FOOD CULTURE TAKES HIT
City misses mark in letting U.S.-based company operate cafe at Victoria Golf Course
Every once in a while, I look around Edmonton and think to myself, “Now it’s a city.”
The reaction is usually in response to something amazing developed by a local innovator. I love the sky-scraping Stantec Tower, and the downtown buzz created by the sprawling arena. I cheer when The Citadel tackles something gutsy, and the Edmonton Fringe Festival makes me burst with pride.
But a real city is more than big art and architecture. It’s also about smaller projects initiated by regular folk, who make the city a better place to live each and every day. As food is my beat, my favourite examples of this are in the food space, where local food trucks, coffee shops, boutique bakeries and independent restaurants are making Edmonton a smart, sophisticated and simply delicious place to live.
One of those local lights, chef Brad Lazarenko, the owner of Culina Muttart and the nowclosed-but-still-lauded Culina Mill Creek, has spent the last 10 years contributing to the city’s burgeoning food culture. And now the City of Edmonton has pulled the rug out from under his feet.
As reported by my colleague David Staples, the city has taken away Lazarenko’s food service contract at the Victoria Golf Course, where he has provided great eats for the past three years. The city has given the contract to Civeo, a giant, Houston-based provider of global workforce accommodations, which apparently serves 50,000 meals a day in Canada.
Civeo will soon be running 10 of 14 food contracts at city recreation centres, facilities and golf courses. According to the city’s Roger Jevne, branch manager for community and recreation facilities, Civeo had a better bid, based on a number of factors including the commission paid to the city, proposed menus and staffing.
Pardon me while I scream into a pillow. It’s hard to know where to begin on the sheer, blind stupidity of this decision. And Mary Bailey agrees with me. She’s the publisher of The Tomato, a local food and wine publication, and former co-chair of the Edmonton Food Council, a body created by the city and based on its 2013 food and agricultural strategy, Fresh, which is supposed to promote local food and the local food industry.
“Bringing in a Houston company, not a local, homegrown person, to run these concessions, is not even in the ballpark of the Fresh strategy,” says Bailey. “It’s supposed to be about homegrown, both businesses and food. I think that it’s a direct slap in the face of the Fresh strategy.”
Bailey is unabashedly a fan of Lazarenko, known for promoting local food long before most were doing it, and who continued that proud record at the golf course, where he served Pinocchio ice cream, salmon burgers by Sgambaro, sausages by Fuge Fine Meats and beer by Bent Stick Brewery.
“They did fun barbecue stuff in the summer, and the food was great. There was no reason not to go there. And now there is every reason not to go there,” says Bailey.
Jevne insists Civeo won’t sell pre-packaged sandwiches at Victoria, but that is hardly the point. The point is that the city is quite competent when it comes to mouthing platitudes about the importance of local food businesses. Indeed, one of several, similar Fresh recommendations is that the city “assist in creating appropriate spaces and opportunities for local food businesses to operate and expand.” But given a chance to support something that’s proudly and successfully Edmontonian, they write a cheque to Houston.
I don’t play golf, but I do crosscountry ski, and Victoria is my go-to of a weekend morning. For years, I would look at the clubhouse, shuttered and empty all winter, and think, “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a place to eat brunch or have coffee after cross-country skiing ?” And then, miraculously, it happened.
Lazarenko took over the space and brought it alive during the long, dark winter season. For nighttime skiers, and those who just love food, Lazarenko developed a signature fondue for the menu, deliciously crafted from cheese by local artisan Ian Treuer of Winding Road Cheese. But the highlight at Victoria was the Nordic Brunch, which ran Saturdays and Sundays. It was renowned for high-quality food at a super-reasonable price, featuring local products.
Jevne says he doesn’t know if the Victoria clubhouse will be open in the winter under Civeo’s direction, as the city is still negotiating with the company. And while he says the city includes the provision of “fresh, local” food as part of its request for proposal guidelines, the actual decision on who will supply the food at Victoria is up to Civeo.
Winter in Edmonton is tough. But I will always remember one bright and sparkling day this winter when the city felt simply perfect. We skied at Victoria, then piled into the restaurant, red-cheeked and sweaty in our ski gear, to enjoy a full-on buffet brunch. While nibbling my pastries from Fan Fan, a small, local patisserie that Lazarenko profiled at his dessert bar, I looked out the clubhouse windows, at the canopy of evergreens twinkling with frost, and thought, “Now it’s a city.”
What makes a city a special place is not just its grand projects or award-winning arts, but the smaller contributions to daily livability in this northern community. Lazarenko has contributed greatly to that livability, and I am beyond discouraged by the city’s wrong-headed decision. I can only hope that a large splotch of mustard lands right on the spanking white golf shirts of the city bureaucrats involved, and their bosses in council chambers, next time they dare to eat a hotdog at Victoria Golf Course.