WINNIPEG — Maxim Berent says you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy the pleasures of BerMax Caffe + Bistro – Winnipeg’s first kosher gourmet restaurant, which opened for business just before Chanukah in south Winnipeg.
“About 80 per cent of our customers aren’t Jewish,” says the young designer and entrepreneur. “People come for the food, the Italian ambience [the chairs are from Italy and Rome street scenes dominate the walls] and our Illy coffee. We are the only designated Illy café in western Canada.”
(Illy espresso coffee, Berent explains, is kept in airtight containers until it is served so that the coffee is always fresh.)
The 50-seat milchik BerMax Caffe menu includes soups made from scratch, crepes, sandwiches, unique salads, pizzas and pastas, bakery products prepared in-house, and a variety of yogurts and beverages. Berent says many of the food ingredients are from Israel – as is the Italian chef – and most of the equipment was brought in from Italy.
The standout chandelier, he adds, was made in Montreal by an Orthodox Jewish artisan who has also made chandeliers for top hotels in Las Vegas.
It has been several decades since Winnipeg last had a standalone kosher restaurant. The Bathurst Street Deli – which closed a more than a decade ago – was independently owned (and under Chabad supervision, as is BerMax Caffe) but was part of a larger kosher grocery store.
The only other kosher eat-out options here are Shmoozer’s Restaurant – a cafeteria inside the Asper Campus – and the fixed lunches at the Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre, a senior’s drop-in centre in North Winnipeg.
Although Berent and his family have only been in Winnipeg for 10 years – they came from Russia by way of Israel – the personable Berent has had an outsized influence on his new home.
Berent was 15 when he arrived here, and, you might say, he hit the ground running.
The then-new Gray Academy student’s graphic arts ability was quickly recognized, and he found himself in great demand from Jewish organizations designing posters, flyers and calendars.
He graduated from Gray Academy, Winnipeg’s Jewish community day school, in 2008 and entered the faculty of architecture at the University of Manitoba. But despite his workload in architecture, Berent still found time to help out a professor in the faculty of fine arts, work in his family’s millwork manufacturing business (BerMax), and serve as president of Hillel and co-ordinator of a newly formed branch of the Jewish Business Network at U of M.
Currently enrolled in a four-year interior architectural design program in San Francisco, he still found time to design and help (with his father) supervise the construction of the BerMax Caffe. (Construction began in July.)
The Caffe concept, Berent says, grew out of the family’s plan to open a residential design showroom at the location. (The main BerMax plant, specializing in commercial millwork design and manufacture, is located just north of Winnipeg.)
“It seemed like a good idea to open a restaurant next door to both serve our residential design customers and also show off our work,” Berent says, noting that all the countertops and cupboards are BerMax-designed and manufactured.
The family decided to open a Chabad-supervised establishment because of their ongoing relationship with Chabad here. Berent notes that BerMax built the large Aron Kodesh for the three-year-old Chabad Centre, which is just a few blocks away from the restaurant.
Currently, BerMax Caffe is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and Sunday.
“We close early Friday for Shabbat,” Berent says. “We are planning to extend our hours of operation soon and, next winter, we will open on Saturday evenings after Shabbat.”
He is also considering opening more BerMax Caffes in Winnipeg and elsewhere.