Stalk's monthly suppers may be Regina's best kept secret

If you haven't heard about Stalk's monthly suppers yet, you'll be forgiven.

The sisters and co-owners of Sprout the Regina cafe and catering business behind Stalk sought to create a sort of "underground dinner club" when they launched the concept in February 2018.

"We've been really overjoyed with how popular Stalk has become," said chef Jssel Hysuik. "We're booking up months in advance and people start telling their friends about it."

That's exactly how I heard about it: from a friend who'd dined there and told me it was worth trying.

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Haley Blackmore, Hysuik's older sister and Stalk's business manager, said serving supper one Saturday per month makes it special: "As soon as you offer it more, it just won't be full every time. It won't be as exclusive. And it still takes a lot of work, to fully flip our cafe from day to night, with a full service bar and full service menu."

Before there was Stalk, there was Sprout, which first opened in a 20-seat location on Saskatchewan Drive in 2013. Most of their business was catering for private events, office lunches and the like. Some of those lunches were for Viterra, whose office tower is just a few blocks away at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Albert Street.

In 2015, Viterra announced it was closing its office cafeteria and launched a request for proposals to local caterers and restaurateurs to open a new cafe in the building. Sprout moved into the larger space in November of that year.

A couple days before attending the July 20 Stalk supper, I sat down with Hysuik and Blackmore. They had me try a pickled beet salad from the Stalk menu, inspired by their grandmother's recipe. It was delicious, with a nice flavour balance and brightness from the citrus.

Blackmore said that a lot of Hysuik's cooking is like this dish, "familiar but elevated."

Hysuik went to culinary school at the Art Institute of Vancouver. She worked at a number of Vancouver restaurants during that time and did a bunch of catering as well, before moving back to Regina.

After returning home, she briefly cooked at a retirement home before taking a job as the sous-chef, then head chef, of the now-closed Table 10.

"I had a really great friend there, who was my sous-chef (Kris Wapple). We just worked together every day and we created menus and dishes together, and he passed away very suddenly," said Hysuik.

"But he inspires me a lot, even today."

Two days later, my wife and I, joined by another couple, went to eat at Stalk. I was amazed at the transformation from Sprout during the day (bright and colourful with lots of natural light) to Stalk at night (blinds drawn over the floor-to-ceiling windows, low-light, candles on the tables).

"It's not a set meal or a set price, per person. It's a full menu and you order what you want. The only kind of unique thing is that they're all sharing plates. Every dish is designed for four people," said Blackmore.

We had a wonderful supper, sharing mint-infused watermelon amuse bouches to start, followed by:

• A cheese plate.

• Parmesan potato croquettes.

• Squash risotto with tempura battered squash blossoms (which was Wapple's recipe).

• Hoisin-braised short rib with a fried quail's egg on top, scratch creamed corn and potatoes.

• "Cookies and milk" (actually a large vanilla bourbon milkshake with four warm and chewy chocolate chip cookies).

True to form, it was familiar but elevated.

Our group also appreciated that the music in the restaurant wasn't loud; we could actually hear each other speak. It was a nice, intimate atmosphere. We could tell the other diners were enjoying themselves, too.

There's no Stalk supper set for August because Hysuik is due to give birth to her second child, but they plan to resume the monthly events in September.