"“Elegant” describes the space and the dishes at Orchard, one of the promising new restaurants to open in Calgary in 2020."

"Calgary chef Roy Oh — his much-missed modern Korean restaurant Anju made the Canada’s 100 Best list three times running — is finally back, with Roy’s Korean Kitchen. The takeout-only business sells Anju favourites, like the crave-worthy gochujang wings and lettuce wraps, along with a rotation of new seasonal dishes."

"Kaede Hirooka’s ongoing Calgary-based Respect the Technique pop-up series has a deliberately unspecific name. It allows him and business partner Jonathan Chung to make any style of food, though more often than not, it’s a play on Japanese cuisine that allows the chefs to exercise considerable creativity (think chicken wing gyoza, pork wonton ramen kits, and sundry Asian-accented sauces and condiments)."

"After a decade in Calgary, marked by the successes of Model Milk and Pigeonhole, Vancouver-born chef Justin Leboe was ready for a change. “I wasn’t looking for an exit,” he explains. “But when one presented itself, I decided I didn’t want the next 10 years to look like the last.” So Leboe signed on as culinary director for the Banff Hospitality Collective and moved to the mountain resort town."

"When Alberta-born chef Blair Lebsack and wife, Caitlin Fulton, opened the 60-seat farm-to-table RGE RD in 2013, they were first in Edmonton to proffer nose-to-tail dining with all its requisite sustainable, seasonal and hyper-local descriptors. The menu offers generous portions of flat iron bison steak, coriander-spiced pork loin and smoked pork belly, all roasted in one of two wood-burning ovens, and matching wonderfully with a Canadian-centric beer-and-wine list."

"“When people ask where I go for Mexican food,” says Mexico-born Daniel Ramon, speaking about his adopted hometown of Calgary, “I’d say, ‘I don’t!’” Until he tried the tacos Mikko Tamarra was serving from a pop-up at a Beltline cocktail bar. The two became friends, and when the pandemic temporarily put them out of work, they joined forces with a third chef, Andrew Ocasion, to launch Con Mi Taco in July 2020."

"You can likely guess how many stools are to be found at the V-shaped Douglas fir counter at Eight. These are Calgary’s most sought-after perches. Each affords a clear view of Netflix’s The Final Table finalist Darren MacLean and chef du cuisine Mitsuru Hara (from Spain’s Michelin-three-star Azurmendi) as they cook and plate your courses."

"At Winnipeg’s first lockdown, chef Mandel Hitzer decided to use the time and a government loan to renovate his dining room at Deer + Almond. That took two and a half months. With the reopening and return of indoor dining, he introduced a more refined service, finessing his plating style. Then came a second lockdown and, finally, a reopening with 50-per-cent indoor-dining seating capacity. In that, he saw another upgrade opportunity. “I didn’t want to work so hard to do our usual 15 to 17 à la carte dishes for half the customers,” Hitzer recalls. “So, I thought, Let’s do a tasting menu.”"

"Tuesdays have traditionally been the most popular night of the week for dining at Primal — Christie Peters and Kyle Michael’s pasta-centric Italian restaurant in Saskatoon. That’s wine and pasta night, when, for just $25, you get a plate of tagliatelle with local pork and beef-heart ragù or Spaghetti alla Chitarra Puttanesca with Bottarga, or any of the other dozen-odd house-made pastas on the menu — along with a glass of the house wine, white or red. When the pandemic struck, the restaurant “really wanted to translate that success to takeout,” Peter explains. “So, we launched pasta with cans of wine to go.” "

"One of the standout Calgary restaurants to open last year is Jin Bar, a Japanese-style fried chicken and pizza joint by chef Jinhee Lee, a graduate of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) and winner of the Canadian Gold Medal Plates culinary competition."