For the last three years, Naagan by Zach Keeshig signified a well-attended summer-only Saturday pop-up at the farmers’ market in Owen Sound, a city in southwestern Ontario.
Then, in October, it became a proper restaurant, with an all-season bricks-and-mortar home, in the historic Chicago Building downtown.
“I took over the space January 1, and since then, it’s been ‘Make a little money, invest in the space, make a little more…’ ” says Keeshig, who also leads local foraging excursions.
The product of his labours is a pale tongue-and-groove cedar-lined room, with a pair of pelts (otter and fisher) mounted on the wall. Clusters of dried sumach and wild sweet clover dangle from wall and ceiling. There is a smattering of Indigenous art, and shelves stocked with jarred local forage (green elderberry “capers,” pickled wild rose, and so on). Dining space for 17 is arranged at tables cast from polished bark-ringed slabs of black walnut, cherry and maple, set with chairs draped in sheepskins from a local farm.
We want it to look like an old wood cabin or sweat lodge, Keeshig says.
Keeshig is from the Nawash First Nation reserve on the west side of Owen Sound Bay. And while he has cooked in many professional kitchens, the style he has settled into and built his first restaurant to share is something he terms “progressive Indigenous.”
I use modern techniques I’ve learned at some of the best restaurants in Canada and apply that to traditional flavours and ingredients.
Nearly all the food served at Naagan is locally foraged, farmed or — thanks to a special permit — hunted or trapped on the reserve. Drop by for a tasting menu and expect to start with smoked freshwater fish, bison tartare and a prosciutto of Canada goose. Next, maybe, a raw scallop dish featuring those elderberry capers; local crayfish (“They taste like langoustine,” he notes) with a sauce made from their shells; quail or venison prepared in a wood-fired oven or on a charcoal grill, the heat rendered smoky with birchbark. And to conclude, one of Keeshig’s singularly unctuous ice creams, the texture a virtue of the ultra-rich duck or goose eggs he uses as the base for the crème anglaise. “Our people did not raise chickens.”
– staff
Naagan serves a single-service 12-course tasting menu Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Foraging excursions and associated cooking classes are available two days a week.
