Feast your heart out

Restaurants & Featured Dishes 2024

Whether you’re a die-hard foodie, or just a person with tastebuds, there’s a pasta for (nearly) every palate. From ravioli to bucatini, malfadine to rotolo, get familiar with this year’s lineup. Calgary’s best chefs are serving up fresh takes on nostalgiac flavours this year, and you won’t want to miss out!

Chef Kelvin Lau

Tortellini

Filled with prosciutto and Parmesan cream, served in brodo with a drizzle of basil oil—this tortellini is my Italian take on a childhood favorite. Growing up, Chef Kelvin’s family owned the Golden Inn, an iconic Calgary spot where he and his brothers spent countless hours doing homework, and waiting out for closing time. Too loud or distracted? Their ‘punishment’ was folding wontons in the kitchen—simple, small, and pinched just right, served with chicken the perfect broth. Folding hundreds a day was his very first introduction to cooking. This dish is a tribute to those memories, blending the simple comfort and beauty of wonton soup with a bright Italian twist.

Chef Tyler Goddard

Korean carbonara

Growing up, Chef Tyler’s favourite dish was always his mom’s tuna casserole made with pantry staple, Campbell’s mushroom soup. As he got older and more adventurous, he couldn’t resist adding way too much hot sauce! This spicy, creamy seafood pasta is his take on those nostalgic flavors, though Mom’s tuna casserole will always be the GOAT.

Chef Jack Coetzee

Bucatini Bolognaise

Spaghetti bolo was the very first dish Chef Jack ever learned to cook and his family ate a lot of it growing up. Researching classic bolognese recipes as a kid, Jack found a recipe that contained pork, beef, and a couple of spices. It dawned on him that “boerwors” the South African sausage he grew up with was pretty damn close. He began using that in his bolo’s, improving each time he made it. Cooked the classic way, ragu spiced with black pepper and coriander served with bucatini pasta and finished with pecorino, chef Jack’s current iteration on this timeless family staple is no less than delicious.

Vegetarian

chef Jongwon Park

Squid Game

Ever wanted to try squid ink pasta? This anchovy, caper, and squid with squid ink linguine and a vibrant tomato medley harkens back to Chef Jongwon’s childhood memories in Korea, when he couldn’t eat raw fish like the grown-ups. His family was always sure to substitute the fish in each dish for squid. Later in life Jongwon spend a lot of time in an Italian kitchen in Niagra, Ontario. With its fresh herbs and simple ingredients - Italian cuisine has always felt familiar and comforting, reminding him of his roots and the flavours that have shaped his culinary journey.

Nut-free, dairy-free.

Chef John Beddoes

Pork Ragu

Broek Acres Slow-Cooked Berkshire Pork with hand-made cavatelli and house-made ricotta—this dish is a nod to Chef John’s childhood pasta ritual. Before every hockey game, he’d whip up a bowl of pasta precicely 3 hours before game time. While he wasn’t the best cook at first, I quickly learned two key lessons: always cook out the onions for maximum flavor and let the sauce reduce to the perfect consistency. This year’s dish brings it all together, with roasted onions and a rich, buttery braising liquid that brings back those early cooking memories.

CHEF Ryan Cormier

Beef and Mushroom Ravioli

Beef, prosciutto, and mushroom ravioli in a rich garlic cream sauce—a fun and unexpected twist on the comfort of Campbell’s mushroom soup. Chef Ryan has taken those nostalgic, familiar flavours and given them a fresh, elevated spin, bringing that cozy childhood favourite to life in a whole new way.

CHEf Christian Konrad

Gnocchetti Tirolese with side Winter Flores and Pine Salad

Also named Cheese Spaeztle, this Austrian dish was a frequent favourite in Chef Christian’s household as his parents were Austrian immigrants. Often served in mountain huts while winter skiing or summer hiking, you cant go wrong with a healthy portion of alpine cheese. This dish connects Chef Christian’s heritage with his apprenticeship years working in the Tyrolean Alps, and skiing on days off.

Vegetarian.

CHEF Guillermo Hernandez

Spaghetti a la Fideua

Fideuà, the lesser-known cousin of paella, hails from Valencia and means 'large amount of noodles.' This version blends fresh seafood with a rich lobster sauce made from lobster bones, tomatoes, paprika, and a hint of cumin. For Chef Guillermo, this dish brings back memories of childhood summers in Caracas, Venezuela. At the end of the school year, his family would head to the beach freshly made-to-order Fideuà was the ultimate reward and an exercise in patience that was always well worth the wait.

chef Ethan Campbell

Maple Walnut Ricotta Ravioli

Drawn from two specific memories of Chef Ethan’s childhood, this dish features: candied onion, ricotta agnolotti with sage butter, toasted walnuts, and maple sugar. The toasted walnuts and maple components are reminiscent of bike rides in Radium, British Columbia, where maple walnut ice cream was an absolute non-negotiable. The sage and onion elements are a tribute to his grandma’s roasted chicken, capturing the essence of her cooking that always filled the house with warmth and unforgettable aromas.

Vegetarian.

chef Mike Pigot

Smoked Salmon & Spinach Mafaldine

Inspired by Chef Mike’s mom Pat’s comforting spinach & feta pastry. Growing up near the coast in British Columbia, salmon was always staple — This dish takes the combination of these rich and fresh flavours of his familiar favourites: spinach, fennel veloute, feta, fresh dill, and smoked salmon to create something new but oh so delightfully reminiscent on those memories.

Vegetarian.

chef Kristen Livingston

Beefatelli!

A play on Beefaroni: Hand rolled rye cavatelli: Sauce tomate with beef fat roux, Beef tendon crumb, Beef and fennel sausage. In River Cafe fashion, they’ve used the best local produce and ingredients to elevate a nostalgic classic - some Broxburn tomatoes, Benchmark beef sausage and tendon, and Highwood Crossing rye, to name a few.

chef Dong Hyeon Lee

Rotolo

Chef Don’s nostalgic spin on the memory of watching his grandmother lovingly craft Gimbap rolls for the family (and sneaking a piece or two in the process). This playful take on a family favourite features fresh spinach and ricotta, paired with carrot and parsnip purée, olive and sundried tomato tapenade, and a touch of hazelnut.

Vegetarian, Tree nuts can be removed for allergy.

chefs Amit,Tony and roy

Seafood Culurgiones

Savor the nostalgia of sunlit summers by the sea with handmade saffron infused pasta, filled with prawns, lobster, crab, and mussels. A rich, creamy rose sauce with a touch of Parmesan and basil blend a traditional Sardinian dish, culurgiones, with the seafood flavours from a childhood Italian summer, bringing those memories to life with every bite.

chef Stefan Gusztak

Vegetarian Pasta Salad

In-house made Farfalle pasta with olive tapenade, feta, red pepper, and za’atar—this dish is what Chef Stefan calls "regression therapy,” playfully and artfully redeeming those not-so-great pasta salads that seemed to appear at every family party growing up, proving they can be just as delicious as we always hoped they’d be.

Vegetarian.

chef Matthias Fong

Campfire Rock Crab Pasta

Featuring smoked Rock Crab and Fogo Island Shrimp bathed in brown butter hazelnut cream sauce, hand-rolled linguine, and bright peas — this dish takes us back to childhood camping trips by the coast. Chef Matthias’s family cooked what they caught, making rock crab a rare treat they often cooked over the campfire for what he recalls as “breakfast of luxury, straight from the ocean” before heading back home.

chef Dean Fast

The Magnificent Chicken Ravioli

Just like Dean’s ultimate comfort food: his Mom’s “Lazy Lasagna,” whipped up with leftover bits from the fridge, layered with so much care and warmth. This dish features two chicken preparations with sage butter cream and cured egg yolk, wrapped in a playful two-toned hand-made ravioli.

chef Dirk Mccabe

Crozets de Savoie

‘Crozets’ aka a lil’ rustic square French pasta partially made with buckwheat flour are known to be made by French housewives in the 17th century.

Chef Dirk’s memories stem from simple comforting dishes made completely off the ranch in Colorado; moms homemade pasta, garden onions, fresh made pork sausage, and grandmothers fresh mountain cows cheese. A taste of nostalgia, his take includes caramelized shallots, toulouse sausage, tomme de savoie.