Three Winnipeg restaurants make Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants 2026

Three Winnipeg chefs have retained spots on the Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants (opens in new window) list (C100).

Chef Mandel Hitzer’s deer + almond (opens in new window), the city’s mainstay on the C100 list, landed at #50 (opens in new window) this year after the highest placement ever for a Winnipeg restaurant at #34 in 2025. Hitzer, who also runs and is the co-creator of RAW:almond with architect Joe Kalturnyk, has also been instrumental in bringing in so many chefs from this year’s C100 list to Winnipeg, including chef Daniel Hadida (opens in new window) of #1 restaurant, Pearl Morissette.

After only a few months in business, chef Ed Lam and Esther Lo’s new concept Peacock (opens in new window) has impressively landed at #68 (opens in new window). Previously, their former celebrated Japanese restaurant Yujiro was #92 in 2024 and #65 in 2025. Peacock opened in February in Yujiro’s former space at 1822 Grant Ave., and was singled out by C100 for flavours that are “layered, clean and complex.”

Chef Emily Butcher’s Nola (opens in new window) (300 Tache Ave.) is sitting at #88 (opens in new window), after making the list for the first time in 2025 at #86 (opens in new window). The Saint-Boniface restaurant, by Mike Del Buono’s Burnley Place Hospitality (opens in new window), has garnered much acclaim since opening in 2021, including being named by The Globe and Mail as the #1 new culinary concept on the Prairies in 2022 (this, after garnering a rave-review from the paper in May that same year).

Butcher is also the chef of its sister restaurant Bar Accanto (opens in new window) (which also previously made the enRoute best new restaurant long list). Her award-winning CV includes winning bronze at the Canadian Culinary Championships in 2020, along with a solid placement again at the same competition last year in 2025, and making an impressive run on television’s Top Chef Canada during her time as the chef de cuisine at deer + almond.

SNACK HäUS, chef Dustin Pajak’s small plates concept in Low Life Barrel House — which we also covered in the latest New & Notable with Peacock (opens in new window) — also received a special mention in the new C100 Best Recommends (opens in new window) section. Pajak had previously helmed the now-closed Close Company (which is now home to nationally celebrated (opens in new window) Petit Socco at 256 Stafford St.) when it was listed at #83 in 2022. Before moving back to Winnipeg from Toronto, Pajak had also worked in the kitchen at 20 Victoria, #10 on this year’s list.

Like last year, the C100 list also features plenty of former Winnipeg talent.

Montreal’s Beba (opens in new window) (#6) is owned by chefs Ari and Pablo Schor, two former Winnipeggers. Chef Kris Kurus, who represented deer + almond at the Canadian Culinary Championship in 2024, was the chef de partie at Toronto’s Quetzal (opens in new window) (#4) during this year’s voting period. Vancouver’s Published on Main (opens in new window) (#20) is by born and raised Winnipeg chef Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson, who has previously topped the Canada’s 100 Best list (Kurus was also the sous chef at Published on Main when it topped the list in 2022, along with when it was awarded its first Michelin star, which the restaurant has retained since). The head chef of Vancouver’s June (opens in new window) (#29) is Winnipegger Connor Sperling, who too was a chef de cuisine at Published on Main, and Richmond’s The Fish Man (#90 (opens in new window)) is by Winnipeg-trained chef Bo Li (opens in new window).

Voting for this year’s Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants was conducted by 160 food writers, chefs, restaurateurs and industry veterans from across the country.

Canada’s 50 Best Bars and Best New Restaurants were also announced, with Winnipeg being shut out from both categories.