“We call it bougie peasant food”: Bicycle Café’s Londonlicious menu

From January 16 to February 8, more than 40 London restaurants are participating in the winter edition of Londonlicious, a food festival inspiring restaurants to come up with new menus that highlight produce from local farms across Southwestern Ontario. One of the participants is Dutch-inspired restaurant, Bicycle Café.

Alicia Berkelmans, executive chef at Bicycle Café, sees Londonlicious as an opportunity to apply much of her farm-to-table mentality. “I’m the granddaughter of Dutch farmers — I also had a farm myself [for a] short period of time and grow a lot of my own food and cook a lot of things from scratch,” said Berkelmans.

Bicycle Café brings a warm and comforting feel for diners amidst a particularly cold season for London. With a “low and slow” motto, the cafe’s Londonlicious menu especially highlights winter’s seasonable vegetables for its growing customer-base, with carrots, leeks and potatoes from a variety of farms in the region.

The café also makes use of Ontario-raised pork, and water buffalo from Kampkreek Dairies farm out of St. Mary’s in their comforting mains. 

“Before we decide what we’re putting on the menu, we look at what’s available. We have vegetables that are available this time of year, then we pair the meat to that rather than trying to do it the other way. For me, it’s always very rustic — we call it bougie peasant food  — it’s that kind of comfort cooking that we’re aiming for.”

Berkelmans believes that Londonlicious brings a desperately-needed focus to the London food scene.

 “London is very much a box store city. Lots of East Side Mario’s, lots of chains, lots of things. And I feel like the restaurants here really suffer as a result of that. People are more inclined to go and get a Big Mac than they are to come here and get a sandwich that’s made out of local fresh ingredients with skill — for about the same price,” she said. “London needs more. It needs more skilled chefs. It needs more local restaurants. It needs less deep fryers and more sauté pans.”

Berkelmans is hopeful that Londonlicious will bring more attention to the local restaurants and culinary talent she sees in the city, where  chefs routinely work wonders with very little.

“[Londonlicious] shines spotlights on the weird ones. Like [here]… we don’t actually have a kitchen back there, we’ve got two hot plates and an oven, and that’s it, and that’s what we do all of this with. They’re working out of the museum at [Yaya’s Kitchen]. They have limited capacity to do some of the stuff that they’re doing, but they’re pulling it off anyway. There’s a lot of small businesses that are kind of in the same boat doing pretty impressive stuff with limited ability, and Londonlicious is bringing people down to that.” 

For Bicycle Café, Londonlicious helps build customer loyalty and gives chefs an opportunity to stretch their legs and do something fun with local and seasonal ingredients. “Jen from Londonlicious specifically is working so hard to make us all successful… this is the biggest winter [Londonlicious] they’ve done. There’s a lot of new people joining and there’s new restaurants opening — hopefully we can get them on board for the summer one and just keep expanding!”

Berkelman’s favourite thing on Bicycle Café’s Londonlicious menu is the black walnut tartlets, a butter tart using local black walnuts. “They are something that you can forage here, but they’re also something that’s almost impossible to crack open. So nobody’s really tried them because they’re more annoying to everybody than anything. But they’re delicious and they have their own flavor profile that isn’t like a regular English walnut.”

Bicycle Café has built a name for itself since its origins as a bicycle store with an espresso machine eight years ago. Now, with a full-scale breakfast, lunch and dinner menu plus a full bar, the café sees regulars coming in 7 days a week, with live music in the summer and various winter workshops — and they’re still selling bikes (with free test-rides!).

“I bring people in with the food and the coffee, and then you’re sitting here and chatting and you notice the bikes. It all ties in. It’s the Dutch bikes, the Dutch cycling culture. The TVP [Thames Valley Parkway] is right there, so we have cyclists all summer long. And then [we have] fuel to cycle with.”