A staple in my Calgary dinning, Farm offers quality to the market.

The atmosphere is unbelievable welcoming and you feel like you’ve entered into your Oma’s kitchen. The décor is that of a simple farmstead with a chic, modern edge. On this visit we sat at a large corner table, however usually I sit at the chef bar and watch in amazement.

Being a wonderful misfit group of overly tattooed kids, it’s a standard that we get horrible service wherever we go out, I can honestly that has never happened to me at Farm. It can a nightmare to serve us, as we typically think we know what we are talking about. This time our wonderful server put on a brave face and acted with calm and poise. He helped us through our cheese and meats selection to create a wonderful charcuterie board (picture provided) without missing a single step.

For mains we picked dishes that could easily be shared. We ended up ordering multiples of the mac and cheese which comes packed with a mixture of three cheeses, bread crumble topping, penne pasta, and a subtle hint of spice. The gooey mess was mind blowing and a really wonderful dish to be shared. We also order the bison short ribs (above). Which was sitting on a bed of mash and poached apples. Again, the portion size was perfect (which isn’t something you see very often) and the short ribs where cooked to fall off the bone.

The piece de resistance of the evening was hands down the salmon dish, a pan seared salmon with poached pears and asparagus. It was simple, straight forward and portioned perfectly.

Of course we couldn’t pass up the offer for desert and dutifully ordered an apple crumble and a vanilla crème brulée. I have to be honest, I’m really over crème burlées. Everywhere you go serves this dish and it’s usually awful and taste like scrambled eggs, but these burlées were smooth and creamy. The crumble also, surpassed our expectations by being served with a simple crème, a mixture of poached apples and a old-school crumble, which worked very well.

I recently returned to farm with my boyfriend and enjoyed the Sunday evening fondue. Never having had cheese fondue I didn’t really know what to expect but holy cow it was amazing!

It’s served with bread and pickles, the cheese was a blend of raw cow cheese that was mild with a slight punch. We also enjoyed a bacon salad (genius) that features in-house made bacon, feta cheese, a simple dressing, mixed greens, yellow tomatoes and mixed onions.

Being an “older” restaurant now, it’s great to see that they still offer new and excited dishes and host events like the grilled cheese challenge, fondue week and even close for staff field trips to their suppliers. Recently Farm has gained a new chef who has turned the homemade offerings up a notch. Many terrines have been added as well as house bacon, various smoked meats and canned goods. I am really excited to see where Farm will go from here.

Many restaurants have tried to imitate farm, some succeeding with the atmosphere, others with the menu quality but none have managed to obtain the balance and focus on localized offerings quite like Farm.

Even my dad loves Farm!