Cafe serves up Creole food in Mortlach
Little Red Market Cafe has seasonal menus that feature agricultural region’s bounty
One of the best reasons to get out on a good Saskatchewan road trip is to eat at a hidden gem.
It’s even better if that road trip takes you to a restaurant serving cuisine difficult to find elsewhere in the province.
The Little Red Market Cafe is tucked away in Mortlach, just an hour east of Regina. If you’ve never tried Louisiana Creole food, you’re in for a treat.
Chef Chad Forrest is an expert at showcasing the diverse flavours that originated from Louisiana’s immigrant-influenced cultural melting pot.
The food is heavily seasoned, but not necessarily spicy. Forrest, who owns the cafe with his wife, Jamie, and business partner Patrick Rafter, keeps the menus seasonal and incorporates the agricultural region’s bounty, such as lentils.
In the warmer months, the patio overflows with garden boxes full of herbs and tomatoes. Forrest keeps a large garden for the restaurant, too.
Pork comes from a butcher in Morse and he has recently added high-end beef to the appetizer menu.
The snow beef sliders are served on homemade cornbread and topped with creamed swiss chard, garlic dill pickle, pickled red onions and saskatoon berry Dijon.
The beef is a new venture from dairy farmer Ian Crosbie, who has crossed Wagyu with dairy cattle (Holsteins) for a marbled, succulent end product.
“That beef is next-level,” said Forrest. “(When you’re barbecuing) the hamburger, it smells like you’re cooking prime rib.”
So just how does a small restaurant stay afloat in a town of 400?
Word travels fast in rural
Saskatchewan, faster still when it carries news about good food and hospitality.
Forrest’s customers come from Moose Jaw, Regina and Saskatoon, and many from Alberta and Manitoba stop in from the highway.
The cafe is an eclectic and thoughtfully curated space that pays homage to Mortlach’s agricultural roots. Residents have donated items from their antique collections, and several blackand-white photographs of the town’s founding families are on the walls, which is fitting because the building dates back to 1910.
The tables are custom made using wood from an old barn a few miles south of town. That wood carries through as rustic accent pieces on the bar and at the front counter. A now-closed train station in Mortlach supplied the chairs.
You’ll have to get there quick, though. The Little Red Market Cafe is for sale, but not because business is bad. Forrest said the community has been overwhelmingly supportive; he’s just ready for a change.
Or perhaps you know of a few driven entrepreneurs who would jump at the chance to run a little restaurant with an attached liquor retail outlet in the country?
Spread the word — it travels fast in Saskatchewan.