ciao! reviews
One of nine restaurants in Canada to receive Thai Select Premium Award recognizing authentic Thai cuisine.
Book your holiday party or catered affair at siamthaiwinnipeg @ shaw. ca
587 St Anne’ s Rd. 204-254-7765 siamthairestaurant. ca
Your stylish source for holiday parties
SHIRLEY’ S RESTAURANT & GOURMET GROCERY
Neighbourhood.. Osborne Village Address...... 135 Osborne Street Phone............. 204-284-0931 Entrées..................... $ 11- $ 33 918 Grosvenor Ave. 204-975-4605
Osborne Village has always had a taste for reinvention, but Shirley’ s represents something more than the next trend. It is a confident return to intimacy, a reminder that the most compelling restaurants are often those that do a few things exceptionally well. In the compact room once home to a long-running tapas bar, chef Renée Girard, still relatively unknown locally but once spotlighted nationally as a chef to watch, has found a stage perfectly suited to her restrained style.
Named for her grandmother, Shirley’ s blends nostalgia with modern polish. Shelves of house-made pickles and gourmet staples line one wall, a quiet cue that this a place where care and discernment meet. In the evening, the room glows with a golden warmth: single candles flicker on round yellow tables, casting soft reflections on glassware and faces. The narrow bar, with its eight stools, fills with solo diners and couples who prefer a closer view of the action. In summer, a courtyard patio lined with planters and the promise of another glass of cava under the open sky, extends the experience outward.
Girard’ s fourteen-item menu reads like a chef’ s manifesto of precision The devilled egg arrives first, filled with tangy gherkin and caramelized onion and crowned by a single potato crisp that punctuates the dish with texture and wit. Two warm, plush and aromatic milk-bread rolls follow, paired with vibrantly flavoured butter that reveals a quiet confidence in simplicity.
“ Dirty Martini Shrimp” channels cocktail-hour glamour into a brighter and more tactile composition: shrimp arranged amid salsa verde streaked with celery and Castelvetrano olive. It’ s fresh, briny, and balanced with lively acidity.
A“ Very Nice Salad” underplays its charms but the exciting riot of greens, walnut granola, and twin cheeses, Merlot Bellavitano and salty ricotta salata, unified by orange vinaigrette, shows the kitchen’ s deft hand with balance and contrast.
Beef tartare takes an unexpected path, layered atop pizza fritta and anchored by anchovy cream, resulting in a witty, substantial riff on the classic.
Fragrantly seasoned pork shoulder steak, rosy and tender, finds its match in smashed cucumbers and plums glossed in a locally made chilicrisp vinaigrette. Each dish feels deliberate without ever tipping into self-consciousness. Pesto Radiatori closes the arc with comfort and texture— those ridged noodles catching all the herbaceous sauce, zucchini, and pecorino beneath crisp kale micro-chips.
Girard is not always in the kitchen, but her perspective holds steady through a team that cooks with precision and care. The service follows suit; staff appear effortlessly composed, exuding style yet radiate genuine warmth and grace.
Shirley’ s earns its place among Winnipeg’ s best new restaurants not through flash or novelty, but through that ineffable balance of heart, craft, and atmosphere. It proves that a restaurant’ s magic cannot be engineered. It is the light, the mood, the people, and the pleasure of everything quietly clicking into place. 38 ciao! / dec / jan / two thousand twenty-five