Last fall as I sipped my way through various south Okanagan wineries, I gleaned some valuable information. Apparently, only days before, a group of young guys from Edmonton passed through (each winery I visited) sampling wines for a new restaurant they were opening.
You better believe my ears perked up.
It didn’t take long to suss out the name of this group: North 53. I was suitably impressed.
Only a couple of months earlier, Blair Lebsack opened Rge Rd, and one of the things I found remarkable about this spot (other than the food) was Blair’s wine list; it was 3/4 Canadian wine, mostly from British Columbia. To me, having Canadian wines in a Canadian restaurant is as simple as it gets, but yet so few Canadian restaurants have the guts to do it—something I don’t understand.
North 53 opened its doors in January 2014, and not only are all the wines Canadian, but so is all the food—as in all the ingredients are Canadian. Everything. If it doesn’t grow here, they don’t use it in their dishes. That means no pepper, no vanilla, no lemons, no chocolate. What it comes down to is that 90% of the ingredients used come from Alberta and BC. Oh, Canada!, indeed.
This style of cooking takes heaps of ingenuity and a whole lot of moxie, especially in a meat-and-potatoes-city like Edmonton. When Daniel Costa introduced arancini at Corso 32, diner’s stared in wonderment and poked the little orbs as if they were tribbles from the Star Trek universe.
How would Edmonton eaters react to this brazen food experience?
According to Urban Spoon, reviews were mixed – especially in the days soon after the restaurant opened. It seemed people just couldn’t cotton on to the idea of a menu devoid of 85 options but instead promoted a leisurely meal centred around a 6 course tasting menu with $125 price tag.
Fortunately, for the public, the North 53 crew (while swallowing hard, I’m sure) listened to the reviews, and dropped the price to $85. That, folks, is a hell of a deal. If you are fortunate to have food like this in a city that gets more face time than Edmonton ever will, you will easily pay $125 to $150 per person.
Photo Credit: Collage of North 53 food by Diannaman on Instagram
So, get it while it lasts and appreciate what Ben Staley, Alex Kagel, Eric Hanson, and the rest of the ridiculously talented crew at North 53 is gracing us with, and pray that the Edmonton will appreciate them for what they are worth, which is way more than what the menu items are priced at right now.
For details about the food I tasted, listen to my CBC Edmonton AM review of North 53 here.