Julep Kitchen & Cocktails has plans for spring

“We don’t mind working hard,” says Ryan Wolfe of he and his business partner, chef Lawry Deneau. They’re the pair behind Chain Yard Urban Cidery’s in-house restaurant, Unchained Kitchen (2606 Agricola Street)—which has been doing big things out of an eight-by-eight kitchen since 2017—and they’ve got some plans for spring 2019.

That’s when Julep Kitchen & Cocktails aims to open its doors at 1684 Barrington Street, the longtime home of John W. Doull Booksellers, bringing casual-but-elevated food and drinks downtown.

“At Chain Yard we really try to focus on pairing with cider, which is very easy to do if you’ve had their cider, it’s quite refined. It almost drinks as a white wine,” says Wolfe. Julep will give Denau a chance to take the same “simple ingredients” and “cool flavours” of Unchained’s home-cooked classics to the next level with much more space to play with. “Lawry has spent a lot of time in the southern US and loves the culture and food there because it parallels so well with what’s going on in Nova Scotia with all those Acadian roots. We’re not southern, but it’s a play on that southern style.”

Team Julep is early in the planning and reno phase and looks forward to neighbouring their personal faves Stillwell and Highwayman sometime in April. “There’ll be passion in every bite,” says Wolfe.