Over 3000 kilometers, 4-days, loaded truck, loaded trailer. That’s how the a week in mid-April looked like for us.
We took off down the highway right after the Farm Store closed for one of our bi-annual trips to Alberta to pick up various supplies for the bakery, farm store and gardens. We picked up the likes of chicken feed, bales of straw, packaging material, bulk food supplies and so on.
While in Edmonton we often like to explore what the city has to offer on a culinary level, places that might inspire us. Some places we try once and that’s enough, others we go back to each visit.
Since many of us pass through Edmonton at some point or another, be it a road trip, overnight layover, or evacuation destination, we thought we’d share some of our big city favourites from this trip.
Meuwly’s Artisan Food Market – This little shop in the basement of a retail building on 124th Street has become a regular for us. It is like a little local provision shop with an inhouse butchery and processing kitchen. There is a little bit of every, all high quality and all as local as possible. Many different condiments, pickled products, snackables, locally craft drinks, fresh and frozen meats, and sauces, cured meats, and Canadian Bacon, along with fine cheeses and eggs. This is our random go-to place to find a good – dry – Lambrusco, a sparkling red wine from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy (where parmesan and prosciutto are also from).
Uproot Food Collective – This was a first visit for us. This company pegs itself as collaboration of multiple local food companies that helps other local food companies start-up and expand through the use of a shared kitchen and streamlined sales channel. While their storefront was not very stocked – we understand the struggle – we did walk out with some meat pies and dumplings to try. We hope to see this little company expand and bring on more vendors over the coming years.
Italian Centre Shop – Before Eataly took North America by storm there was the Italian Centre Shops in Edmonton. What started and is still thriving in the Little Italy neighbourhood of Edmonton has now expanded to 5 stores across Alberta. However, regardless of the expansion, these shops still feel hyperlocal. All with built-in cheese, meat and olive counters, fresh-daily bakeries, and coffee shops serving up pasties, gelato, pizza, panini, and espresso. All stores offering a mix of high-quality Italian products along with many Alberta made products. No matter the store, you’ll hear Italian being spoken and often yelled throughout the store from staff to the old-timers drinking their espresso in the café. On this trip we visited the West End store and picked up some of their frozen parbaked pizzas to test out, along with several types of marinated olives, tomato sauce and Italian snacks.
Leopard Pizza – We don’t just seek out food stores, we also like to eat in. A new joint we tried was Leopard Pizza, which pegs itself as a neighbourhood pizzeria and bar offering sourdough pizza baked in a brick oven. Settled at the bar overlooking the pizza making, while enjoying a Basil Negroni and Paloma, we got to see and dissect their process, taking notes and picking up subtle tips. The service was fast and our pizzas quick to be made, with their signature leoparding (a term for the little char speckles all over the crust). It’s a small place, good for lunch or dinner if you’re in the Glenora area.
High Dough – This DSP (Detroit Style Pizza) shop has been on our list for a few years now and was really our introduction into Detroit Deep Dish. First on 109th Street, but now in a new location on 104th Street this place has some fantastic concepts like the Meatallica, Kim’s Convenience or Burger, She Wrote. They are fun and hardy pies, but this time we were there for was the lunch time slices. We wanted to compare their daily setup to our Saturday setup. We were pleasantly surprised that we are doing pretty good in comparison on process, service, and price.
There are many other places in Edmonton we like to visit depending on time, day of the week and our schedule, and we’re sure many more places we haven’t discovered yet. However, if you find yourself in Edmonton, we suggest visiting any of the above.
