine’s 16th annual HD Awards, for the year’s best and most innovative achievements in project and product design. Studio North conceived, digitally fabricated, and constructed the beautiful solarium in Calgary’s Memorial Park. Congrats to all!

Jazz singer, Ellen Doty, has teamed up with Monogram Coffee for their fourth Holiday Giveback Campaign. $5 from each bag of Doty’s custom coffee roast goes to support The Mustard Seed, and the bags come with a free download of “Mittens”, featuring Plains Cree singer-songwriter, Wyatt C. Louis. Made by Marcus has created a limited edition coffee ice cream inspired by Mittens too, also supporting the Mustard Seed.

Calgary cocktail bar, Proof, had $3,000 in glassware stolen last year at their holiday pop-up, so this year, Miracle on First Street is donating the difference between that and the amount stolen this year to CUPS, a charity for Calgarians facing poverty and trauma.

We’ve been eagerly awaiting Chef Jinhee Lee, of Foreign Concept and Food Network’s Wall of Chefs’, Jin Bar, in Bridgeland’s ex-Waalflower location. From memories of growing up in Korea, where families would celebrate their paycheck with a fried chicken dinner, Chef Lee has long wanted to open a fried chicken restaurant. Choose appies, five flavours of moist and ever so crunchy fried chicken, sides, and a lemon dill or jalapeno cheese dip – but wait! Chef Lee, along with Chef Hyungjae Lim, is serving up four 00 Italian crust pizzas with Korean toppings, and they’re really good! There’s a great value wine list too, with draft and bottled beers, and six fun Korean-named cocktails from

Photograph courtesy April Wilcocks

Kayla Atayiu. Sunday-Thursday 4 pm-10 pm, Friday/Saturday 4 pm-11 pm. Open for takeout weekday lunches.

Fresh gelato churns before your eyes at Teatro’s newly opened Holy Cow Gelato and Donuts, right next door to their recently revamped Vendome Café, in Sunnyside. Nine flavours are on offer including staples of Coconut (vegan), Peanut Butter Salted Caramel (a fave amongst our team!), Vanilla, and Lemon Sorbet, as well as holiday specials of Chocolate Candy Cane Swirl, Eggnog, Pomegranate and Orange Sorbet, and Hazelnut. Choose from six flavours of sourdough donuts too – or a gelonut, with a scoop of gelato on top! Open seven days, 11 am-8 pm.

Moonlight & Eli have launched a brilliant new concept – a condo with vintage furniture and Sage products, that’s styled and designed to feel just like the restaurant - available to rent on Airbnb! Pre-order the full fondue experience with your drinks of choice, and arrive to find the lights dimmed, music playing, and everything in the fridge waiting for you. Your close bubble can join you for dinner, but it makes for a romantic night away (or even for self-isolating!), and the following morning, enjoy a continental breakfast with pastries, cheeses, mimosas, and coffee. Owner, Mhairi O’Donnell, will even cook for you and serve your wine!

Calgary’s Avenida Food Hall & Fresh Market has new owners, a new name and a new mission! “A World of Flavours” includes 15 international restaurants, and as well as 39 small local businesses, the new Fresh & Local Market & Kitchens offers a wide selection of local fresh farm produce. As a business incubator for emerging entrepreneurs, there are now rotating vendor booths too. Open for full service, on-line shopping, curbside pick-up and home delivery, Thursday-Saturday 11 am-8 pm, Sundays close at 5 pm.

There are some pretty impressive things happening in Calgary’s Arbour Lake. Sakana Grill is now the next level Ponshu, sister restaurant to Ajito, and still in the same family as Sho Sushi and Point Sushi. A take on a Japanese izakaya, Chefs Takeshi Kawabe and Yusuke Yanagihara, previously of Dorinko in Edmonton, are joined by sushi chef Ryota Kosaka, and they’ve created an exciting menu - some dishes similar to Ajito, and many that are new and exclusive to Ponshu, all aiming for the perfect balance of salty, sweet and sour. Open seven days 5 pm–10 pm.

Breaking news as we go to print – Edmonton restaurant owner, Abel Shiferaw, has opened La Petite Iza, a French bistro, on the third floor above his Garneau boulangerie, Eleanor et Laurent. Named after his daughter, who’s also in the business, you’ll be impressed with the beautiful glass ceilings from Italy, and classic French bistro fare. Don’t miss the escargot and superb crème brûlée!