Canada's Best New Restaurants: enRoute Feature
#9 Dispatch
We’re sipping our second tepache of the night in a mid‑century‑modern former movie theatre. It’s a fizzy, funky, fermented Latin American drink made with corn and upcycled whey from the kitchen’s labneh‑making process. Geneviève, our dark‑eyed Québécoise server (and in‑house beer expert and welder, who made the hanging plant holder and airplane‑shaped restaurant logo on the wall), explains that the chip or “leather” that garnished my first cocktail was made from the sediment and dehydrated pulp created during fermentation. The secret to the Garden City Sour, a sweet, tart and vivid unfiltered sake and rosé cocktail? It’s oleo saccharum, a.k.a. citrus oil, extracted from lemon rinds salvaged from a local lemonade business.
One bite of the explosively bright tzatziki of fermented cucumber, crispy shallots, dried Turkish mint, Aleppo pepper and spiced brown butter served with Turkish bread shows us what the chef is capable of.
Source: Air Canada En Route
Author: Nancy Matsumoto
Photos: Maude Chauvin