Calgary Restaurants

Calgary is a city that knows how to eat. In Calgary, you’ll find more than 2,000 restaurants with cuisines from all over the world. You’re as likely to find fresh-from-the-field produce here as you are creamy goats’ cheeses, homemade Belgian chocolate or wild game. Calgary is a city where an international population and a strong local culture assure a broad range of dining choices, whether you are looking for an old-fashioned family restaurant or a chance to sample exotic foreign spices.

Local cuisine

Lending itself to a cornucopia of berries, vegetables, meats and grains, Calgary and its surrounding landscape produces potatoes, squash, sweet corn and carrots. Its culinary scene is supported by a critical mass of farmers, ranchers, artisan cheese-makers, dairy farmers and bread-bakers, who help to sustain a cuisine that’s unique. Two-thirds of Alberta’s farms raise cattle, and the province is world-famous for its venison, buffalo and beef as well as game such as elk, bison and deer.

Where to eat

Kensington is the place to find the exotic and unusual in Calgary, with ethnically diverse establishments such as the Marathon Ethiopian Restaurant and the Irish Kensington Pub. This is also ground zero for coffee shops, with over a dozen establishments ranging from cyber-cafés to old-fashioned bakeries, which are all crowded into a few blocks.

Inglewood is the oldest region of the city, and the local businesses here reflect the frontier character of the city by offering a more down-home Canadian atmosphere than the upper-crust cuisine of Kensington. This is where you will find Kane’s Harley Diner, located in a Harley Davidson shop, as well as the Hose and Hound Pub, which occupies a deserted fire-hall.

If you are looking for a restaurant of a particular nationality, flavour or decor, chances are you’ll find it somewhere on Fourth Ssouthwest. Between 17th Street and the Elbow River, both sides of Fourth are jammed with dozens of restaurants serving fare as diverse as the Burger Inn's ostrich burger or the garlic-saturated ‘stinking steak’ at Antonio's Garlic Clove. The Fourth Street area is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the best places to eat in western Canada because of its ethnic diversity and wide range of prices.