When a hair salon closed its doors at the corner of Banning Street and Portage Avenue two years ago, chef Cam Tran saw an opportunity to open a restaurant only blocks away from where he grew up. For Tran, though, it was important that this restaurant fulfill more than the basic necessity for bodily functioning.

To the Red River College Culinary Arts graduate, food is a serious matter. He learned some tricks early on from his father, also a chef, and studied the art of pastry in southern France. The layered “Death by Chocolate Cake” he serves at Café Ce Soir takes two to three days to prepare.

“In Canada, the artistry is dying out when it comes to food,” Tran says. “In France, they want to preserve that artistry; they still have pastry chefs, and they still have bread makers. Here, we have big manufacturers that freeze pastries and sell them for much cheaper.”

If you ask Tran about mayonnaise that never goes bad and store-bought guacamole that never loses its aesthetic appeal, he’ll tell you they’re a little murky. “People who eat packaged food or fast food have no clue where it’s coming from, and it’s sad. When you think you might die before the product goes bad, you know there’s something wrong.”

Tran’s alternative to fast food is, quite simply, slow food. Over the past few years, he’s helped revitalize Slow Food Winnipeg, a branch of a larger organization that strives to preserve gastronomic traditions and promote local foods.

Willing to literally go the extra mile for quality, Tran sometimes drives over two hours to get his bison meat in rural Manitoba because he knows and trusts the farmer who produces it. One of his priorities is to serve customers with the best quality, but another is to respect their “right to know what they’re eating.” He has no problem giving straight answers to customers about where anything that he serves comes from.

Although Tran runs his restaurant in keeping with the philosophy of the Slow Food Movement, he admits it hasn’t come without its challenges. 

“People are not used to sitting down for long periods of time,” he explains. “Some people who’ve come here expected their meal to be done within 15 to 20 minutes, in the fast food style. But I’m the only one running the kitchen, and everything is handmade – it’s not like I put a pre-made dressing on their salads. It’s almost like a piece of art. It shouldn’t be gulped down.”

Another challenge for the restaurant owner is explaining to customers that consistency in taste is difficult to achieve when you’re using real ingredients.

“Something I serve on one day won’t necessarily taste the same on the next. But that’s also how you know you’re getting quality, because the flavour of real ingredients varies.”

By the popular demand of his clients, Tran began teaching weekly cooking classes at Café Ce Soir as well. His students learn to make soups and debone chickens, skills required when cooking from scratch.

With Slow Food Winnipeg and other organizations, Tran is also helping to organize a kick-off event on April 26 for the 2014 Farmers’ Market season, where food sampling stations will allow local artisans to share their own little pieces of art.

Published in Volume 68, Number 24 of The Uniter (March 19, 2014)