Winnipeg's New Culinary Trail

Should you eat here, or maybe there?

Trying to help you decide "where to eat," a new initiative from Tourism Winnipeg and Peg City Grub is the Winnipeg Culinary Trails. They put a heavy focus on restaurants serving local eats. The trail itself is a wide array of greasy spoons, high end dining rooms, and ethnic goodies. Other trails will be added as we were told "it's an ongoing project to help people navigate the food scene."

As a big fan of tasty food, naturally I was intrigued. I was lucky enough to be invited on the Winnipeg Trolley Company's trolley (which is awesome) with fellow bloggers to do a quick tour of three of the locations on the Culinary Trail.

We met at the Forks, one of my favourite places in the city, to hop on the trolley, where we all took dozens of Instagram photos and videos by the time we arrived at the first stop, Fusion Grill .

This place is truly a hidden gem in the city. Nestled on Academy, I remember this place being my first initiation into the world of great cuisine. It gets bonus points for being very local. Sadly I don't seem to eat there enough anymore. Making a promise to myself for changing that right now.

With our first stop we were greeted by owner Scot Mctaggart . He explained where he gets the local fish, daily (from Gimli Fish Market ), and that it was actually Fusion Grill's birthday. We were served their most popular lunch dish - pickerel cheeks with pickled fiddlehead aioli and crispy yam frites. The lemonade was actually perfect too, not overly sweet with the perfect amount of tartness.

Scot sold me on the lamb dish for my future visit. I won't even try doing it justice by describing it as he made it sound like the most romantic dish one could order.

Needless to say it was fairly mind blowing. Our next two stops had a major challenge to top this.

As the bloggers filed out of Fusion Grill and back into the trolley it was a perfect day with a few clouds in the blue sky. This is kind of key for the next stop as the experience comes down to one important thing - the view.

The trolley headed back downtown and we disembarked at Prairie 360 . This was my first time setting foot in the restaurant since they opened up. We were taken the long way to our table, so we can enjoy the all of the magnificent view of Winnipeg. It is a damn pretty city.

Executive Chef Alfonso Maury came out to briefly explain the dish we were about to be served, bison prosciutto perogies topped with garlic cream sauce. It was tasty too but not quite as good as Fusion Grill's dish.

We headed back to The Forks for our last stop, Tall Grass Prairie . Arguably the best bakery in town. Just try one of their breads, or their iconic cinnamon bun, and try and disagree with that statement.

Tabitha Langel , one of the owners, talked us through how keeping it local is best for everyone. She also let us try some of their delicious bread and cinnamon buns.

That was the end of the tour for us but their are more places on the Culinary Trail to hit up. My favourite on the list is Peasant Cookery, which I highly recommend the charcuterie and oyster night (Wednesdays).

Check out Tourism Winnipeg's site for the complete list .