A little taste of tapas from the ’Peg
Act 1: Hot night in Winnipeg
I’m in a tight jam, food-wise. On one hand, I want to taste everything at Segovia while I’m in the kitchen of the tapas restaurant. On the other, the real reason I’m in Winnipeg is to meet my girlfriend’s parents. So far Gord and Olga, and Kingston the golden retriever, like me. But tonight is wing night at their place, and if I’m not ready to eat at least a pound, I’m in trouble. Explaining my precarious position to chef Adam Donnelly, that I can either risk offending him or Gord by not eating enough, he pats me on the back and only offers me the smallest bites to sample.
It’s a hot, sticky night in Winnipeg. Yesterday’s rain has brought out the mosquitoes.
It’s hotter still in front of the stove, grill, griddle and deep-fryer at Segovia, in a narrow trench of cooking space where I’m third wheel to Donnelly and cook Chris Gama.
Imagine a canoe built for two on a lake fire. That’s how hot it is and how intrusive I am in this environment, twisting sideways every time a drawer of the lowboy prep fridge is opened to pull out a pinch of Serrano chilies or spoonful of grapefruit segments. But they’re humouring me, putting me on line during service, letting me grill chermoula-coated heirloom carrots, to fry and plate braised pork belly with fishy lime sauce, probably slowing them down more than I’m helping put out dishes for the 30-seat (plus patio) restaurant.
Just so you don’t think my Winnipeg experience was only fancy fare handled with tweezers, the first stop, straight from the airport, was to V.J.’s Drive-In, a chili cheese dog immediately followed by a chili cheeseburger, both melting into my face more than being chewed and/ or swallowed.
In a few days I manage to pack in more burgers and hotdogs (at Salisbury House and Costco), the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (a must), chicken fingers with honey dill sauce at Mitzi’s, nachos at Carlos & Murphy’s, blizzards at Sub Zero Ice Cream and a Bombers versus Argos game (my first footballing ever) where I kept silent along with the other 17,000 in attendance, when Toronto scored what looked like an applause-worthy touchdown. With respect to all these meals, hands down the best food in Winnipeg is at Gord and Olga’s house. I mean, no comparison.
“We try to use local produce, but of course it’s winter six months out of the year. So it’s tough to be super-seasonal.” ADAM DONNELLY CHEF AT SEGOVIA
Act 2: The Spanish Connection
“Winnipeg’s a small city,” says Donnelly, who came here from Pinawa, Man., an even smaller town of 1,000. “You can afford to open a restaurant here on a smaller budget.”
In a quiet afternoon moment when we’re the only ones in the kitchen, Donnelly slices tomatoes and I chop chives while we talk about the local dining scene.
Like most North American cities, the recession triggered a shift in food culture, chefs from high-end places venturing out on their own to open smaller restaurants.
“It was a lot of steak houses doing meat and potatoes,” shrugs Donnelly. “I personally don’t eat like that. Once you take six bites of something, your palate gets tired of it.”
In hindsight, every city was hungry for a small plates and charcuterie, no-reservations restaurant (Segovia opened in December 2009, almost parallel to the Black Hoof in Toronto). But at the time it didn’t feel like a sure bet.
“We were the first people to do that here, tapas, which I was kind of nervous for, people perceiving the value of it.” But five years later on a Thursday night, they can expect to be full without taking reservations. After dealing with herbs — simple tasks chefs often start me with to determine if I’m a moron or a complete moron — chef de cuisine Tara Podaima comes in and Donnelly tells her to give me a real job. She hands me a doughnut recipe, the small batch enough for maybe a half-dozen orders.
When service starts, Podaima brings out the jamon iberico on its mount (the health inspectors won’t let them keep it on display in the dining room), teaching me how to slice the acorn-fed, cured ham. The imported product is expensive. Keeping my hand steady as I try to slice just barely beneath the surface, I cycle from pride each time I manage to extract a long, wispy strip, to shame each time I hack off a tooshort or too-thick piece.
Donnelly would like to use more local ingredients but is proud of the Spanish products he’s bringing in; Galician white anchovies over guacamole and pear on toast, meaty Cantabrico brown anchovies for a special with braised leeks, Manchego and seven-minute poached eggs.
Donnelly and Gama’s short, tight movements on the line belie the speed at which they assemble dishes. The tapas style lets them fire plates in any order they want: They chop raw venison for tartare, smearing it with a tandoori hollandaise, grill flank steak with fried shishito peppers (a stand-in for mild padron peppers, which are hard to get in Toronto, too), all of it super summery, delicious and far from dogmatically Spanish. However, and I can’t stress this enough, not as good as Gord’s wings.
“We try to use local produce,” Donnelly quotes the mantra of all modern chefs, “but of course it’s winter six months out of the year. So it’s tough to be super-seasonal.”
This runs counter to another mantra I hear in Winnipeg; if they don’t have it at Costco, you don’t need it. Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz