It’s a gamble. A well-backed and opulent gamble, but a risk nonetheless.
This is a time of public outrage over big supermarket profits. Inflation has walloped our pocketbooks. And, while the inflation numbers are steadying, it’s not like grocery prices are retreating.
On Friday, L’OCA Quality Market opens the doors of what it calls its flagship location, on Baseline Road in Sherwood Park. It’s a jaw-dropping venture. It’s like a giant market underneath one roof, a Grand Bazaar of food. The shelves are stocked with some regular grocery items, but the big sell is the wide array of luxurious foodie items — from ponzu sauce imported from Japan, ketchup made from San Marzano tomatoes, and paprika shipped in from Hungary. Imagine the exact opposite of No Frills, that takes up half a city block.
Wait, there’s more. Flour that’s milled in-house. Spices that are ground locally. There’s a gelato bar and coffee shop. It has a full-on chocolaterie inside. The butcher shop allows you to watch giant flanks of meat be disassembled in front of your eyes. A flower shop. And, there are two restaurants; Pyro offers craft cocktails, Alberta beer on tap and delights made over fire. The wood-fired pizza has just a kiss of char. And then there is Oro, which offers an upscale menu in a casual atmosphere.
The entire market is a circular economy. The restaurants use the ingredients that can be found or have been made inside of L’OCA’s walls.
But this is just the beginning. L’OCA has already secured its second location. It is taking over the IGA space in Crestwood, on 142nd Street. A branded restaurant will go in the vacated Royal Bank site next door.
L’OCA’s staff features butchers, deli managers and chefs who have worked around the world, and it’s all helmed by Michelin star chef Paul Moran, who is the director of L’OCA’s culinary program. The former winner of Top Chef Canada made the move from British Columbia to Edmonton, thanks to a message he received on Instagram.
“The lure of coming to Edmonton was the ownership group and their vision for this project,” said Moran during a media preview of the market. “Go Auto is our parent company. Out of their 3,000 employees, they’ve got some amazing people. Working as a chef for 25 years, the vision they had for this was an opportunity that someone like myself could never turn down.
“They did approach me via a random Instagram message, through one of the recruiters they have in-house. He actually does strongman competitions on the side. So, I was looking at this message and I was thinking, ‘what are the scammers up to these days?’”
While Moran oversees the culinary direction of L’OCA, he says he is not a control freak. The chefs de cuisine will be given a lot of breathing room to be creative.
“We have a chef for each of our departments. Some of them, I’ve known as long as 20 years. Some of them I’ve met in the last year… I laid out a foundation, but, I don’t think most chefs — being creative people — want to work in a place where they are told exactly what they need to do. I think of myself more as the coach. I’m here to help pull up the standards. We brought in talented people from all over the world. It would be a shame not to let them have their creative input.”
