FOOD & DRINK

Winnipeg’s Upscale Ethnic Nosh

By Michele Peterson

Homemade meets hip as some of Winnipeg’s finest restaurants do creative interpretations of global fare.

Fusion Grill

You don’t see too many traffic jams in Winnipeg – unless you’re headed to Alycia’s, a Ukrainian restaurant on Cathedral Avenue in the city’s north end. Be prepared to jostle with babas carrying white plastic pails for borscht or with crowds who come seeking fresh perogies. The stuffed dumplings, traditionally prepared quilting-bee style by women peeling potatoes, rolling dough and pinching edges, are now machine-made in most other places, so demand for Alycia’s handmade version often outstrips supply. Fortunately, with Winnipeg’s new generation of evolved ethnic cuisine, it’s not the only place in town to get a mean perogy.

Ukrainian

Traditionalists may count on Alycia’s for their comfort food fix, but across town at Fusion Grill on swanky Academy Road, people are also jockeying for tables. Devotees are drawn to chef Lorna Murdoch’s inventive regional cuisine, where perogies have gone upscale. Drizzled with white truffle oil over a walnut cream sauce and topped with slivers of duck sausage, the result is a luscious yet delicate surprise.

Other Winnipeg chefs offer equally inspired versions of Ukrainian fare. At The Current, chef Barry Saunders’ contemporary perogy appears as an elegant forest-and-field mushroom dumpling topped with caramelized onion and chive crème fraîche.

Polish

Legacy vegetables (think pickled beets in mason jars) lined many a Polish immigrant’s pantry shelf. Today the colorful tuber appears as beet-infused olive oil for bread dip at Fude, a creative newcomer to Winnipeg’s dining world. (And don’t miss beet carpaccio, an array of delicate, golden-hued beets accompanied by shaved fennel at The Current.)

First Nations, Metis and French Canadian

The meat of the plains' bison was a staple of the area’s earliest inhabitants. Now contemporary diners nosh on crispy bison strips served tapas style with sticky ginger garlic sauce at Luxsolé Restaurant. Its owners, the Warwaruk brothers, are farm boys who draw ingredients (and inspiration) from their rural prairie roots.

Early explorers relied on pemmican, a dried meat enriched with fat and berries, to strengthen them on their arduous fur trade routes. Today, chef Fern Kirouac of In Ferno’s, a former furrier shop-turned-stylish-bistro, serves elk as moist medallions braised with glossy huckleberries.

Icelandic

The same glam treatment is given to wild game fish, such as walleye (pickerel), whitefish and goldeye. Once caught by hardy Icelandic settlers in Manitoba’s Interlake region, today’s smoked goldeye gets reinvented at The Current as an adventurous parfait of layered mango, avocado, basil cream and balsamic molasses. Check out panko-crusted pickerel cheeks, a whimsical take on the traditional shore lunch.

Organic

Foraged foods are being rediscovered. Long-familiar natural plants like wild rice feature prominently in new creations, including popped wild-rice truffles at globally inspired Mise. Watch for delicate bulrush fluff from regional marshes as a garnish atop city springtime desserts.

Seasonal and local products, once compulsory for early settlers, is a virtue at hip new Dandelion Eatery, where organic chicken comes paired with creamy polenta.

To accompany this new-generation dining, there’s even Tansi, a wine made of birch sap. Created by D. B. Leobard Winery, this unique wine has a golden iridescence that hearkens back to a homestead favorite: dandelion wine.

Little did the prairie pioneers imagine how their early culinary improvisations would evolve to become today’s gastronomic inspirations. Next up: kielbasa carpaccio, anyone?

Useful information

Alycia’s, 559 Cathedral Avenue, 204-582-8789

(Michele Peterson is a Toronto-based travel writer who writes about food from around the world. She grew up in Winnipeg listening to her father discuss the relative merits of Polish kielbasa and returns home regularly for updates.)

TOP PHOTO: FUSION GRILL
DANDELION EATERY: JACKFISH MEDIA GROUP