Next stop: Délicieux

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This article was published 10/02/2019 (2610 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Tuesday or Wednesday this week, Curtis Love, manager and sommelier at Resto Gare, long one of Winnipeg’s most romantic dining spots, fully expects to enter into a conversation that will go something like this.

“Good evening, Resto Gare, how can I help you?” Love will say, picking up the phone.

“Hi, I’d like to make a reservation for two for Thursday at 7 p.m., please,” the voice at the other end of the line will utter.

“This Thursday? You mean the 14th?” Love, the son of Resto Gare’s owner Linda Love, will respond.

“Yes, that’s correct. Thursday, Feb. 14.”

“Er, you do know that’s Valentine’s Day, right?” Love will politely point out.

“Oh, is it?” will come the answer, in a somewhat surprised tone.

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“It’s funny how many people call us at the last minute pretending they don’t know it’s Valentine’s, almost like they’re trying to sneak one by us,” Love says, seated in his establishment’s famous, 45-seat railcar lounge, an actual, working observation car when it first rolled onto the tracks in 1914.

“Then they act all shocked when I apologize, saying ‘sorry but we’ve been booked for weeks, already.’ Honestly, we got a call on Feb. 15 last year from a lady who enjoyed her meal here so much the night before, she asked us to put her down for the same table — Table 14 — this week. Isn’t that the best?”

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Resto Gare, originally La Vieille Gare, opened in the early 1970s in a converted Canadian Northern Railway passenger station at 630 Rue des Meurons. Love, a father of one, was two years old in 1983 when his maternal grandfather, Fernand Kirouac, then owner of the Red Lantern, a French steakhouse on nearby Hamel Street, purchased La Vieille Gare.

In a 2016 This City column, Fern Kirouac Jr., owner of InFerno’s Bistro, also on Rue des Meurons, said his dad, a classically-trained chef originally from Montreal, “jumped at the chance” to own a second St. Boniface icon the moment La Vieille Gare hit the market.

The elder Kirouac died in 1990, at which point Linda Love joined her brother at La Vieille Gare to help run the family business with their mother, Irene. Irene retired soon thereafter. Fern Jr. departed in 2001 — he opened InFerno’s two years later — leaving Linda wholly in charge.

“I was probably 10 when I started working here for my mom and uncle,” Curtis says, noting due to his height, or lack thereof back then, his initial job description largely consisted of scraping gum from the underside of tables.

He could have gotten a job at La Vieille Gare when he was in high school, no problem, he admits, but because he was “an angst-ridden 16-year-old” who didn’t want to answer to his mother, he applied for work at the Bombay Bicycle Club, on Grant Avenue, instead. Love spent the next few years honing his skills, working as a busboy, server and bartender at a number of spots, including the tony Manitoba Club on Broadway and the Round Table, now Brazen Hall Kitchen & Brewery.

‘It was a fine line because we wanted to respect the tradition of the room; we didn’t want to ruffle feathers with customers who’d been coming here to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, year after year. But at the same time, we wanted to make it a bit more… open’– Curtis Love, manager

At age 21, he was back at La Vieille Gare when an exchange with one of his customers led to a pivotal moment in his life.

“I had just finished serving lunch to this gentleman when he commended me for my excellent technique. He introduced himself as Tico Cornejo and said I should come work for him at his wine boutique — back then it was Pembina Fine Wines, now it’s called the Winehouse — on Pembina Highway.”

Curtis accepted Cornejo’s proposal. Soon, he was pulling day shifts at the wine store, while continuing to work evenings at La Vieille Gare. A few months after he started working for Cornejo, his boss learned the International Sommelier Guild was going to be hosting classes in Winnipeg for the first time. He asked Curtis if he’d be interested in attending. Curtis’s answer: “You betcha!”

“If you think I look young now at 38 (he does!), imagine me at 22, with my sommelier certificate in my back pocket, coming up to diners, people who’d been dining at La Vieille Gare for years, and going, ‘Sir and madam, can I help you with some wine pairings this evening, perhaps an Australian Shiraz?’ Until people realized I actually knew my stuff, I was getting lots of looks along the line of, ‘OK, who’s this kid with the bow tie and we’re fine with our German Riesling, thank you very much.’”

Curtis’s role at La Vieille Gare continued to grow. By 2008, the year his mother decided it was time to change the concept of the restaurant, rebranding it from formal dining to a more casual approach, they were working side-by-side, sharing ideas and swapping appetizer suggestions, he says.

“It was a fine line because we wanted to respect the tradition of the room; we didn’t want to ruffle feathers with customers who’d been coming here to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, year after year. But at the same time, we wanted to make it a bit more… open,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “Instead of thinking you had to put on a shirt and tie to eat here, or that it was only a place you went to on Friday or Saturday night for this big, fancy meal, we also wanted to be a place you could pop by for a drink at the start of the week. Or hook up with your buddies for a quick bite before heading off to the game.”

While many enjoyed the new approach, which focused more on smaller plates such as gourmet mac and cheese, crepes and poutine prepared with braised beef, mushrooms and red wine cheddar, others weren’t as complimentary, wondering where “our restaurant” went, Curtis says. Another thing that drew their ire was the revamped decor, which included an accessory one restaurant reviewer referred to as “an ultra-modern steel contraption that is said to be a fireplace (but) looks like an instrument of torture.” (Ouch!)

“We still get the odd, old-school types who come in, telling us they’ll always love our food, but that doesn’t change the fact they ‘still hate that damn fireplace,’” Curtis says, smiling.

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Sure, Resto Gare, which has fed prime ministers, Winnipeg Jets captains, even That 70s Show’s Topher Grace, will always serve classic French dishes such as boeuf bourguignon and chateaubriand. But if there’s one menu item that draws people’s curiousity most, it’s an entree titled Tourtière de ma Mère, the Loves’ take on Grandma Irene’s tourtiere. If you’re unfamiliar, tourtiere is a spicy meat pie typically containing a filling of diced pork or beef that originated in what is now Quebec in the 1600s.

“Tourtiere, more than anything else I can think of, is one of those things where family recipes are handed down from generation to generation, where every person of French Canadian descent seems to have their own, personal spin how to prepare it,” Curtis says. “I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody told me before taking a bite that ours looks good, but let’s just see if it’s better than their mom’s or grandmom’s. To that I always say, of course, there’s no way ours is going to measure up to what they grew up with at Christmastime or whenever. But let’s hope it’s close.”

Oh, given his amorous-sounding surname, we’d be remiss if, before concluding today’s piece, we didn’t ask Curtis if there’s one Valentine’s Day that stands out for him, in particular. Certainly, he says, though not for any reason you might expect.

A few years ago, a fellow contacted him early in the afternoon, explaining he was planning to propose to his girlfriend at Resto Gare that evening. He asked Curtis if he’d mind putting the engagement ring in her favourite drink, a Grasshopper, prior to delivering it to their table. Of course, Curtis said. Except a few hours later, when the couple waltzed through the front door, he immediately recognized the gal as someone he had “this huge, mad crush” on in high school.

“I thought to myself, ‘That’s who’s getting the ring? Be still my poor, beating heart.’”

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca