Introducing: Antler, Michael Hunter’s game restaurant in Little Portugal

Name: Antler
Contact: 1454 Dundas St. W., 647-345-8300, antlerkitchenbar.com, @AntlerKitchen
Neighbourhood: Little Portugal
Previously: This End Up
Owners: Michael Hunter (Scarpetta, Reds Wine Tavern) and Jody Shapiro
Chef: Michael Hunter

The food

Contemporary Canadian cuisine focused on flavours from northern Ontario, including farm-raised game and ingredients that Hunter foraged (morels, wild leeks, black walnuts). The menu is made up of familiar dishes, each with a twist: there’s a Jamaican patty (filled with curry-spiced venison), gyoza (stuffed with wild boar) and a burger (made with deer, bison and wild boar).

The venison patty made with a paté brisée shell comes with a spicy dipping sauce. $8.

Wild boar gyoza are steamed and then pan fried. $8.

Charcoal-grilled duck heart yakitori with a sweet soy glaze. $6 for two.

Chestnut gnocchi in brown butter with parsnip purée, roasted squash, brussels sprout leaves, almond brittle, sage and shaved parmesan. $19.

Spice-ash crusted rack of deer, served with parsnip purée and swiss chard. $38.

A warm chocolate brownie with toasted meringue and cedar dust, topped with chocolate mousse and candied, foraged black walnuts. $10.

The drinks

Craft beer (most of which are from Calgary’s Big Rock Brewery), local and international wine by the glass or bottle, and “foraged cocktails” made by Steven Gambee (Reds Wine Tavern) that feature seasonal ingredients.

The Kordonis: gin, house-made beet purée, basil simple syrup and foraged sumac. $14.

Foraged-cedar gin sour: cedar-infused gin, simple syrup, lemon, bitters. $14.

The space

The room is filled with nods to the great outdoors—like wall-mounted ferns, a deer skull (of the first buck Hunter shot) hanging above the open kitchen and framed photographs of his Caledonia foraging grounds.

This End Up’s vintage beer signs were replaced with ferns.

Chef and co-owner Michael Hunter (front) and co-owner Jody Shapiro (back).