In what is truly the end of an era, Calgary's Hyatt hotel announced a week ago that Friday, November 17 would be the final dinner service for its famous retaurant, Catch. The restaurant garnered national attention when it opened in 2000. With the kitchen being run by celebrity chef, Michael Noble and being in a landlocked region, Catch broke the mold in terms of serving high quality (and most importantly, fresh) seafood cuisine in a part of Canada that had never really experienced it to this degree before.
In 2001, the restaurant was named the best new restaurant in Canada by enRoute magazine's inaugural Canda's Best New Restaraunts list by writer Amy Rosen and the accolades continued to roll in from other local and regional publications. Those first few years at Catch saw many chefs working under Michael Noble that would go on to now do very impressive things with their careers. This includes Nick Nutting (Wolf in the Fog, Tofino), Duncan and Wanda Ly (Foreign Concept, Calgary), Nicole Gomes (Top Chef Canada: All-Stars winner), Neil McCue (Whitehall, Calgary), Matt Batey (Teatro, Calgary) and plenty more. Clearly, there was something in the water.
Years later, chef Kyle Groves--now a chef instructor at SAIT--took the helm, running the kitchen for several years while mentoring a new crop of young chefs who are now gaining notoriety in the local food scene like chefs Jenny Kang (Bow Valley Ranch), Scott Beaton (Two Penny Chinese) and Garrett Martin (Bridgette Bar).
"Over the years, Catch had ups and downs, but the people inside those doors were and are the legacy. As Dr. Seuss said: 'Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,'" wrote Groves in his memorium Instagram post.
Many of the Catch alumni took to social media to pay homage to the famous restaurant that is now no longer. The Hyatt has yet to announce whether it plans to reinvent within the restaurant space themselves or lease it out to a local businessperson.
