Calgary Ropes In the World with Its Stellar Food and Drink Culture

Calgary has been an impressive food city for more than a decade and it has taken a step up recently with the achievements of its culinary community.

Here are seven entrepreneurs and chefs who are drawing international attention for their Calgary-based initiatives.

Darren MacLean of Eight, Nupo, and Shokunin: As talented a chef as there is in Canada, MacLean has propelled his restaurants to national notoriety.

MacLean runs an annual Chef Cultural Exchange program where he invites gastronomic leaders from around the world to explore Calgary and the farms in its vicinity. He also advocates for others in Calgary’s restaurant scene, including some of those featured in this article.

Each of his restaurants is distinct. Eight is MacLean’s opus devoted to Canada and its range of cultures. The journey begins (and ends) in After Eight, the acclaimed speakeasy hidden inside the ALT Hotel in Calgary’s East Village. Following cocktails and snacks, diners are led into the intimate restaurant whose name refers to the number of seats it holds. MacLean and his team proceed to deliver one of the finest meals you can have in Canada, with the nation’s history and multicultural identity at the heart of the tasting menu. Some of the highlights from my visit included: an Italy-inspired “oregano” course with garden tomatoes, grapes and a tangy romesco sauce; agnolotti pasta featuring Alberta’s delicious Taber corn; Japanese-inspired chawanmushi with snow crab; and Yukon caribou with mushrooms foraged by MacLean and the visiting chefs.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Adrian Brijbassi (@adrianbrijbassi)

In the lobby level of the ALT Hotel is MacLean’s love letter to Japan, Nupo. It features an exceptional omakase experience that includes the single best piece of nigiri I have ever tasted: smoked sablefish (or gindara), aged for seven days, and served with togarashi, scallions and miso. In Calgary’s Mission district is Shokunin, the longest-running establishment in MacLean’s collection. Dubbed a Japanese gastropub, it debuted in 2015 and is beloved by Calgarians for its yakitori. Grilled chicken, including all the off bits that are usually tossed, is given an authentic touch.

Paul Rogalski and Olivier Reynaud of Rouge: Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026, Rouge has been one of the legends of Canadian dining during the 21st century. Located in a historic building previously owned by one of the founders of the Calgary Stampede, Rouge was inspired by French and California restaurants. With its own garden, the restaurant has the kind of bounty chefs covet for freshness and consistency.

Famously, Rouge ranked among the World’s 100 Best Restaurants in 2010, a moment that changed the fortunes of its co-owners. Chef Paul Rogalski made the trip to London to accept the award for placing 60th on the ranking and says it was one of the greatest moments of his life. Business partner Olivier Reynaud, Rouge’s beverage director, recalls hearing the phone ring for four straight days as connoisseurs from around the world sought reservations following the recognition.

The accolade changed their lives but didn’t deter their way of doing business. “Rather than try to figure out why we got on the list, we decided to just keep doing what we were doing,” Reynaud says.

What Rouge does is, and always has been, sensational. These days the kitchen reins are manned by chef de cuisine Dean Fast, who is mentored by the owners. The creativity on the plate remains a spark — literally. The Potato Leek Soup is lit aflame tableside. A tincture of marjoram in the bowl is the fire-starter. It brings the campfire indoors for a hearty and elegant course. A standout dish on a menu replete with them.

Kristen Livingston of River Café: While not an owner, Livingston is embracing her role as executive chef of Calgary’s iconic destination restaurant with an entrepreneur’s spirit for high quality and distinctiveness. Set in Prince’s Island Park, River Café has drawn diners for generations because of its idyllic location steps from downtown yet ensconsed in nature along the Bow River.

Livingston matches that splendid dropback with dishes that celebrate the produce and game near Calgary. The Benchmark Beef Tartare features cured egg yolk, edible flowers, seaweed, and asparagus, alongside housemade sourdough. It takes Alberta’s most famous product and elevates it with elegant touches that display the chef’s talent and inventiveness. The eggplant is sophisticatedly plated with a maple-miso glaze that adds sweetness to a nightshade that too often is bitter. In another dish, Arctic char melts with flavour thanks to greed goddess dressing that Livingston uses on the fish. And there’s much more to like on the menu. In its current iteration, River Café is a key player in shaping the perception of Calgary’s dining scene on its own, thanks to its location and timeless popularity with local and visiting diners.

Shovik Sengupta of Calcutta Cricket Club: Sengupta, a first-generation Canadian, was inspired to launch Calcutta Cricket Club after a visit to India. He thought Calgary was ready for a more upscale Indian restaurant and he was right. His business partners, including his wife, have been so successful they were able to move Calcutta Cricket Club from its original location on raucous 17th Avenue to an immense new space on trendy 1st Street SW. The swanky spot is often lively with convivial patrons on the weekends.

“There was one Saturday night recently when I was in here with a friend and we looked around and we were the only men in the restaurant. I thought that was pretty cool. That women feel comfortable here and see it as both a safe place to be and one with food and drinks that they like is one of the best compliments we can get,” Sengupta said.

The restaurant features primarily Bengali cuisine, with a number of dishes that will convince you to return for a second helping. They include oysters with a tamarind mignotte, curried cod that has been wrapped in banana leaf, a chaat filled with potatoes and served with a tamarind chutney, and flavourful beef tartare on sourdough. None of the spices on the dishes I tried were exaggeratedly hot; instead, there was a complexity and sensory-pleasing quality to the flavours.

Jeremy Hube of Pizza Culture: After landing on an international list of best pizza places in the world, Pizza Culture went from trendy to out-of-this-world popular. “We were making $350,000 through Uber Eats and we stopped it because I wanted to focus on the customer experience. Customers can still do takeout but we want them to come and pick up their order so they see what is happening here, see the vibe we’ve created,” says Jeremy Hube, the owner and chef.

A reason for that vibe is the Pizza Culture oven, which was imported from Naples and creates authentic Neapolitan pies. They live up to the reputation. There are two-dozen pizza selections on the menu, along with other classic Italian options. Pizza Culture has put in the effort and expense to be a standout. The result is a crowd-pleaser and one that visitors to Calgary will want to check out for a casual-dining outing that won’t disappoint.

Anne Sellmer of Cōchu: Sellmer, owner and chocolatier, was a stay-at-home mom for 13 years before her kids urged her to follow her passions. The result has been one of the most phenomenal recent success stories for a Canadian small business. Sellmer is the only Canadian to earn a 6-star Grand Master designation in her craft and one of only 10 in North America to do so. Cōchu has won 86 national and international awards for chocolate-making, including 52 in the world finals. Perhaps most amazingly is the fact Sellmer ships to 100 businesses globally — some of them in Switzerland, the nation considered the standard bearer for commercial chocolate.

The chocolates are as fantastic as they look. Truffle flavours include Masala Chai, Cherry Gin, Bourbon Caramel and Pecan, and many, many more. Plus, lots of creations that anyone would consider works of art.

By the way, “cōchu” is an amalgamation of the names of Sellmer’s three sons — one way for her to never forget the inspiration for her shop.

Daniel Plenzik of Bridgeland Distillery: A passion for fine spirits drove Plenzik and his business partner to launch Bridgeland, which has won global accolades for its single-malt selections. One popular Bridgeland product showcases Taber corn; another, Supercello, is made specifically for MacLean’s restaurants. Impressively, Plenzik has also learned to work with Calgary’s unique climate.

“The Chinook winds we see in Calgary force the spirit in and out of the barrel. We are at high elevation and in a dry climate. Scotland is at mostly a low elevation and it is humid. The effect is we lose 7% of our volume in the barrel, where in Scotland distillers only lose 2%, typically. That’s due to the differences in our location and theirs, but the Chinook pressure and its impact and the impact of our geography also means a three-year-old single malt here tastes like a 10-year-old single malt from Scotland,” Plenzik says.

There’s truth in that. The Bridgeland products are surprisingly dark and smooth for such young spirits. Like so much else in Calgary’s food-and-drink scene, it is deserving of its standing among the best in the nation, if not the world.