Cheese, please!

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This article was published 31/08/2020 (2201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ashley Hebel has created a hamburger homage to a Manitoba tradition sidelined by the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Not a lot of people got to have their (wedding) social this summer,” says Ashley Hebel, head chef at Frenchway Café on Corydon Avenue. “That was where the hamburger idea came in… it’s basically a social sandwich.”

The establishment is one of 131 local restaurants participating in Le Burger Week ( from Sept. 1 to 7 and this year Hebel is serving a garlic sausage patty on a ryebread croissant, topped with mustard, ripple chips, pickles and marble cheddar, all of which are sourced from local suppliers.

The café entered the national food festival for the first time in 2019 and took home fifth place locally for its Manitoba-themed honey-dill chicken burger. Taking part again, even during a pandemic, was an easy decision.

“It draws so much attention to your business,” Hebel says. “It was definitely a no-brainer to do it this year.”

Burger Week — dubbed Le Cheeseburger Week for 2020 — is a cash cow (literally, in most cases) for restaurants, thanks to Winnipeg’s apparent love for hamburgers and themed food events. Frenchway quadrupled its expected burger sales last year and the city regularly has the most participating restaurants in Canada.

“We’ve had the same amount of interest, if not more… from restaurants,” says Daniel Gurevich, co-organizer of Winnipeg’s Le Cheeseburger Week. “I think they view it as a good opportunity to see an increase in business for the week and get back in the swing of things.”

Organizers have made some changes to the festival in light of COVID-19. The usual $600 entry fee has been cut in half for restaurants, and businesses are encouraged to offer takeout or delivery instead of dine-in service.

“We don’t want to seem like we’re promoting people to gather in large groups,” Gurevich says. “Restaurants have their own mandate of how many people that are allowed in their establishment that’s not going to change.”

The organization is also collecting funds for United Way Canada via proceeds from burger sales and online donations in lieu of public voting.

Nuburger has taken home the Le Burger Week title a few times over the last eight years, but co-owner Kyle Matheson isn’t worried about the lack of competition this year.

“That is perfectly fine,” he says. “Honestly, the win is people enjoying the food.”

This year’s festival is gearing up to be a strange one for the veteran participant. Nuburger staff will be wearing masks and there will be takeout tents set up outside its Osborne Village and Regent Avenue locations to reduce traffic inside the restaurants.

“As long as it’s handled properly, I think it’s a good thing for this for the city or for the restaurants,” Matheson said of the festival. “People need some distractions right now and I feel like food is a great distraction.”

There’s a different burger available at each of Nuburger’s three locations: Kyle, a bacon cheeseburger with kale, arugula and tahini parmesan dressing at Regent; Brad, a Greek-inspired beef burger, at Osborne; and Chad, a relatively straightforward burger served with a side of nacho cheese dipping sauce, at The Forks.

Matheson is constantly thinking about new ideas for Le Burger Week and this year, with takeout being the preferred purchase method, it was a priority to go easy on the sauce.

“If burgers were meant to be delivered, they would have been delivered 30 years ago,” he says. “We do have messy burgers and those travel the worst, but these ones are kind of mild on the messiness.”

Longevity has also been a topic of conversation at Frenchway.

“Our burger holds up pretty well because our croissant is the base and it’s a bit of a crispier bun,” Hebel says. “But a lot of places also only plan for in-house because maybe they don’t even do takeout. I don’t think that’s an option this year.”

The café will offer curbside pickup and has posted socially distant lineup markers on the sidewalk.

Jill Osais, the chef de cuisine at Saburo Kitchen, is looking forward to taking part in Le Burger Week for the first time. After being closed for three months earlier this year, the event is a chance for the ramen restaurant at Hargrave St. Market to get creative.

“We’ve been in a pandemic slump,” Osais says. “Let’s just come up with something, have fun with it and see if people would like it.”

Saburo has created a beef, lamb and pork patty glazed with yuzu honey and topped with seared chashu (Japanese pork belly), pickles, miso and wasabi mayo. The restaurant is one of four businesses in the food hall with a Le Burger Week offering and Osais hopes the festival will draw more people downtown.

“It’s slowly starting to pick up a little. We’re getting most of the office people back downtown,” she says. “I hope that even though there’s this pandemic right now, people will still support.”

For a complete list of participating restaurants and their burgers, see leburgerweek.com/Winnipeg/results.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney