What started as a winter pop up restaurant on the ice in 2012 with ten chefs from Winnipeg has grown to 35 chefs from across the Canada, and now, for the first time, from outside North America.
Icelandic chef Viktor Örn Andrésson joined the RAW:almond team on Feb. 5 and 6 at The Forks, cooking Icelandic-Canadian inspired meals for 80 guests.
Andrésson has been named Iceland Chef of the Year and Nordic Chef of the Year. He was drawn to Manitoba because of the large Icelandic population.
“I knew that Gimli was the biggest most Icelandic population of Icelandic people outside of Iceland so I… was always really excited to come and meet all these people who used to live in Iceland before,” Andrésson said.
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Raw:almond co-founder and deer + almond owner Mandel Hitzer said more chefs from outside Manitoba are connecting with the project and looking to be part of it.
“We’ve had chefs all the way from Houston, San Francisco, Portland, across Canada: Montreal, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary,” Hitzer said.
“It’s really cool that they’re coming here to Winnipeg, a lot of them for the first time to come and cook.”
The project expanded to four locations for the first time in 2017, adding Gimli, Manitoba and Tokyo to the list.
RAW:almond runs at The Forks until Feb. 13 and will be in Churchill March 2 to 10.