Chorney-Booth: Mille brings a familiar sauciness to the west end of downtown

Article content

A little over a year ago, after a long career in hospitality, Jenna Bazzana locked the door of her restaurant, Sauce Italian Kitchen, thinking her days as a restaurateur might be over forever. Bazzana had been running restaurants since taking a job as a manager at a Moxie’s when she was only 19 years old, later opening the San Remo restaurants and eventually Sauce, which was a neighbourhood favourite on the west side of 17th Avenue S.W. for nearly a decade. But after a business partnership went sour, a heartbroken Bazzana found herself forced to close Sauce suddenly.

In light of Sauce’s untimely demise, Bazzana is the first to admit she never expected to see herself owning another Italian joint in partnership with a property developer. But this summer she opened Mille Restaurant and Cafe, a sparkly new restaurant on the lobby level of the Plaza 1000 office building on the west side of downtown.

“I got a call from the Astra Group about putting a restaurant in this building, and within six days, we had an agreement,” Bazzana says. “It’s a great location for us, we’re seeing a lot of fresh new faces here. Most of my restaurants have been in communities, so it’s nice to see people from downtown coming in and enjoying the room and the vibe.”

Mille is exactly what patrons of Bazzana’s previous restaurants have been hoping for. To run the kitchen, she brought in her good friend and former Sauce chef Rodney Luzentales, whom she’s known since they both went to culinary school together (even though Bazzana’s career has been in restaurant management, she is indeed trained as a chef). That relationship, coupled with Bazzana’s recipe for her family’s tomato sauce, creates a thread of continuity connecting Mille to Sauce, but the new restaurant intentionally has its own identity.

First, there’s the room: Bazzana oversees the splashy crystal-adorned lobby area of the building, which currently acts as a lounge space, but she plans to eventually use it for private events, cooking classes and wine dinners. The main dining room, just off the lobby, is plush and pretty, with blingy lighting fixtures, velvety fabrics, a long, glamorous bar and marble-patterned surfaces. Outside is a spacious patio with even more comfy seating.

But we’re talking Italian here, so the food is the thing. While Bazzana’s family sauces are sacred and essential to any restaurant she runs, she says that about 90 per cent of Luzentales’s menu is different from that at Sauce, with dishes skewing toward elegant yet approachable Italian. There is traditional antipasti with a twist, in the form of whipped ricotta with apricot preserves on sourdough toast ($13), tuna crudo with pistachio pesto and smoked Moroccan olives ($18) and polenta — another mainstay at Bazzana’s restaurants — with mushrooms and smoked Provolone ($14).

On the pasta/primo side, you’ve got a classic pasta al limone with brown butter and lemon ($20), slow-braised beef ragu with tagliatelle ($27) and risotto with prawns and pancetta ($30). Those leaning towards something meatier can opt for lamb lollipops with garlic and rosemary ($40), veal Milanese with arugula lemon salad ($30) or a Calabrian chili-baked salmon for two ($34).

Bazzano has other plans afoot, including bringing back a coffee roasting program and introducing an Italian-style brunch, but for now, Mille is open for lunch and dinner on weekdays and from 3 p.m. onward on Saturdays and Sundays. The restaurant is located on the ground floor of 1000 7th Ave. S.W. and can be reached at 403-827-9784 or through milleyyc.ca.

***
Just north of Mille, with construction afoot at the intersection of 10th Street and Kensington Road N.W., Crave Cupcakes recently closed its flagship Kensington bakery, but just reopened in a shiny new location in Hillhurst, just off of Kensington Road and 19th Street. The new bakery features the delicious cupcakes, cakes, and other treats that Calgarians have relied on for celebrations for the last 20 years, all baked in a gleaming new onsite kitchen, but this new location comes with a little something extra.

The new Crave is attached to CeCe’s Coffee, a new cafe exclusively serving Monogram coffee. The café is a first in Calgary — Crave recently launched the concept in Kelowna to great success. Not only does CeCe’s give cupcake shoppers a chance to sit down and enjoy their treats with a coffee or tea, but the new cafe has a menu of its own, featuring slightly homier baked goods, including from-scratch muffins, scones, bars and the like. While I can’t vouch for it personally, Crave co-founder Carolyne McIntyre Jackson tells me the cafe’s new peanut butter and jam cookies are going to be CeCe’s must-try treat.

The new Crave and CeCe’s Coffee is located at 112 18a St. N.W. For more information, visit cecescoffee.ca and cravecupcakes.ca.

Elizabeth Chorney-Booth can be reached at elizabooth@gmail.com. Follow her on Instagram at @elizabooth or sign up for her newsletter at hungrycalgary.substack.com.