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Where to Find Winnipeg’s Best Local Food Products

Taste is a sense tied to memory, so it follows that food makes the best souvenirs. Eat your way across the city with these delicious local products.

Bakery Bliss

  • Cookies, bars, and other irresistible treats make High Tea Bakery a must-stop for sugar lovers. With a cute cafe space to sit and nibble on signature Imperial cookies and decadent cupcakes, these souvenirs may not make it home.
  • French ex-pats Nathalie and Gilles Gauthier (new owners as of May 2023) have brought the pastry traditions of their country to a warm, sweetly scented nook on north Main. At A L’Epi De Ble, find crisp, buttercream filled macarons, plump croissants, and over the top mousse cakes with layers of creme brulee, all delivered with a smile and a lilting French accent.
  • Surrounded by boutiques and restaurants on a tree-lined street, Lilac Bakery is the perfect mid-shopping spree spot. Buttery cookies, bars, and cakes just like grandma used to make are highlights. We recommend favourites like buttertarts and rhubarb squares.
High Tea Bakery Passion Fruit Cremes by Belinda and Carol Bigold

The Bee’s Knees

  • The Almond Tree in The Forks Market stocks plenty of homegrown honey, including jars from John Russell Honey Company of Petersfield, MB, in flavours like saskatoon, strawberry, and chocolate.
  • From the heart of the prairies straight to your pantry, Wendell Estate Honey produces raw unpasteurized sweet stuff packaged in chic glass containers. Grab a jar at specialty food and wine store GJ Andrews.
  • It doesn’t get more local than BeeProject Apiaries (pictured), which sells “neighbourhood honey” produced inside city limits. These urban beekeepers have honey harvested from downtown, Woleseley, St Boniface, and more, each with a unique colour and flavour profile. Find jars at local shops across the city.
Bee Project Honey

For the Love of Chocolate

  • Local institution Mordens’ of Winnipeg’s reputation precedes it. This family-owned chocolate shop is stuffed with flavoured truffles, moulded chocolate sculptures, and delicious roasted nuts, all made on-site. Squeeze into the cozy West End nook and pick up a box of Russian mints, the famous peppermint oil infused treat that won first prize at the 1984 World’s Fair, and subsequently, the hearts of all Winnipeggers.
  • St Boniface cocoa boutique Chocolatier Constance Popp offers decadent artisan chocolates as well as baked goods, coffee and hot chocolate drinks. All the tastes of our prairie province are packed into the Manitobar, filled with local hemp hearts, sunflower seeds, honey, and flax.
  • Watch chocolate being melted, tempered, swirled, and formed through the open kitchen at Decadence Chocolates (pictured), then pick up a batch of creative sweets, like colourfully patterned painted truffles.
Decadence Chocolate

Fromage Finds

  • Produced in southern Manitoba, longstanding Bothwell Cheese boasts more than two dozen varieties of fine fromage, including fun flavours like red wine and black truffle. Each is made the old school way, with 100% Canadian milk, no preservative, and no modified ingredients. Squeakers (cheese curds) are a popular pick. Find a large selection at Red River Co-op grocery stores.
  • Chefs Dustin Peltier and Rachel Isaak are carrying on the tradition of making Trappist cheese on Peltier’s father’s farm just north of Winnipeg. Prairie Tradition uses the same traditional cheesemaking process which makes for a luxuriously creamy end result with a unique ripe and nutty flavour. Find a block at De Luca’s.
Premium cheese - Bothwell

Local Loaves

  • Traditional kosher baking and rustic country loaves can be found at Gunn’s Bakery in the city’s North End. Choose from a large variety of loaves ranging from pumpernickel to sourdough to braided Challah. Despite its status as one of the oldest family-run bakeries in Western Canada (founded in 1937), the product line is always expanding.
  • No visit to The Forks is complete without a soft and gooey cinnamon bun from Tall Grass Prairie Bakery. Don’t skip picking up a loaf for later from their bevy of breads and baked goods; breads are made with homegrown, stone milled organic whole grains.
Tall Grass Harvest Bread by co-owner Tabitha Langel of Tall Grass Prairie Bakery

Quite a Cuppa

  • Cornelia Bean stocks a mind boggling selection of black, white, green, and herbal teas along the shelves of its charming Academy Road space. Owner Cory Krul will help lead you to a perfect brew. Accessories like matcha bowls, handmade mugs, and tea balls ensure a stellar steep.
  • Osborne Village staple The Canister stocks more than 100 varieties of tea and a hefty list of flavoured coffees in a shop as cozy as a well-stocked pantry. Browse flavoured Godiva hot chocolate and a charming collection of cute and kitschy mugs and teapots.
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