Restaurants in Winnipeg

When the Godinez family opened the first La Bamba in Saskatoon in 2007, part of their impetus was the exhaustion of searching for the authentic bouquet of flavours that bursts forth in traditional Mexican dishes. "We were tired of trying restaurants that pretended to be Mexican," Juan Godinez says on La Bamba's website, "but were never [finding] the real flavours we were craving." Their solution was that first restaurant in Saskatoon, whose success has bloomed into a family of four Mexican eateries. When La Bamba Restaurant opened downtown with partner Edgar Rascon in 2012, the Winnipeg Free Press heralded its arrival, grouping it into a buzz-worthy trend of new restaurants popping up in the city centre. Today, the restaurant clings to its culinary roots by serving up homestyle enchiladas, chipotle-beef tacos, and chilaquiles, with gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan options for those with dietary restrictions and those who firmly believe that they're stegosauruses.

Owner Chris Fougere has a hand in every aspect of Fude Inspired Cuisine & Wine Bar—from personally interviewing the staff to coming up with names for each of the menu’s equally inventive dishes. A seasoned player in the restaurant industry, Chris uses every ounce of his creativity to create a truly inspired dining experience, saying, “Our goal, in no uncertain terms, is to wow our guests." The menu features culinary classics with a twist, such as free-range chicken skewers dunked into a dark-chocolate sauce or sushi-grade ahi tuna seared in locally roasted espresso. Nearly every dish highlights seasonal, Manitoba vegetables, meats, and seafood, backed by an assortment of vegan and gluten-free fare and tofu shadow puppets.

In addition to the dine-in experience, Fude offers lunch, dinner, and cocktail-party catering services ranging from appetizers only to four-course meals with wine parings. An extensive drink menu features classic and house-formulated martinis as well as Fude-exclusive house wines that are named by Chris himself.

Inside a dining room painted with the bright blue and white of Greece’s flag, Olympia Diner's servers whisk plates of tender marinated lamb, feta-stuffed chicken breast, and prime rib to awaiting diners. During lunch, guests wrap their mitts around American-style bacon cheeseburgers or divvy up Greek-influenced pizzas topped with black olives, tomato, and feta. For dinner, they can warm up their palates with a giant, crisp Greek salad, before freeing morsels of grilled seafood and vegetables from kebob skewers, only to dash their hopes by immediately eating them.

Hailing from India, Manoj Kumar, Roadhouse Eatery's owner and executive chef, prepares a multicuisine menu with North American, Indian, and Mediterranean leanings. In his eatery's spacious dining room, enrobed with vibrant primary colours and equipped for crowds with plenty of casual tables, plates of baby back ribs in housemade barbecue sauce rub elbows with piles of greek pasta, as well as healthful meals of curried chickpeas and French-inspired salad niçoise. After meals, diners can decompress with a game of pool in the lounge or sidle up to the bar where staffers pour wines, mix cocktails, and scold citrus fruit for trying to run away.

At Darakeh, kebabs marinate for as long as 24 hours before they’re roasted over an open flame. This attention to detail—as well as large helpings of “glorious, buttery” basmati rice—helped Darakeh to make the _Winnipeg Free Press_’s 2011 list of best small restaurants in Winnipeg. In addition to the usual kebabs, chefs showcase less commonplace delicacies such as Persian-style beef stew seasoned with dried limes and fried eggplant blended with persian whey.

BiBi’s on Corydon’s chef and owner Essi weaves techniques and flavours of his native Persian cuisine into classic Greek dishes. Equipped with culinary skills refined at the nearby White Tower Restaurant and in his hometown of Shiraz, Iran, Essi sprinkles a flurry of Persian saffron and spices onto beef and chicken entrees and douses savoury lamb meat with house-made tzatziki sauce. The dining area's striking black chairs contrast the room's neutral colour palette as two flat-screen TVs illuminate the casual lounge area from behind a bar whose sleek wooden top doubles as an after-hours bowling lane for Lilliputian guests. To bolster the eatery’s cache of internationally tinged fare, bartenders dispense an array of libations, including domestic and imported beers and wines from Greece, Chile, and Australia.