Briggs Kitchen & Bar

Since he tasted the fine haute cuisine of French chef Xavier Lacaze, Brad Taylor wished more Calgarians could enjoy it, too. His mission was realized in 2013, when the longtime restaurant manager launched his own eatery in the former Cannery Row space located in the historic red-brick Wigalo building on 10th Avenue Southwest. Briggs Kitchen & Bar features Lacaze at the culinary helm cooking international comfort foods using classic French techniques. “He was producing bar-none my favourite food anywhere,” says Taylor. “But I thought it was so unfortunate that Xavier’s talents were exclusively a fine-dining thing and thought it’d be really cool if we could marry the two worlds of fine dining and casual restaurants.”

Lacaze, the former executive chef at two other Calgary high-end restaurants finished in the top five in the second season of Top Chef Canada. Having proven himself a fierce competitor, his challenge at Briggs was to create simpler dishes. “I come from a world of fancy, where more is better,” he says. “The challenge here was to make it less-is-better, and realizing how much better it actually is.”