“Whispers – a restaurant with a mission”

Posted: 08 Sep 2010 06:49 PM PDT

Whispers – a restaurant with a mission

By CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD-DANBY Columnist

Kevin Kroetsch is a brave man, a person who is prepared to put his life where his heart is.

After 30 years in the construction business, Mr. Kroetsch bought the Whispers restaurant in Elora and proceeded to brings his message of the importance of eating well with good food to his clients. Recently, he has gone the whole way by converting his menu to vegetarian.

By vegetarian, Mr. Kroetsch means no flesh, although he does use eggs and dairy.

"I thought of going to vegan," he told me, "but that's too radical. We do offer vegan dishes, though."

Whispers is known to the locals for its pasta and Mr. Kroetsch has kept to that in his vegetarian menu. There are plenty of pasta dishes which do not require meat and Mr. Kroetsch is busy collecting the recipes.

He noted, "We had a group of 22 people in here recently and 17 of them had the pasta. As long as people understand there is no flesh in the pasta sauce, I'll keep offering it."

He has come a long way. Raised with seven brothers and four sisters, Mr. Kroetsch grew up on a pig farm.

As a story with a moral, he said, "When I was a boy of 10 or 12 years old, I would go down to feed the pigs and I would take a syringe and give penicillin to any pig I thought looked ill. That's the way it is – the drugs they give the animals."

He was a youthful hunter, too, until the night he shot a moose. "It was a lot of work catching, shooting, dragging the moose home to eat and then the meat was not all that good and I thought, 'Why? Why did I do this – killing a wild animal for the meat that's not much good?' So, I never did it again."

His main focus and reason for opening a restaurant is to demonstrate how eating conscientiously, with a view to the health of oneself and the planet, can be combined with eating well.

With a view to sampling the result of his passionate caring for such matters, friends and I took an evening recently to taste his wares.

We decided to work with the entrees of the day, for sure, but I chose the gaspacho, which is my favourite cold soup. It was very nice but not at all spicy. No doubt, I could have asked for that, if had wanted it.

My husband, Colin, had the salad of the day, a delightful combination of spinach and romaine lettuce with some fruit and candied walnuts – they were great and we all stole some from him. Our friend, Kathie, had the potato, leek and spinach soup which she thought was very good.

For the entrées, we had the lentil burger, the squash filled ravioli and the gnocchi with three cheese sauce.

I tried Colin's burger and found it delicious; Kathie wanted more filling in her ravioli but they were quite rich and a good flavour; and my gnocchi were fine.

By the time we came to dessert, we were all a bit full but in the line of duty we pressed on.

The desserts are rich and full of what is good for you by way of nuts, carrots in the one and fruit.

had the crème Brule which was a different texture from what I am used to, but it still tasted right.

Good marks to the food, but the wine list is very small and disappointing. I pointed this out to the chef and he assures me that he is looking into organic wines which will feature on his wine list soon.

The service was excellent – our waiter knew exactly the balance between comfortable and familiar. He was efficient and very enthusiastic about the restaurant, its dishes and its mission.

All in all, Whispers is worth the trip, decent in price and noble in intent.

Mr. Kroetsch and his partner, Fran Weima, are planning to stage seminars in the back room of the restaurant on the subject on how food affects one's life.

The restaurant business is not easy and Mr. Kroetsch and Ms. Weima should be applauded and patronised for their initiative.

To book, call 1-519- 846-1104.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent.