Avenue Magazine Edmonton

The Harvest Room at The Fairmont Hotel Macdonald

10065 100 St., 780-424-5181

Sous Chef Doreen Prei joined the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald last year. This year represents her first Christmas menu at the Mac's Harvest Room and she has put her own signature on it. "I take a very European style and put a North American twist on it." She points to the appetizer selection of the Christmas dinner ($135). "We make a foie gras parfait, which is a very French style, and then we add espresso and serve it with Okanagan ice wine jelly," she explains. "Then we have a French bouillabaisse, but we use a smoked cod, Iceland shrimps from Nova Scotia and Chinook salmon from B.C."

New to Alberta, the German native sought some input from food and beverage manager Kathleen Taylor. "Of course, we need turkey, and Kathleen told us that, in Alberta, we need a beef option, too." Prei added an organic tenderloin from Diamond Willow as a protein option to the Christmas menu.

The Christmas menu boasts some of the many different cooking techniques that appear on the regular menu, including pickles, foam, airs, confit and - popularized by American chef Thomas Keller - sous vide, which involves cooking vacuum-sealed foods for a long time at low temperatures.

Prei has also added a couple of touches from her homeland. Notably, the break between courses is signalled by a mulled wine granité, right from a Weihnachtsmarkt, a German pre-Christmas street market. Also, with a quintessentially North American turkey dinner, Prei serves a very German bulette, alongside a generous portion of sliced meat. The bulette, which the Harvest Room offers instead of stuffing, is a small ground-meat patty, made from turkey leg, maple syrup, cranberries, herbs and celery, among other things. It's a little bit of comfort food.

"It's Christmas," Prei says, simply. "The food has to offer comfort and it has to be fancy, too."