Only the Best: Sociale Bar & Grille

Chef Kenny Kaechele in the kitchen at Sociale Bar & Grille.

It’s 1914. Down in Turner Valley, rigs are being erected on a daily basis as an oil find kicks off a century of boom and bust cycles. At the newly opened Palliser Hotel in Calgary, oil brokers conduct their business in the lobby and at cafe tables while, not far away, young men jostle to enlist in the Great War.

A couple of blocks north of the Palliser, the new Lougheed Building and the Sherman Grand Theatre bustle with business activity and vaudeville shows. And, in the basement of the Lougheed, Cronn’s Rathskeller, “a place for lunch, cocktails, dinner and dancing,” according to a postcard of the era, rocks late into the evening with newly rich oil barons and soon-to-be-shipped-out army boys. They love the swanky look of the place — heavy oak cornices, terrazzo floors, marble trim.

Later, as the war darkens and many of the boys don’t come home, the mood toward Cronn’s sours. It closes after just over a year, in 1915, under a cloud of anti-German sentiment. Later, near the end of the war, the room reopens as Calgary’s first jazz club.

Over the next 90 years or so, the sprawling basement space is reshaped many times — into salons, pubs, offices. Somewhere along the line, the oak and terrazzo are covered over and forgotten.

Until 2010.

Witold Twardowski, known for resurrecting buildings that now house restaurants such as Teatro, Cilantro and The Ranche, as well as the long-lost Mescalero, hears that the Lougheed Building’s basement is worthy of a look. So he goes, likes what he sees, joins forces with Elizabeth Panonko and Eron Forseth and dives into renovations.

The original trappings remain remarkably intact. The oak is uncovered and restored, the terrazzo is revealed after layers of carpet and other flooring are ripped up and the marble is reclaimed and used to cover a counter in front of the new kitchen.

The new owners opt for a “speakeasy-chic” tone that combines a lively bar with a fine restaurant. Sociale Bar & Grille opens with a look remarkably similar to Cronn’s and a theme that once again calls for lunch, cocktails, dinner and dancing. It looks old — in a good way — though now there are also high-tech DJs and an ultra-modern kitchen.

The menu is eclectic — cioppino, citrus-ponzu sablefish, barbecued pork flatbread, pistachio-crusted chevre — and generally built for sharing. It’s been constructed by Kenny Kaechele, a very talented chef who draws culinary influences from around the globe. Often this kind of culinary dreaming backfires, but, with Kaechele, it works remarkably well. He creates inspirations like garlic and smoked paprika soup topped with Manchego croutons and a butter chicken flatbread, which are both delicious. That cioppino is packed with fresh seafood, bathed in a spritely tomato-fennel broth and topped with a saffron aioli. Each spoonful washes flavours over the taste buds.

Sociale’s citrus ponzu sablefish is topped with pork belly and fennel.

The barbecued pork flatbread is a cross-cultural blast of Chinese pork glued to the flatbread by melted cambozola cheese and spiked with a tomato jam. In addition, Kaechle whips up cheese boards and charcuterie platters and mezze plates, and, for the main-floor lounge, he creates a daily tapas menu.

Much of the success of Sociale’s kitchen is due to a commitment to the quality, as well as to the quantity, of ingredients. So often, contemporary places have great ideas but skimp on the ingredients, leaving customers chasing the flavours around the plates. Not so at Sociale, where every mouthful packs a punch.

Even the desserts are impressive. The lemon pound cake topped with a lemon curd cream and basil-flavoured blueberries is gorgeous. And the orange cream-filled beignets with espresso gelato and cardamom-cointreau honey are a great alternative to so many of the over-chocolated dessert menus around. (Sociale does have chocolate — a dark Valrhona chocolate terrine with a white chocolate mousse.)

So, as dinner ends and the late-evening club scene kicks in, today’s oil barons and baronesses drift in for a few beverages and a little dancing. They love the swanky look of the place — heavy oak cornices, terrazzo floors, marble trim. The music is louder these days, but the patrons look remarkably like the sociable folks of a century ago.

This is Sociale today: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.  
Sociale Bar & Grille is at 606 1 St. S.W., 403-262-2279, socialebargrille.com.