Igor Dudkin, private chef in Calgary
The most expensive card on the sheet, and the most plated
C$185 – C$277CAD a head, over 19 published menus
4.8— that is 33 ratings since 2023, unrounded, poor ones included
Cooking as Igor Dudkin, working across Calgary, Alberta.
The read
Dudkin runs three steps — C$185, C$231, C$277 — and the top one is the highest number on this sheet. What you are paying for at the top is single-plate cooking: one dish per course, built and garnished for that table, not a menu with four options per course.
His food leans fusion in a deliberate way; he describes putting together things that do not obviously belong together and measuring by feel. In practice that reads as saffron risotto croquettes with roasted tomato, bison and mushroom over polenta, salmon with pink rice and lemon yoghurt.
Hosts write about the planning first and the plates second. One booking produced keepsakes for the table; another was an anniversary dinner cooked around two very small children without anyone being made to feel apologetic about it.
How many
Two to twenty, but the format is built for a seated table.
Cooks what
Fusion fine dining · French · Italian · Alberta beef · Mediterranean
Rate ladder
- C$185Alberta style and the regional cards
- C$231The middle stepAlberta, French, Italian or Mediterranean dinner
- C$277SignatureFun & Joy, Trust the Chef, Explore the World
Per guest. Drinks and travel outside Calgary sit outside these figures.
Behind the name
- More than a decade in high-end restaurant kitchens
- Menus grouped by country: France, Italy, the Mediterranean, Alberta
- Plans the menu with the host before the booking
- Three clean price steps rather than à la carte add-ons
Plates
A menu
One of 19 menus, rewritten here for length. Courses get changed for allergies and for what is in season.
Hosts
A birthday where the hosts were kept in the loop from the first menu draft right through to the coffee. They said five stars was not a wide enough scale.
An anniversary dinner at home with very young children. He worked around the noise and the timing without fuss.
One dietary preference absorbed without a discussion, the room read well, the kitchen left clean.
Written from what each host left afterwards, in our words, with names as they signed them.
To book
Menus are settled with the cook first; nothing is locked until you both agree the card.
Compare against Nathaniel Davis from C$176, Nicolas Desinai from C$160 and Marina Mellino from C$100.