Escapes & Adventures
AS CALGARY’S CULINARY LANDSCAPE expands to keep pace with its population growth, the city is becoming a hub for surprising sips, offbeat eats and immersive arts. Here are two different ways to experience the sophisticated side of the new Wild West.
Calgary’s cocktail scene is one of the hottest in Canada — and the city’s no slouch when it comes to arts and culture, either. Discover the best of both worlds with our guide.
CULTURE By Shelley Arnusch
EAT Calgary has a bona fide culinary scene but, understandably, more than a few visitors to a place colloquially known as “Cowtown” want to get themselves a proper steak in an authentic steak house. It doesn’t get much more authentic than Caesar’s Steak House. Pushing five decades in business, the downtown institution has long been the go-to for oil execs celebrating big deals, and pulling up a dark-red-leather-upholstered seat here also puts you in the company of Brad Pitt, Robert Duvall and countless other celebs who have passed through.
STAY The first thing you need to know about Hotel Arts, the 185-room boutique hotel that anchors the inner-city Victoria Park neighbourhood, is that its name isn’t just lip service. From Joe Fafard’s cow sculpture Rita to Barry Fairbairn’s whimsical glassworks adorning the ceiling of the entryway, the hotel’s lobby is a contemporary art gallery in its own right. The hotel is also mere blocks from several of the city’s artistic institutions of note, including Arts Commons, the Glenbow museum and Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre.
COCKTAILS By Alexandra Pope
EAT A relative newcomer to the bohemian Inglewood neighbourhood, Gorilla Whale serves up “Japanese-ish” cuisine in a hip, casual setting. The playful decor — think stuffed Pokémon toys and colourful vintage rock concert posters — hints at what’s to come. On the menu, ramen and yakitori live side-by-side with more offbeat creations, such as the PB & J foie gras with lemon-almond butter and passionfruit sauce. On the “dranks” side of the equation, cocktails put sake in the spotlight. The Paper Crane, a fruity, spicy concoction built around a base of gin, sake and Bénédictine D.O.M. liqueur, is a perfect complement to the umami “gorilla rice.”
STAY The elegant Le Germain Hotel at the foot of the Calgary Tower is just steps away from some of the hottest cocktail spots downtown, including Klein/harris, which puts a distinctly Canadian spin on reliable favourites (try their take on a Tom Collins, made with spruce and maple syrup and finished with maple smoke), and Native Tongues Taqueria ( ABOVE), where you can sample mezcal, tequila’s trendy cousin. Feel like staying in? Drift downstairs to Lounge Central 899, the hotel’s lobby bar, and sip a warm and herbal “Char-flower.”
PLAY The rolling foothills just southwest of the city limits are where you’ll find the Leighton Art Centre, a gallery and museum created out of the home and workshop of the late artists A.C. and Barbara Leighton. Key figures in the art history of Alberta, the Leightons’ legacy provides visitors with the stunning view of the Rockies depicted in so many of A.C. Leighton’s celebrated landscape paintings. PLAY With a wall-to-wall bar sure to inspire fantasies of swinging from its wooden ladder à la Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Proof has shot to the pinnacle of Calgary’s bar scene since opening in 2015. The menu includes some off-the-wall creations — the Dune- inspired Arrakis Awakening combines mezcal, rum, coffee, wasabi and agave, for instance — but the bartenders are happy to mix you something classic off-menu.