BOW VALLEY – A brand new food series loaded its plate with restaurants in the Bow Valley.
Cuisine of the Rockies, now streaming on the free online platform Tubi, takes host John Gilchrist, a camera crew and his appetite to tourism towns in the eight-episode season, where chefs in Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, and Field share their unique vision on what their eclectic mountain munchies are all about.
“The key thing for me is what the restaurant is trying to do,” said Gilchrist.
“We want to talk to the chef in the kitchen and … then we go out in the dining room and we sit down and we have food and talk about it; we talk about life and living in the Rockies and cooking in the Rockies.”
The new series taste tests at Banff and Lake Louise hot spots such as Waldhaus, Sky Bistro, Hello Sunshine, Alberta Wing Shack, Storm Mountain Lodge, The Prow, Post Hotel; Canmore’s EPICanmore, ânkôr, 4296, Sauvage; and Field’s Emerald Lake Lodge.
Cuisine of the Rockies with John Gilchrist Trailer from Voice Pictures Inc. on Vimeo.
Gilchrist, a seasoned food critic and author who reviewed restaurants for 38 years for the Calgary Herald and CBC Radio in Calgary, among others, was comfortably retired six years before the dinner bell rang on the new series.
He never thought he would come back to do a TV series, and was at first opting to be more in a consultant position. However, for the born and raised Albertan, who grew up on a small farm in dill country south of Edmonton, it’s been a rewarding situation to speak toward the expansive Rocky Mountain cuisine culture.
Gilchrist said many talented chefs come from elsewhere and put their own sensibility into dishes, on top of their influences in their current Rockies surroundings.
“I know the area, I know the people, I know the restaurants fairly well, but we also wanted to create a balance. It’s not all high-end,” said Gilchrist.
“The places I went for were the local establishments I thought deserved a bit of notoriety.”
Cuisine of the Rockies features 17 restaurants, including eateries south of the border in Montana, as well as Jasper's Fiddle River and Syrahs of Jasper, before the devastating wildfire forced evacuations and burned part of the town in July. Syrahs was one of the businesses destroyed in the terrible blaze.
“I just feel so badly about the Jasper situation,” said Gilchrist.
“I know for a lot of people it’s going to be hard to watch that episode where we’re in Jasper where we’re walking the streets and we see everything the way it was before.”
Jason Munn, who was owner and head chef of Syrahs, said plans are to stay in Jasper and create something memorable like Syrahs again.
“The restaurant meant so much to so many people, and that has inspired me to bring that experience to guests again,” Munn said in a message to the Outlook.
When it comes to Rocky Mountain cuisine, it’s not as easily defined as Italy is for pasta or France for baguettes and pastries, but Gilchrist said there’s a bit of room for everything from fresh sushi to barbecued steak to spicy chicken wings cooked in a creative way.
“Going back to what the tourist is looking for, they want something native to the land, native to the waters and mountains and in our area that speaks a lot to the domestic game,” said Gilchrist, citing bison, elk, fresh food from rivers and lakes and seasonal herbs and greens.
He noticed that there was a “big turning point” in Alberta’s food culture in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, right after Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics. It drew an international spotlight on the area, and with the new found fame, more people from across Canada and around the world came to check things out and start a new life.
Additionally, the iconic Banff Springs Hotel has attracted chefs from all over, including Somas Kandajamy, who appears in the series at his restaurant, a local favourite, Alberta Wing Shack.
The food scene has only gotten better with time, said Gilchrist.
“I think it is surprising for a lot of people just how good it is. Sometimes they are surprised by the prices, too,” Gilchrist said with a laugh.
As for coming back for seconds, or a second season rather, Gilchrist said he would enjoy doing another season in the visual storytelling platform ... even if production takes longer.
“They always say, ‘radio is great because you don’t have to wear pants’, but I like doing TV,” he said with a laugh.
“I’ve worked in all mediums and enjoyed them all, but when you see the product that you end up with after working in film and TV, it’s worth that painstaking effort that goes into it.”
Cuisine of the Rockies can be found online at tubitv.com.
