Playing With Your Food
Who says only kids can play with their food? Your Manitoba culinary vacation is as varied as the landscapes. From the southern prairies—Canada's breadbasket – to the north's pristine lakes, fresh fish, and wild berries, there's something to please every palate. But food isn't just about eating—opportunities are abound to do hands-on baking, learn about local cuisine traditions and connect with your food source. It's OK to play with your food in Manitoba!
Keep it local and eat regional - satisfy your craving for an authentic food experience without leaving the city of Winnipeg. Want a tantalizing reason to head north? Combine modern comforts, rustic beauty and some cooking classes at the remote North Knife Lake Lodge. If you prefer the lush hills of Manitoba's Parklands, experience prairie cuisine among the trees in Riding Mountain National Park.
- A taste of city life
- Northern Manitoba's culinary indulgences
- Manitoba's Parklands – Riding Mountain National Park and Minnedosa
A taste of city life
Sit on a tractor, learn how to identify crops and crush canola to make your own oil at the Canola Learning Centre, then sample delicious garlic sausage and other cuts of meat at Stonewood Elk Ranch. Explore a state-of-the-art greenhouse at Blue Lagoon Florascape, a certified organic farm, and learn how to produce fruit, herbs and vegetables in an environmentally friendly and healthy way.Discover the highest-quality hemp products in the world at Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods and Oils, where fresh hemp products are made daily, including Hemp Bliss—the world's first certified organic hemp milk. Learn how to pair your meal with the perfect wine - D.D. Leobold Winery produces superior fruit wines with locally-grown chokecherries, blueberries, and birch sap. Raise your glass to this Manitoba winery that sells its award-winning products throughout the world.
Each tour deliciously concludes with a mouth-watering experience alongside one of Winnipeg's top chefs. Chef Barry Saunders (The Current) brings together tastes of Canada for a contemporary dining experience. Chef Ben Kramer (Dandelion Eatery) features a menu based on regional ingredients and supported by sustainable agriculture. Award-winning Chef Lorna Murdoch (fusion grill) uses locally grown and produced foods to create contemporary meals. Chef Nick Beaumont (Velvet Glove) incorporates seasonal flavours with Manitoba flair at Winnipeg's only Four Diamond CAA/AAA restaurant. Chef Steven Watson (Resto Gare) serves authentic French cuisine in a unique historic railway station setting in Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg's French Quarter.
Plan your couples getaway
- Canola Learning Centre
- Blue Lagoon Florascape
- Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods and Oils
- The Current
- fusion grill
- Velvet Glove
- Resto Gare
Northern Manitoba's culinary indulgences
Champagne and truffles, fine cuisine, luxury spa treatments, wilderness and relaxation – it's your second honeymoon. And yes, it includes fish—plenty of fish, and lots of ways to cook 'em.
Forget the myth that fantastic fishing requires dreary weather, barren cabins and canned food. North Knife Lake Lodge's mission is a refined wilderness experience. Indulge in your favourite pastime with your favourite person on a luxury couples retreat. Land trophy fish, relax in a spa treatment, take a cooking class, explore wilderness and wildlife—take your pick. Listen to the howling wolves in the distance as you sip a martini by the fire.
Catch it, pick it, hunt it—Chef Dave Schellenberg and best-selling cookbook author Helen Webber will help you turn northern food into a gourmet meal. Learn the secrets of cooking lake trout just right, learn why wild berries send your taste buds reeling, and check out which herbs can be grown in the north. Find out what you do when the nearest grocery store is hundreds of kilometres away by floatplane, and why a shore lunch never tastes the same indoors. Take home a piece of the North Knife Lake Lodge experience with Blueberries and Polar Bears, their award-winning, best-selling cookbook series. The experience will be a true Manitoban culinary treasure.
Plan your couples getaway
Manitoba's Parklands – Riding Mountain National Park and Minnedosa
Create your own culinary adventure with Earth Rhythms, a leading Manitoba specialist in customized, small group adventures. Learn about local food traditions on a popular day trip called Manitoba: Cuisine in the Western Highlands. Taste local produce, bake bread in a wood-fired oven, take away fresh honey, and dine in a café where local chefs serve their specialties in an open-air cabin. Gratify your tastebuds and your soul amidst the majestic setting of Riding Mountain National Park.
Spend the day hiking the trails, then put up your feet and whet your appetite at the Fairmount Bed & Breakfast in Minnedosa. Sheltered in a spruce grove, this lovely 1914 character home sits next to a prairie waterway. Let hostess/home economist Susan Proven express her love of cooking for you. Food is made from scratch with local farm products, providing a taste of the past. Help Susan gather eggs for breakfast or kick back and enjoy the sunrise. Fairmount B&B offers a relaxing rural lifestyle, including a small flock of sheep. Treat yourself at dinner with rainbow trout or lamb, and home-baked wildberry tarts. Snuggle with your sweetie on feather pillows and under a wool duvet made at the farm.
