Scozzafava Deli’s turkey pesto Italian hoagie: 22 ounces of goodness
Scozzafava’s Deli is the latest volley in the Italian sandwich invasion of Calgary, joining the likes of newcomer Lil’ Black Rooster and longtime stalwarts Peppino Gourmet Foods and Lina’s Italian Market. Italian or not, it immediately jumps to near the front of my Calgary sandwich line.
Owner Nick Scozzafava has created a short list of tightly wrapped Italian hoagies bursting with flavourful goodness. My turkey pesto is an abundance of shaved turkey, fior di latte, arugula, pesto, pepperoncini and aioli, all stuffed inside a sesame seed bun. It weighs in at 22 ounces, enough to satisfy all those young’uns arriving off 17th Avenue for a late-night Peroni and sandwich.
It’s also a late-night 17th Avenue gathering spot
Me? I’ll be curled up at home in a food-induced coma.
Scozzafava’s Deli 1004 17 Avenue SW, Calgary Tuesday to Sunday, opening at 11 am. Closed Mondays
Fresh-baked pitas are just the start of the excellent shawarmas at Beirut Street Food
A new year, a new project. Inspired by this resolution: Schedule more spontaneous acts into my day.
The project is to discover and celebrate the best eats and drinks in Calgary. The best burgers, the best croissants, the best coffee roasteries, the best brewpubs, the best Lebanese poutine. It’s a long list.
Sought X Found is arguably Calgary’s best combo roastery and coffee shop
The rules: Calgary-based, independent places, serving up excellent fare. (small, regional chains are okay). Bonus points for interesting, even quirky spaces; hello Cold Garden Brewery! I’ll try to stick to one “best of” pick per category, though there will be instances of runners up and “also recommended”.
Cold Garden is certainly Calgary’s quirkiest, dog friendly brewpub.
Prices. I’ve pledged to banish “cheap eats” from my vocabulary, since they scarcely exist anymore. “Affordable” isn’t much better; affordable for who? I try to steer clear of high-end places but am no doubt fighting a losing battle against $20 breakfasts and $25 burgers and fries.
Subjective as hell? Maybe. I favour IPA beers and darker-roast coffees, which may prejudice some picks. The good news is you can comment here on my choices and offer superior alternatives and maybe gems I’ve never heard of.
There’s enough potential best-of categories to make a weekly pick last a year or two. I’ll try to restrict my posts to a paragraph or two. So let’s dig in.
The world’s best carrots beckon
Every couple of weeks, for the past 15-plus years, I’ve made a pilgrimage to the Calgary Farmers Market to pick up a 10-pound bag of Beck carrots. Yes, I’m seriously addicted to this Innisfail-based (central Alberta) grower’s super sweet Nantes carrots.
Ten pounds of the world’s best carrots
Indeed, I defy you to just eat one. Once you’ve been introduced to Becks, you’ll never go back to grocery store imposters that taste like wood. You can thank me later.
Beck Farms Available at Calgary Farmers’ Market south (Thursday to Sunday) and west (Wednesday to Sunday) locations, opening at 9 am
A butter croissant and a sweet scone at fabulous Calgary pastry baker Butter Block
I came for a simple butter croissant. I left with so much more.
Butter Block & Co. makes arguably Calgary’s finest butter croissant, albeit with stiff competition from the likes of Manuel Latruwe, Black Sheep and Yann Haute Patisserie. Butter Block certainly delivered, for me, on all that a winning croissant promises: requisite multiple layers of butter-dripping, crispy yet pillowy pastry.
Yet I couldn’t stop at a single croissant, given the creative diversity that beckoned from Butter Block Café’s display case. I tacked on to my plate a lovely, crumbly sweet scone but could only wistfully gaze at the pain au chocolate, an unusual sesame croissant and the pastel de natas (Portuguese custard tarts), which I once swooned over in Lisbon. Future visits are certain.
The display case kept being replenished with fresh, innovative pastries
What knocked Butter Block out of the park for me was a holy grail quest finally answered—an exceptional bakery paired with an excellent coffee shop. Sometimes you get one but rarely both.
Yet in this cozy midtown Calgary café, everyone else was sipping on lovingly produced pour-over coffees. So of course, I added this to my tab and was rewarded with a smooth, earthy brew. It turns out, Butter Block has worked with David Kim in a Calgary roastery called Paradigm Spark.
The pour-over coffee bar. Soon to disappear?
Is all this too good to be true? Perhaps. Paradigm Spark is leaving the location December 31 in search of its own space, with Butter Block stepping in to fill the coffee void. We’ll see how it goes. But before I left, I made sure to snag a bag of Melody beans roasted less than a week ago.
I snagged some fresh-roasted beans while I could
Butter Block was established in 2017 by Karen Kong, a graduate of SAIT’s Baking and Pastry Arts program. The bakery is across the hall from the café, in the historic Devenish building, and it’s where you can pick up frozen croissants, to be baked at home. That’s because the best croissant is one just pulled from the oven.
Is Trolley 5 the best, liveliest brewpub in Calgary?
Recently, my sister and I were gushing about the wildly popular happy hour at Canmore’s Bridgette Bar. Our one complaint: It was loud and crowded, especially for a Wednesday afternoon.
When I mentioned this to a friend and equally ardent fan of Bridgette’s daily half-price pizzas, he replied (somewhat disdainfully) “It’s not loud, it’s lively!”
Memo to self: 1) I’m old. 2) I need to get out more.
So when said friend suggested going to the “best, liveliest” brewpub in Calgary, I was all in.
As we strolled down 17th Avenue, on a wintery late Saturday afternoon, I was struck by the pulsing scene—eats and drinks places jammed with, yes, young people who I assume live, perhaps carless, in the surrounding Beltline neighbourhood.
Our destination was Trolley 5, a brewpub so hopping that, at 5:45 pm, we had to squeeze into seats at the bar… and there wasn’t even a Flames game on. Of course, we almost had to shout to be heard over the din, amplified by a couple of drunken seat mates.
You can’t beat sitting at the bar
But it was a lot of fun, even for me, a Marathon Mouth diner and drinker who goes out of his way to avoid crowded peak hours.Most important, the beer was tasty; in our case pints of High Five IPA at happy-hour pricing. And the food, often a taproom afterthought, was exceptional—an expansive menu ranging from charred romaine hearts to duck confit banh mi. Our smoking hot wings were among the best I’ve had, and the house-smoked brisket sandwiches divine.
Some of the best wings I’ve devoured
I can see myself working through the menu on subsequent visits. Hail the noise.
P.S. Our bar seats gave us a front-row view of two fast-moving bartenders. I’m guessing keeping up with the beer orders trumped careful pours, judging by the amount of precious suds flowing down the drain.
P.S.S. Trolley 5 refers to the commuter line that once rolled through the Beltline.
Trolley 5 Brewpub 728 17 Avenue SW, Calgary Opens 11:30 am weekdays and 10 am weekends 403-454-3731
In all my years of road-trip dining across western North America, I can only remember ordering crepes a handful of times. The most memorable occasion was Crepes of Brittany in Monterey, California, followed by Amazing Crepes in Whitefish, Montana.
Crepes of Brittany, in Monterey California, is my crepe gold standard
Well, I think I’ve discovered a third fabulous crepe stop: EPI, in an industrial district of Canmore, Alberta. It’s a charming bakery and café that specializes in organic sourdough breads, pastries, and sweet and savoury crepes, using locally grown and milled grains and ancient methods of fermentation.
EPI’s superb sourdough breads
Before ordering food, I snagged a Viking sourdough loaf; the breads tend to disappear by early afternoon. Then it was on to the main attraction— a fine pork loin galette, served open faced and best tackled with a knife and fork—washed down with a nice coffee and a fruit brioche.
An elegant pork loin galette
Yes, it was truly EPIc.
EPI Canmore 4, 102 Boulder Crescent, Canmore, Alberta Tuesday to Saturday 7:30 am-4 pm. Closed Sunday and Monday 825-909-0815
I don’t order soup much at lunch, other than at my Calgary favourite Primal Grounds Cafe, a few blocks down the road. A bowl of soup is generally not enough food for me, and I seem to encounter fewer places that offer the old standby soup and sandwich combo.
But I recently travelled to Cadence Coffee, a longtime hangout in Calgary’s Bowness neighbourhood, for a bowl of its Friday soup special Manhattan clam chowder ($9). It was a nice-sized, tasty serving, along with four slices of buttered sourdough toast. I’d also recommend the oversized breakfast bagel ($9.95).
Cadence Coffee offers a nice Manhattan chowder Fridays
The other reason for my visit was to support Bowness establishments hammered by months-long street closures and detours because of a major water main break. All of Calgary was affected by the resulting water-use restrictions, but none felt it more than the residents and businesses of Bowness.
Marathon Mouth 