Judy Schultz
The Edmonton Journal

On fresh chicken: "You can buy chicken breast pumped with 30, 40 even 60 per cent (water). Before you know it you've got nothing but water."

On beef: "Alberta beef is our biggest seller. The amount of New Zealand and Australian beef sold in this province is shocking."

On alternative meats: "I'm researching bison. We may offer local bison in the fall."

On short menus: "I could do 20 items and pull it all out of the freezer. I do 10 -- for a fresh sheet, that's a lot."

On brunch: "I'll probably do steak and eggs, because I really like steak and eggs."

On coffee: "People here are really into coffee. Our Kicking Horse coffee is so popular we're going to start selling it by the pound."

If you happen to run into a happy looking chef at the St. Albert Farmers Market on a Saturday morning, it's likely Willie White. He's easy to spot in his crisp white jacket, checking out the rhubarb, eyeing the peppers, fondling the tomatoes.

You'll know about his Scottish roots the minute he opens his mouth, but the menu at his newly-opened restaurant is as Albertan as they come.

After a career that included stints in a couple of Michelin-starred restaurants in the United Kingdom, executive chef at our own Fairmont Hotel Macdonald and the Algonquin in St. Andrews, he decided to take the proverbial plunge.

"I always wanted my own restaurant," says White, who got his wish just six weeks ago, with the opening of the River House Grill, a casual, intimate spot on the edge of the Sturgeon River, just steps away from the bustle of the Saturday market.

The River House has been a very personal project, long in the planning, researched from every possible angle. With his wife, Charlene, White even designed a series of tables with a cleverly sinuous shape and a river motif.

The Whites looked at a lot of different locations in and around Edmonton before deciding on the pretty yellow house with the turrets. Although Sherwood Park was a possibility, White decided that St. Albert was the community ready to support an independent restaurant specializing in local ingredients.

In the trade, it's called a "fresh sheet menu." Translated, it means the menu changes often -- anything from daily to, as in the River House, every few weeks.

Given our northerly location and interminable winters, the ever-changing menu is a gamble. It takes guts, patience, and a nimble, creative style.

Just sourcing the products can eat up hours and days of valuable time. He sought the help of a woman named Lori Menshik, who operates Full Course Strategies, a business that finds local ingredient sources for chefs.

The big advantage of the regional/local approach? Apart from flavour and quality, there's traceability. White knows exactly where his main ingredients come from. Most of his suppliers live within a very short radius of his restaurant.

The current menu offers Sturgeon Valley pork, Natricia goat cheese, Ardrossan bison carpaccio with Highwood flax seed oil, certified Alberta Angus beef, local chicken, northern Alberta whitefish. And that's just a beginning.

While most restaurants keep the same menu for months, and the odd moth-eaten food list has been around for years, White's menu is already into its second edition. Even a cursory look proves that he's no thaw-it-and-serve-it chef.

"Sometimes I can create a menu in a couple of hours. Or, it'll take two weeks. I've written menus in the middle of the night. But then I can get a dry spell. I write things down, but I'm not likin' what I'm seein'."

For a guy who can spend two weeks dithering over a new menu, the fresh/local/regional approach is a major commitment: It's a lot of work, it's costly, and consistency can be an issue. It's also the reason he uses the word "research" so often.

"I'm researching this (food source, market, menu...) right now," he'll say, and he means it.

One of his happy surprises has been the high quality of Alberta whitefish.

"Northern Alberta whitefish is simple, delicate, really delicious, but boning is a brutal job, it's like a pike. Doesn't take long to cook -- keep it simple."

Another fish he loves is the Great Slave lake trout.

"You should see the fillets. They can weigh three pounds!"

Salmon is on the menu, but consistency is an issue.

"We used red spring for two weeks, then had to go to farmed, now we're back to sockeye," he says. "We're still researching."

Fresh berries are wonderful now, and he makes a bread pudding with saskatoons and rhubarb. He relies on a local sprout grower for fresh garnishes.

"I use a lot of popcorn sprouts. He grows them to order -- it takes a week. They taste kind of sweet and nutty. Or we use pea shoots and a pea coulis," he says. "Pea sprouts are the very young form of pea shoots; we use them, too."

After six weeks in his dream restaurant, Willie White is still smiling. He's researching ingredients, sources, and wines.

"I want a new world wine list," he says. "New Zealand, Australia, Chile. I like Burrowing Owl, from the Okanagan."

Like the menu, the wine list will take research, and probably some middle-of-the-night inspirations.

"It's all a work in progress," he says.

jschultz@thejournal.canwest.com