About Us

 It’s starting to look like Paris on the Prairies, as Winnipeg’s French Quarter undergoes a renaissance all of its own. Linked to the city by a quaint pedestrian bridge, the area known as Old St. Boniface is thriving as the center of franco-Manitoban culture. And looking out at the neighborhood’s lamp-lit streets from Promenade Bistro, you’d be forgiven for momentarily imagining the Champs-Élysées.

In a streamlined room set off by a large bank of windows, chef Gojko Bodiroga, well known until last year for a successful 25-year stint at Winnipeg’s elegant Restaurant Dubrovnik, has been catering to work-minded crowds by day and more romantic-minded diners by evening with top-value bistro cuisine since the opening of Promenade Bistro in late 2007. On the menu, continental and Eastern European influences surface right from the start, in soup selections like silky lobster bisque and crimson Russian-style borscht. While many bistro standards are presented straight up – for instance, a mean filet mignon with green peppercorn sauce that stands on its own merits – Promenade takes liberties with other standbys. Cassoulet, traditionally a stodgy but delicious affair of white beans, sausages and duck confit, diverges by going vegetarian using sun-dried tomato polenta with fennel and parsnip purée.

Lunch options play to Bodiroga’s French flair and his Serbian heritage, from the croissant stuffed with prosciutto and pear to the braised red cabbage and apple wrap spread with cranberry mascarpone, spinach and toasted almonds. Desserts by Bodiroga’s wife Borka, like vanilla crème brûlée and a chocolate meringue Concorde cake that’s made up of layers of air and icing, are devoted to Parisian pleasures – but not at Parisian prices. (By Sarah Musgrave Pure Canada)

Service is always friendly and attentive, the food is excellent and the location is fantastic.