A small room.
An old hearth.
Eleven years.

Maison Hearth opened on NE Alberta in the spring of 2014, in a building that had been a print shop, then a record store, then nothing for a decade. The hearth at the back of the room was already there — built in 1928, repaired four times since, and the reason we signed the lease.

For the first three years, it was just two of us: Iyanna at the stove, her partner Marcus running the floor. We served forty-two seats and a menu that changed weekly because there was no other way to keep up with what the farms were sending. Most weeks we still don't write the menu until Tuesday.

We grew, slowly. Eight people now in the kitchen and on the floor. The room has shrunk — we took twenty seats out in 2019 to put in the bread oven we'd wanted since we opened, and we haven't missed the covers. The food has gotten quieter, more deliberate, a little more about the producer and a little less about the chef. That feels right.

Three nights a week, somebody at the bar tells us we're their favorite restaurant. Twice a year, somebody tells us we're the only restaurant they've ever come back to. Either is enough to keep doing it.