December 2017 Digital Issue

CHEF’S CORNER
PERFECT FIT
Chef Alison MacNeil brings her
home-cooking style to Calgary venue
BY TOM VENETIS
When Calgary’s Telus Spark science centre
sought to revamp its foodservice operations,
the venue’s management tapped
celebrity chef Roger Mooking to be its
culinary director and rebrand its on-site
restaurant to Social Eatery by Roger Mooking. Mooking
then set out to find a local chef to help bring his vision
to life.
For chef Alison MacNeil, it was the perfect fit. “I
liked what they wanted to offer, which was better,
healthier food choices . . . with less of an emphasis on
pre-fabricated foods.”
As chef de cuisine, MacNeil manages the kitchen in a
very hands-on manner. “I’m active in the kitchen, as I’m
usually doing the breads in the morning and making sure
everyone is ready to go,” she says.
The tag-line for the restaurant, ‘Home Cooking with
a Global Twist,’ also aligned with MacNeil’s cooking philosophy.
“It’s important to cook fresh food, from scratch,”
she says. “[I would] describe my cooking style as comfort
food. My background is part Italian so I cook lots of pas-
BITS&BITES
Favourite
food memory:
“Fresh pasta.”
Favourite
ingredient:
“I love to cook
with what is
fresh and
in season.”
Favourite Culinary
Destination:
“Northern
Spain.”
tas and I like to cook French cuisine
— peasant dishes that are comforting
and warming.”
MacNeil’s approach was forged in
her childhood home, where cooking
was part of family life. “I can’t
remember a time when I wasn’t cooking.
We cooked every day and when I
got into highschool I already know I
wanted to go to culinary school.”
MacNeil entered the culinary
program at the Southern Alberta
Institute of Technology (SAIT).
Following graduation in 2002,
she apprenticed at the Wildwood
in Calgary under Joseph Wiewer
and Roghelio Herrera, followed
by two years at Toronto-based
Teatro restaurant under executive
chef Dominique Moussu. She
then moved to Canadian Rocky
Mountain Resorts, where she spent
six years helping to develop the
foodservice and hospitality businesses.
In 2014, she and her husband, chef John Michael
MacNeil opened Black Pig Bistro, a Spanish-themed
restaurant in Calgary. “I wanted to bring Spanish food
to Calgary and when we opened, we were voted as the
number-1 restaurant in Calgary. I could not have been
happier.” She sold the restaurant to her business partner
in 2015.
Social Eatery is focused on fresh food and working
with local providers for ingredients. The menu changes
with the seasons in order to highlight the fare of local
farmers — fresh berries in the summer and root vegetables
in the winter, for example. Popular items include
baked-daily cheese buns made with aged Canadian cheddars
($3.88); the Stacked Sandwich featuring 10oz. of
shaved Alberta beef ($15.88); and the Spolumbo’s sausage
on a bun ($7.88). The menu also features many vegan,
vegetarian and gluten-free foods, as well as a kid-inspired
menu. “Now, we are giving people freshly prepared
foods — foods that are not your standard cookie-cutter
approach. It’s been very well received by everyone.” FH
COLIN WAY [ALISON MACNEIL PORTRAIT]; iSTOCK.COM [BITS & BITES]
52 FOODSERVICE AND HOSPITALITY DECEMBER 2017 FOODSERVICEANDHOSPITALITY.COM