The Alberta Hotel Bar & Kitchen – Restaurant Review

Edmontonians are well aware of this city’s penchant for demolishing, not restoring, historic properties, so when Tavern 1903 opened in the rebuilt Alberta Hotel on Jasper Avenue, citizens rejoiced. We finally had a swanky food and drink establishment in an historic property. But, after failing to resolve a lease dispute, the restaurant closed only 14 months later. The space stayed empty for a year, its dark windows reminding us daily of what we almost had.

Well, prepare to rejoice again because Chef Spencer Thompson and bartender/General Manager, Brandon Baker, have reopened the space, calling it the Alberta Hotel Bar & Kitchen.

Spencer will be sourcing most of the fruit and vegetables from his own farm as well as from vendors at the farmers’ market. The pork comes from Irving’s farm near Tofield and a group of farmers from Pembina; the seafood is sustainably harvested and the beef is sourced from a group of farms near Innisfail, who, from what I was told, raise them on grass and organic feed.

By the time I stopped in for lunch, and then for dinner, the restaurant had been running for three weeks—enough time for the tweaks to be tweaked and the servers to get a good handle on the food and drink.

This should be a hot spot for lunch: great location, big room, nice setting, and an interesting (yet approachable) menu.

I’m still a fan of the ‘eggs-on-anything-trend’ because soft yolk mixed with other ingredients is never a bad thing. The salad with house-made pancetta, warm egg and frisée sounded perfect. I didn’t realize, though, the troublesome nature of frisée. The spiky leaves pricked the egg causing the yolk to run and cool before the dish got to my table. Plus, the shape of the leaves made it difficult to pick up with a fork. Leaves landed everywhere except in my mouth, and salad dressing is never a good thing on shirts—especially for business people returning to their offices. The good news is that the flavours were fantastic.

Spencer Thompson knows his way around a burger, no question there. The bratwurst burger made of pork and beef actually tasted like pork and beef. Crazy, I know, but so many burgers out there don’t taste like anything. Even through the cheese and sauerkraut, you could taste meat, and even better, it wasn’t cooked to death.

The dinner menu is slightly different and will change depending on availability and seasonality of ingredients.

The night started off with an absent server which left the hostess and servers from the bar side to fill in. It was chaos from the get-go and not once did a manager stop by to check on our table, or any other table nearby.  The cocktails arrived having splashed over the sides of the glasses making everything sticky, and the wine was so warm, it was near undrinkable. We never received any information when the food was placed before us and when we did ask, the servers knew nothing of the product. In fact,  product information varied depending on what staff member we managed to flag down.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the food and drink:

Cocktails

I appreciate seeing the names of the bartenders responsible for creating iconic drinks and the years in which they were invented. General Manager, Brandon Baker, is also responsible for the cocktail side of the room and has a few of his own inventions on the list. This is great news for Edmonton, a city that is starting to get noticed for its cocktail scene. We tried Baker’s concoction called the Absent Sun.

When your first reaction to a flavour is to recoil, you know something’s wrong. Plus, that garnish—brown leaves and all—is pretty sad. The Absent Sun was a dark moment in our dinner. Three of us agreed that this drink tasted and smelled like cologne probably owing to the use of chartreuse, a 110 proof (55% alcohol) liqueur known for its spicy, floral notes. The Ramos Gin Fizz didn’t fare much better. I’m a fan of Eau Claire Gin. It’s a perfume-y gin with a heady bouquet, but I’m not so sure it works in the Gin Fizz.

On the positive side, the prices for craft cocktails here are very reasonable, considering each drink holds two and three ounces of booze.

Appetizers

Not too much searing or seasoning happened here. A diner can handle the high price tag of scallops if they’re cooked properly, but this dish was a disappointment on all levels.

The beef carpaccio, on the other hand, was beautiful. If there was a small dish of finishing salt on the table, I would’ve hit this guy up for a sprinkling here and there.

Bone marrow is a magical ingredient, but these agnolotti had a hard time staying together and what filling was inside those little pockets disappeared in the cooking process. The wild mushrooms, pecorino and celeriac puree saved the day but none of us could find the marrow and no staff could tell us where it appeared in the dish.

Mains

Pork Cheek is a fantastic piece of the pig and Chef Thompson perfectly marries the components of this dish. Earthy mushrooms, rich, tender pork, creamy polenta, tomato jam, peppery arugula and pecorino: The plating leaves something to be desired, but the flavour goes a long way in forgiving. Don’t like polenta? Try this dish and your mind will change.

Plating is an issue overall, as is lack of seasoning. Case in point, the beef dish. The braised beef was the winner here, but the steak, although cooked a perfect medium rare, needed salt, and same could be said about the gravy. At $35, you want to walk away satisfied, right? Credit given for making the rigatoni in-house, and the pasta was perfectly cooked. All the elements worked in this dish—all it needed (I’m tired of saying this) was salt. 

Dessert

I could leave it at “wow” because Pastry Chef, Kai Wong, is a master. Now, if the kitchen and bar can present dishes that make you swoon like Kai Wong’s did, they’ll elevate Alberta Hotel to where it should be—as a premiere dining destination in the city.

The Grand Opening for the restaurant was to take place less than 24 hours later. I hope by then the servers had the correct information and they offered it with confidence. I hope no server told a guest that “the chef said he was too busy to talk”; I hope that they fixed the wine issue (temperature and 50% of the list not available); I hope that the bar executed their cocktails properly—mainly by keeping the liquid in the glass, and I hope that each dish that came out of that kitchen looked as good as it tasted and tasted as good as it looked. A three week ‘soft opening’ should be plenty of time to get ready.

The Alberta Hotel deserves a top notch restaurant to occupy its ground floor. My experience wasn’t the greatest, but I have faith that Thompson and Baker can, and will, deliver. Fingers crossed.

You can listen to my CBC Edmonton AM review here.

Alberta Hotel Bar & Kitchen is located at 9802 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton.