LEYDA’S: A GLUTEN FREE HAVEN
Just what the doctor ordered
I wonder how many restaurants in Canada are owned by medical doctors? Not as investments, but for the love of food. In Saskatoon, I am aware of two. The Golden Pagoda is owned by Dr. Brian Colquhoun and his wife, Rosemary, who wanted a place where Saskatoon’s Burmese community (and all the rest of us) could enjoy the foods of his home country.
More recently, Leyda’s Cafe was opened by Dr. DeeDee Maltman, a physician with an interest in allergies and integrative medicine. Leyda’s menu is gluten- and nut-free with a strong emphasis on scratch cooking with organic and locallygrown ingredients.
I arrived with two girlfriends well before lunch hour. We had our pick of tables and I took a slow snoop around the restaurant, peeking into the busy kitchen and a cosy private dining room at the back.
The decor is bright and homey with country artifacts on the walls and flashes of barnyard red, with fixtures of grain-bin stainless steel, warm wood and industrial black.
My first impression was “clean” which, the owners may tell you, applies equally to the decor and the food.
There is no deep fryer. Salad greens are grown in an “urban cultivator” that looks like a cross between a fridge and a greenhouse. The water is filtered.
There’s an emphasis on anti-inflammatory foods like fruits and whole grains that apparently keep us healthy on the inside while pleasing the palate on the way down.
For a gluten-free restaurant, there’s plenty of bread on the menu, and I challenge anyone to tell the difference. The wheat-free bread served with my quiche was freshbaked deliciousness.
The quiche crust, according to the menu, is made with quinoa. It was much better than those pre-made commercial crusts that are standard fare in most restaurants. Served with a side salad of fresh-picked greens, it was the perfect lunch.
Jenn ordered the vegetarian casserole — baked spaghetti squash and spinach in a flavourful tomato sauce with plenty of cheese. It took a long time to come to the table but, as our server explained, it’s baked from scratch, not pre-baked and reheated.
Sue had the Salt Spring Island mussels. They were plump and plentiful, served in a nice curry sauce. She requested a spoon to enjoy the last drop. No point in letting such a yummy broth go to waste.
Sue had ordered a side of arugula salad which, as it turned out, was unavailable so the kitchen switched in a pasta salad. This was unfortunate as she had just said, while waiting for our food, “I like pasta and I like salad, but I don’t like them together.”
She would have preferred my fresh greens. I suppose our server should have asked.
We also had to ask for butter. I got the impression it isn’t standard. Usually, I don’t eat the crumby bread served with restaurant meals (especially the ubiquitous garlic toast) but this fragrant slice, smeared with butter, was too good to send back to the kitchen.
Our desserts were healthy concoctions of fruit, pudding and whipped cream served in jelly jars. The fruit tasted like fruit, which is to say, it was not an over-sweetened, under-whelming commercial preserve. It was a fitting end to a filling meal.
As mentioned, Leyda’s was quite empty when we arrived. By 12:15 p.m. it was packed and by 12:30 p.m. there was a line at the door.
We also observed a rising crescendo in the ambient noise. Perhaps the tall white walls and reflective steel accents create a sort of echo chamber in which it becomes increasingly difficult to rise above the other voices in the room.
Those wishing for an intimate and quiet setting might avoid the peak of lunch hour.
The Maltman family owns several properties in Riversdale where Leyda’s resides near the corner of 20th Street and Idylwyld.
They were responsible for tearing down the Barry Hotel, a long-term residence that had become a scourge on the street, setting the stage for urban renewal.
If you have not yet observed the transformation of 20th Street, a visit to Leyda’s opens a window on the changes happening in this part of town.
Note the soft etching in the glass of the front door, a 2,400-year-old quote from Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine: Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. I am also reminded of a quote from Gandhi: Be the change you want to see.
Leyda’s is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Lunch is served until 2; supper service begins at 5 p.m. Lunch entrees are $12 to $15; evening entrees $20 to $25; pizzas $13 to $15; desserts $6.