I visited 36 restaurants (and 2 food trucks) with photographer Dong Kim in just 10 days to take over 200 photos for an addition to Figure 1’s City Cooks Series.
Our trips to The Sugarbowl, Remedy Cafe, Corso 32, and Culina stirred up strong nostalgia for late nights and long dinners in my former hometown. The natural light in the JACEK Chocolate Boutique was perfection. We spied on Chef Corey McGuire through the window of Tzin on 104th to get shots of him in action. The boys at Tres Carnales consumed a truly impressive quantity of tacos and beer at our 9am shoot. John Ahn taught me how to eat Korean lettuce wraps authentically at NongBu. And we couldn’t help but take large bites out of North 53‘s buttermilk fried chicken before we could even finish photographing it.
So in the end, the design was meant to share moments like these; to show the distinctive, warm, inviting spaces and personalities that make up YEG’s culinary community.
Another highlight was staying downtown in The McLeod during the shoot, which was on my list of things to do before I abandoned that city in the early 2000s.
Fun fact: there’s a picture of me eating Schnitzel on page 21.
Client: Figure 1
Author: Tina Faiz & Leanne Brown
Publication Date: October 2016
