The Banff National Park landmark gets more than a face lift
by Mary Bailey
Mountain Avenue meanders up the slope, leaving the chaos of Banff Avenue behind. Then you see it, perched on the side of Sulphur Mountain like a sentinel, gazing over the Spray Valley. The setting creates a feeling of apartness, but not solitude. Rather, a oneness with the mountain, an invitation to reenergise and restore.
The Rimrock hotel had gotten a little tired over the years as hotels in beautiful places tend to do. Then the Fairmont folks bought it and began a multi-year, multi-million-dollar reimagining of this icon. It reopens this summer as part of the Accor Emblems Collection.
“We want our guests to feel that they are in a special place and feel the connection to this landscape on their own terms,” says David Garcelon, general manager of Rimrock Banff. “You can relax and enjoy the view or you can have an adventure.”
Hotel staff plan to make this very easy. Expeditions, the adventure concierge desk in the lobby, can set up custom itineraries with a variety of providers, depending on the interests of the guests. We hooked up with Stellar Experiences, who took us on a forest bathing walk with local guide, Ronna Schneberger. Ronna helped us understand the forest we were in and to slow down to enjoy it, capped off with a tasty Rimrock waterside lunch. Then came Elder Pablo, from the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta. He told a parallel history of the mountains and the buffalo. We were mesmerized. We parted with gifts of pemmican and a feeling that something momentous had just happened.
Camille Pablo Russel (Elder Pablo) shares his world
“Many of our guests are international and we want them to feel the connection with our culture,” says David. “Our mountain culture, sharing the valley, the hot springs, the railway and also our Canadian culture—our diversity and multiculturalism, and a big part of that is through food and beverage.”
The beloved Eden restaurant is now called Parker’s Table, after Elizabeth Parker, co-founder of the Alpine Club of Canada. There, Rimrock Banff’s sommelier Julian Morissette is hard at work, cataloguing Eden’s famed cellar while adding more exceptional vintages. (Wine lovers will be very happy).
Director of culinary David Gibson talks about the Listening Lounge menu. He refers to the caviar bite from the Listening Lounge. https://youtube.com/shorts/PvtwcCWCrE4
The opening menu, by chef David Gibson (director of culinary), features a cross-Canada bounty of seasonal produce; oysters and halibut from the Pacific; Prairie grains and Alberta bison, lamb and wild boar; potatoes with beef tallow and a crispy Little Gem salad with a honeycomb vinaigrette. Each dish has an uncomplicated elegance—a truly Canadian approach.
Parker’s Table dishes
Meanwhile in Social, the easy-going, free-form, all-day restaurant, you can have lunch, or you can have snacks—which lean plant-forward—crudité with a green goddess dressing and a sticky beet dish with almonds. Dessert? Alpine honey mousse. Alpine honey is the emblematic ingredient at Rimrock Banff. It’s woven into every menu, including the Rimrock Travel Cake. Look for The GOAT lager by Canmore’s Grizzly Paw Brewing Co.; Wild Life Distillery’s Wheeler’s Reserve Whisky, named after the other founder of the Alpine Club of Canada.
The Rimrock Market is the place to pick up coffee (Calgary’s Chronicle), take-away breakfast, great pastries and lunchtime sandwiches for your hike. Come evening, it morphs into an Alpine biergarten, the place to enjoy the fire après-everything, with chili, charcuterie, or one of those toothsome German-style salty pretzels. The high-fidelity Listening Lounge is a bijou space with a live DJ on the weekends and a full bar.
Biergarten pretzels
Coming soon, the spectacular two-storey wellness centre featuring an outdoor infinity pool, hydrothermal circuit and saunas.
Opening date is July 3. When I spoke with David Garcelon mid-June, the hotel was nearing completion. “The bar in the Listening Lounge just went in, the kitchens are finished. Every time I walk through the hotel there’s a chandelier that wasn’t there yesterday.”
