We have been wanting to try Naagan for some time and finally got an opportunity over the holiday break. There is only one seating at 6:30 pm and there are only about 17 seats total. While located on a downtown street in Owen Sound, the interior is quite peaceful. The room has stunning handmade wood tables with burned images (ours had a mallow rose), chairs with white sheepskin draped over the back, shelves filled with jars of house preserves, bunches of dried plants hanging from the ceiling, sumac branches, an otter pelt and beaver pelt, dream catchers, and fragrant burning sage.
They serve no alcohol and instead offer a pairing of teas and juices, with some vinegar elements. Each course is plated at the same time for all tables and Chef Zach Keeshig then introduces each dish. He also periodically brings around a tray to show us some ingredients and explains how they were prepared. We got a close look at dried yellow oyster mushrooms that were harvested from a nearby felled elm tree, a dry aged duck seasoned over birch bark grill, smoked and dried bison heart, pigeons, and the chaga mushrooms that went into the dessert.
We started off with very subtle cedar tea, sweetened with maple syrup. This accompanied 4 hand held snacks:
- Bannock made with local flour, cool hung yogourt, luscious brined and cherry-hot-smoked lake trout, New Brunswick caviar, and lemon balm and chervil, served on a small section of a tree trunk.
- Venison tartare was accented with an emulsion of spruce vinegar, pickled carrots, chive blossoms, watercress, mustard greens, and beetroot powder, and served on top of a cute deer-shaped cracker made out of harvested yellow oyster mushroom – the subtle bitters and sours complemented the heartiness of the meat. This was served on a slab of wood, rimmed by a deer antler.
- Tartlet of spelt, with roasted caramelized beet purée, and bison heart done katsuobushi-style (salted, smoked, dehydrated, and shaved), with a couple of preserved maple blossoms in housemade vinegar – subtle umami from the heart and a nice sweetness from the beets. This was served on a cool turtle pottery plate.
- Local Indigenous-caught whitefish was dry-aged and cured, served on blini-like pancake of wild rice (manoomin), with roasted sunflower seeds, thyme, and pickled chanterelle, served on a pottery rabbit.
Our next beverage was a spritz flavoured with chokecherry and a syrup made with cucumber magnolia – lovely, not too sweet, with astringent hints from the chokecherries and a vegetal tone, presumably from the magnolia.
We were then shown the duck, which had been seasoned, scored, and torched to render the fat, then grilled on birch bark, with burnt honey glaze and alder pepper. It was then served as a rare slice of breast, with salt chunks, wild rose gel and spoonfuls of tangy jus, made from the bones, spruce vinegar, and birch wood oil. I tend to prefer my duck (and birds in general) more cooked, but the florality of the gel and the jus won me over.
Our third pairing was apple juice and cantaloupe vinegar, which was nicely balanced and not overly acidic. We were then given wooden spoons with oak leaf handle and a palate cleanser of paw-paw sorbet, lightly inflected with wild rhubarb vinegar and topped with a lacy leaf tuile made from activated charcoal. We love paw-paw, so this was a hit.
Our fourth pairing was a mix of aroniaberry (chokeberry) and beet vinegar. This was a bit like lemonade, with the beets adding a pleasant earthiness. Chef Zach then came around with pigeon breasts, grilled over charcoal, with maple and magnolia vinegar glaze, blackened apple gel, and pickled onion seeds. We were then served a slice of moist breast, with pickled chokeberries, fresh tart apple spheres, and a silky bone jus with white pine oil (but no spoon or bread to pick up the last bits).
Dessert started off with popsicles of burnt paper birch bark ice cream, accented with maple and birch syrups, and coated with some toasted black walnuts on a whittled twig – creamy, lightly sweet, with that complex umami-ish hint from the birch.
Our final pairing was pear juice, apple syrup, apple cider vinegar – pleasant on its own, but perhaps a bit too much acid to go with the desserts.
The first dessert was called a chaga tartlet, but it was more like mushroom-shaped shortbread cookie, topped with a cremeux of apple jelly, pumpkin seeds, poached quince, flowers, and chokecherry powder. I have been underwhelmed by mushroom desserts before and haven’t really liked chaga at all, but the cookie actually tasted kinda chocolatey and was elevated by the quince and the chokecherry. The presentation was also dramatic, over birch branches and dry ice.
We finished with three small treats, served on a glass box with cedar branches inside which were blowtorched first for extra smoke:
- sweet fern wafer sandwich, chantilly cream, with sweet woodruff – vanilla flavours without the vanilla!
- sponge toffee with raw honey
- bonbon of wild ginger powder and syrup, with a gorgeously tangy frozen plum compote, encased in beeswax, with dried elderberry over and a shortbread base
To finish the evening, Chef Zach gave us a little tour of the space, explaining the sourcing of the materials and décor as well as explaining some of the other preserves. And then we got a taste of mugolio, basically a syrup made with green Scots pine cones.
Quite a special evening, with lots of interesting ingredients and flavours in great combintations, generally executed with great skill and care.
