Quebec City's Battuto takes the
number-one spot as Canada's Best
New Restaurant
TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2017 /CNW/ - Air Canada is pleased
to announce this year's Top 10 list of Canada's Best New Restaurants in partnership
with American Express. For his fifth year as Air Canada
enRoute's restaurant critic, award-winning writer
Andrew Braithwaite ate his way
across the country, dining in over 30 new restaurants before
whittling the contenders down to the ten celebrated today at Air
Canada's annual gala in Toronto
and on CanadasBestNewRestaurants.com.
The first-place ranking went to Battuto, a 20-seat Italian diner
in Quebec City where chef
Guillaume St-Pierre and his
three-person team dazzle with their creativity and ingenuity in
just 400 square feet. Similarly small, chef-run spots nabbed second
and third place – Canis in Toronto
and Bar Von Der Fels in Calgary,
respectively. "Restaurants were sized down in 2017," says
Braithwaite, "and smaller rooms shrink the distance between these
talented chefs and our taste buds – so we diners spend more time
interacting with a restaurant's best people."
But Edmonton was the surprise
of the year, with a record three restaurants making the list:
Clementine, Café Linnea and Alder Room. "Edmonton felt like a different city than the
one I'd visited on my four previous tours, and the new hockey arena
is a game-changer," noted Braithwaite. "The cocktail scene has
always been strong, and there's clearly a passion for creating art
on the plate, too."
"For the 16th year running, Air Canada is delighted to help
shine a global light on Canada's
incredible food and drink culture, especially with this year
marking Canada's 150th
anniversary," says Andy Shibata,
Managing Director, Brand, Air Canada. "We are proud to celebrate
the ingenious chefs and restaurateurs across the country and are
committed to sharing valuable travel and dining experiences and
insights with our customers."
From plums masquerading as olives at Alder Room in Edmonton to a tangle of Humboldt squid parading as slippery udon
noodles at Canis in Toronto, magic
was a common theme among this year's winners. Brunch crossed over,
with champagne and toast soldiers for breakfast at Edmonton's Café Linnea and a buckwheat crepe
with aged egg yolk for dinner at Mak N Ming in Vancouver. Chefs also took the art of
fermentation way beyond sourdough, applying it to carrot juice,
shishito-jang and even ice cream. And they got serious about music,
too, curating their own Spotify playlists that are as idiosyncratic
as their wine lists.
Here's the complete list of Air Canada's Best New Restaurants
2017:
- BATTUTO (Quebec City): The
one-time home to a humble snack bar now houses an intimate yet
modern trattoria where a mighty team of four serves up paper-thin
rounds of Charlevoix-pork lonza and zests fresh orange over bitter
raw endives and grilled octopus within front-row proximity.
- CANIS (Toronto): The
stripped-down wood-and-concrete minimalism keeps you focused on a
parade of new flavours: from sweet raw scallop in fermented
green-tomato broth with herbal notes of lemon basil and flowering
coriander to a brilliant dessert of Campari-soaked cherries on
koji-infused barley ice cream.
- BAR VON DER FELS (Calgary): This mod little wine bar is home to
some sneaky-serious good cooking. The tiny open kitchen employs an
arsenal of secret weapons, like activated charcoal, yuzu kosho and
squid ink, to accompany swoon-worthy wines.
- MAK N MING (Vancouver): A
repeat appearance on this list for chef Makoto Ono, as the likes of his butter-poached
lobster and potato-two-ways are served up in this intimate
red-cedar-clad space. The kasu semifreddo with rose-petal jelly
perfumes the tail end of the culinary journey along an imaginary
Franco-Japanese border.
- CLEMENTINE (Edmonton): The
trio known as Volstead Act present a not-quite-French
bistro-on-the-Prairies full of pleasing twists and turns. Case in
point: The duck breast comes with oven-crisped leeks and shiitakes,
in a duck broth unexpectedly spiked with Korean gochujang.
- CAFÉ LINNEA (Edmonton):
Experience an almost magical way with eggs by day. By night, sip a
smoky dry cider from Brittany and cut into an impeccably seared
pork chop partnered with creamed stinging nettles. Yogurt
pannacotta spritzed with St-Germain is a choice closer, noon or
night.
- RIVIERA (Ottawa): The
Parliament Hill-adjacent space adds an evening buzz to the
otherwise quiet Sparks Street. The double-sided drinks list is the
size of a broadsheet newspaper, and honest dishes of venison
tartare or panko-crusted chicken Kiev command repeat withdrawals from this
former bank turned art deco dining room.
- BROTHERS FOOD & WINE (Toronto): The rumbling from the subway station
below only amplifies the thrills at this tiny restaurant, where a
glass of Jura vin jaune brings aromas of nuts and curry
spice to the bitter endive and walnuts atop a beef tenderloin
carpaccio, while vintage Erykah Badu
electrifies the hi-fi.
- MARCONI (Montreal): At this
corner bistro in Montreal's
Mile-Ex, aromatic white gazpacho is poured à table, dashi
gelée and shredded nori accompany the lime-cured Arctic char and a
sprightly Quebec rosé is waiting
in the wooden wine cooler – a restored dépanneur fridge salvaged
from the building's former occupant.
- ALDER ROOM (Edmonton): Begin
your evening snacking on quail eggs rolled in vegetable ash, marvel
at more than a dozen inventive courses from the brick hearth and
don't miss outlandish housemade juices like Anjou pear, horseradish and black trumpet
mushroom – the result of tireless experimentation at the juicing
hands of chef Ben Staley.
Readers can see the full story and find out more about the
winners in the November issue of Air Canada enRoute
magazine, the pull-out Dining Guide in the November issue and
online at CanadasBestNewRestaurants.com.
Canada's Best New
Restaurants Video Series
Go to CanadasBestNewRestaurants.com
for behind-the-scenes videos shot at this year's top three
restaurants. Guillaume St-Pierre and
his team discuss their love of Italian family dinners at Battuto in
Quebec City; Jeff Kang describes his experimental approach to
Canadian cooking at Canis in Toronto; and Eric
Hendry of Bar Von Der Fels in Calgary talks about the freedom of running a
28-seat wine bar. Now also screening on the Food, Documentary and
Travel TV channels on the Inflight Entertainment system on most
Air Canada flights.
Awards Celebration
The Top 10 restaurants were
revealed during the annual Canada's Best New Restaurants gala on
October 19, 2017, at the Queen
Richmond Centre West in Toronto.
For the fifth year, top chefs from across the country gathered to
show off their culinary skills, serving industry professionals and
Air Canada guests flavours from their winning menus.
About Air Canada
Air Canada is Canada's largest domestic and international
airline, serving more than 200 airports on six continents.
Canada's flag carrier is among the
20 largest airlines in the world, and in 2016 served close to 45
million customers. Air Canada
provides scheduled passenger service directly to 64 airports in
Canada, 57 in the United States and 95 in Europe, the Middle
East, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central
America and South America.
Air Canada is a founding member of
Star Alliance, the world's most
comprehensive air transportation network, serving 1,300 airports in
191 countries. Air Canada is the
only international network carrier in North America to receive a Four‐Star ranking
according to independent U.K. research firm Skytrax. For more
information, please visit aircanada.com, follow @AirCanada on
Twitter and join Air Canada on Facebook.
About Air Canada enRoute
Air Canada enRoute is Air Canada's
award-winning travel media brand. An inspirational authority for
the global traveller, it reaches passengers at every step of their
journey through its multimedia portfolio: print publications
(including Air Canada enRoute, the iconic magazine with 1.6
million readers each month), digital channels
(enroute.aircanada.com) and many prestigious programs and
events.
Follow on Twitter and Instagram @enRoutemag, #AirCanadaTop10
RELATED LINKS
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SOURCE Air Canada