ALBERTA BEEF BIG IN BANFF
New Steakhouse off to a sizzling beginning
For over three decades, Le Beaujolais ruled the corner of Banff Avenue and Buffalo Street as Banff’s premier independent restaurant. So when owner Albert Moser decided to retire and sell the restaurant earlier this year, Mike Mendelman was quick to make an offer.
But Mendelman, who owns a slew of other Banff establishments from the Maple Leaf and Park Distillery to High Rollers and the Dancing Sasquatch, wanted to do something very different from the classic French cuisine of Le Beaujolais.
“No one has really captured the true Alberta beef experience in Banff,” says Mendelman. “I’ve been planning to do a steak house for a long time. I thought about it when I converted Giorgio’s to Park but that was just too big.”
So, at just over 100 seats, Le Beaujolais made the perfect spot for Chuck’s Steakhouse (101 Banff Avenue, 403-762-4826).
Few vestiges of Le Beaujolais remain. Design was ably handled by Kelly Morrison of Frank Architecture & Interiors.
The double entry staircases — off both Banff Avenue and Buffalo Street — are still there but now you arrive in a leathery, woody lounge. Heavy, leather-wrapped chairs sit on dark wood-plank floors, shining under new lamps and wagon-wheel chandeliers.
The main dining room is now split with a long, two-sided banquette and book-ended by a new fireplace but prime seats still survey the corner of Banff and Buffalo. The space is woodier and more western-themed than before, exuding a western elegance appropriate for the beefy theme. Heavily cushioned, curved booths line the walls, some with brands showing on the leather. At the back, Moser’s former office has been converted into a 12-seat private room and chuckwagon tarps will be hung to close off other areas for private dining. And the wine cellar is filled with globally sourced, “steak-centric” reds and hearty whites in an 80-20 split.
The area that formerly housed Le Beaujolais’ Cafe de Paris is now part kitchen and part seating. This is the grilling area, where steaks are seared over mesquite and then rested for a few minutes before being finished in a 1600 F Montague grill. It’s a two-stage process that executive chef Sal Polizzi says brings out the best in the beef.
And beef is what Chuck’s has in abundance, from a 10-ounce, 28-day wet-aged Prime New York ($38) and a Sterling Silver 16-ounce, 45-day dry-aged bonein rib-eye ($60) to a 10-ounce, Brant Lake Wagyu strip loin ($60) and Chuck’s burger with fries ($19). There’s even a “Tasting Plate” of three striploins — Brant Lake Wagyu, grass-fed Alberta, and USDA — to compare (three ounces each for $60).
The price is a bit bracing — sides and sauces are extra. Seven bucks for a baked potato with pork belly, broccoli, cheddar sauce and sour cream or creamed spinach with egg. Three bucks for Bearnaise or peppercorn or smoked blue cheese sauce.
Appetizers fit the steak house mould with onion soup ($14), an iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese, crisp pork belly, watermelon, red onion and ranch dressing ($16), tableside Caesar salad ($16) and steak tartare with poached egg, pear, radish and truffle oil ($17).
For the non-red-meat fan, there’s a salmon dish, a halfchicken and a dish of mushrooms and dumplings in a smoked onion sauce with peas, roasted tomatoes, and pine nuts. And desserts cover steak-house classics with a mud pie, berries Jubilee and an ice cream sundae — using McKay’s ice cream.
To build Chuck’s, Mendelman has drawn on the decades of experience he has in his Banff restaurant team. Chef Polizzi has been with Mendelman for 17 years at the Maple Leaf, at Giorgio’s and Park.
Assistant general manager Carrie McKenna has sixteen years of service, mostly at Maple Leaf, and Steve Bozik has returned to Banff from Victoria to assume the role of general manager. He cut his management teeth with Mendelman years ago.
As for business, Chuck’s has been humming since it opened just a few weeks ago, even though it’s open daily for only dinner. All the members of the team say they have never seen Banff busier than this summer, even busier than last year’s boom. It’s packed with Canadians staying home, Americans taking advantage of the dollar and Europeans and Asians looking for a “safe” vacation. And bookings look strong through September. And who is Chuck? He’s Mendelman’s father, now seventy-eight and retired in Calgary, where he was born.
Chuck remembers Calgary dining in the 1950s and 1960s and the early days of Hy’s. Chuck’s is a tribute to those times as well as to the man himself, and a meaty tribute to the Alberta beef industry.