Headquarters in Westman Village satisfies a variety of tastes
Technically speaking, Headquarters — one of southeast Calgary’s newest restaurants — is in a seniors’ residence. The posh dining room is on the main floor of the Journey Club, the unique aging-in-place seniors’ living concept that’s part of the ambitious Westman Village condo complex on Mahogany Lake. But even though Headquarters offers meal plans to the Journey Club’s residents, this new restaurant is purposefully designed to attract other Westman Village dwellers of all ages, as well as customers from all over the southeast and the rest of Calgary.
The atmosphere at Headquarters sits somewhere between a comfortable lounge and a higherend hotel restaurant — the room is filled with high-back booths, cushy chairs and a bar lined with a generous selection of top-shelf bottles. Jay Westman, chairman and CEO of Jayman BUILT, the developer behind Westman Village, personally helped to curate the more than 100 different wine labels in Headquarters’ cellar. On the night I visited, Westman himself was relaxing at the bar, enjoying a selection from the restaurant’s collection of rare, smallbatch whiskies. For a suburban on-site condo restaurant, there’s no doubt that this place is classy.
But Headquarters is really trying to differentiate itself from your standard condo restaurant with its food. The expectation with buzz-worthy restaurants these days, be they in downtown commercial districts, hotels, or suburban strip malls is that chefs will develop seasonally minded menus built on from-scratch preparations and local ingredients. With that in mind, executive chef Jeremy O’Donnell has put together a menu to satisfy a variety of tastes, while exercising his own creativity in the kitchen.
O’Donnell himself has plenty of experience when it comes to private club cooking, coming off a job as executive chef at the Bow Valley Club. But although he definitely will see frequent customers from within the condo development, since Headquarters is accessible to customers beyond the club, O’Donnell is treating this new project like a free-standing independent restaurant.
Headquarters serves both lunch and dinner, with a tapas menu for guests who want a snack in between. One lunch favourite is a fresh roasted turkey club with a twist — in addition to bacon, cheddar, greens and a housemade garlic aioli, the sandwich is served on a fresh Yorkshire pudding bun ($13). Headquarters’ dinner menu offers a range of finer dining options, with highlights like a pesto halibut served with market vegetable noodles and a light tomato garlic broth ($32), six-hour braised Alberta short ribs with confit potatoes cooked in duck fat, roasted corn relish and a tomato chutney ($29) and, for a vegetarian option, a hardy grilled eggplant and three-day marinated tofu salad with roasted sweet peppers and quinoa ($17).
O’Donnell’s mantra is that he likes to have fun in the kitchen, but there’s fun to be had in the public spaces at Headquarters as well. On Thursdays through Saturdays, the lounge turns into a piano bar, with performers passing around song lists so guests can make specific requests. They do a mean version of Purple Rain.
Another perk? Unlike many condo amenities that almost feel like an afterthought, Headquarters has been open since early fall even though construction is still underway at Westman Village. The village’s second restaurant, Chairman’s Steakhouse, is slated to open sometime in 2019.
Headquarters is located at 176 Mahogany Centre S.E., within Westman Village. The restaurant is open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and can be reached at 403313-1051.
Our Daily Brett has been a fixture on 14th Street S.W. for a few years now — but some have found the business, which is a combo of counter-service cafe, food market and catering company a bit hard to get their heads around. To uncomplicate things, ODB has rebranded its catering arm as Salon Catering, offering takeout and delivery options as well as full-service canapé and dinner party event catering.
The menus focus on ODB’s brand of luxurious food made with a slightly homespun rustic edge — think charcuterie boards complete with pickles and preserves, salt cod croquettes, prosciutto wrapped melon and family-style meals of Maritime lobster rolls and whole Koreanstyle Berkshire pigs. For more information, visit saloncatering. com.
It’s already time to start thinking about holiday charity initiatives — and why not start with one that involves cocktails? The Wednesday Room (on Stephen Avenue at 100, 118 8th Ave. S.W.) just kicked off a campaign to support Closer to Home’s Adopt-A-Family program, which supports low-income families who may be struggling over the Christmas holidays. Until Dec. 15, the restaurant is donating $1 for every purchase of its Smokey The Pear cocktail, which is a delightful blend of spiced pear juice, spiced bitters, rum, Cointreau, yuzu and egg white. The staff at the Wednesday Room will use the proceeds to shop for gifts requested by participants in the Adopt-A-Family program. It’s as good a reason as any to share a pre-holiday cup of cheer.