6 Places I’d Go Back For Lunch In Saskatoon
It was my first time in Saskatoon and when I touched down I wasn’t exactly aware of the city’s burgeoning reputation as a culinary hub. Even though I knew that Saskatoon has impressive restaurant-per-capita numbers, I hadn’t yet experienced the variety that defined lunch in Saskatoon. I first felt the energy at Odd Couple where we had lunch right after leaving the airport. It isn’t just about getting fed, it’s about meeting some members of a chef community and immigrants who are actively reinventing the culinary scene in Saskatoon.
Diving in to the Super Combo plate at Baba’s Homestyle Perogies
If you want to get away from the usual, uninspired sandwich shops, these six spots offer a much better look at what the folks here like to eat. It’s easy to just stick with the familiar restaurants in downtown Saskatoon, but I found that wandering into neighborhoods is where the local scene starts to feel real. That’s where you’ll track down a lunch in Saskatoon that isn’t just another corporate experience. If you’re heading to Saskatoon from Regina, or anywhere south, check out my full 5 Day Regina To Saskatoon Road Trip guide for some of the best stops along the way.
Saskatoon Lunch Guide: The Interactive Map
To make your “Bridge City” food tour even easier, I’ve mapped out all five of these locations for you. Saskatoon is a fairly easy city to navigate, but since these spots are scattered from the historical vibe of Broadway to the creative energy of Riversdale, having a visual layout is a game-changer.
Most travelers waste half their afternoon just looking for parking or trying to find “that one place they saw on Instagram.” This map eliminates the guesswork. You can open this directly on your phone, tap a pin for the “must-order” recommendation, and get instant directions to the real deal.
Odd Couple: The Riversdale Staple
Riversdale is where a lot of the city’s creative energy lives. It’s also where you’ll find other favorites like Hometown Diner, and Odd Couple is right in the thick of it. It’s a family-run operation led by Andy Yuen and his parents, and the menu is a smart, “Canadian-Asian” hybrid.
Andy Yuen and his mom from Odd Couple in Saskatoon
I’m a carnivore through and through, but I’d tell anyone to start with their Vegan Spring Rolls. They are that good. For the main event, my favorite was the Singapore noodles. It’s hard to describe what “wok hei” means but once you taste these noodles you’ll recognize the slight char that a scorching hot wok imparts on rice or noodles. The curry flavour wasn’t the punch-in-the-face curry you get with food like curry goat from Trinidad, it was subtle yet you knew it was there. It’s honest food that reflects the family’s Cantonese and Vietnamese roots.
The Avenue B South Connection: Botte & Chachos
There is a specific building on Avenue B South that holds two very interesting lunch options in the city.
First, there’s Botte Persian Cafe, which is Saskatoon’s first Persian teahouse. The cafe was started by a family who migrated from Iran. It’s still owned by the family who started it, but these days the kitchen is overseen by Guyanese-born chef Diana Gray. At Botte the decor is definitely Persian in nature and the menu will satisfy anyone looking for a flavourful lunch in Saskatoon, or even late breakfast. We had a few items but I loved the Aush, it’s a vegetable and legume soup that would be perfect on a chilly day.
Delicious and filling lunch at Botte.
Both Botte and Chachos share an open kitchen in the same building, but that’s where the similarities end.
While Botte has seating and a wide menu, Chachos is mainly take-out with a menu focused on birria. Owner Hasib Karimi learned the recipe for his tacos from a taco vendor in Mexico and then started selling his tacos out of his home before moving into his current location.
Birria tacos from Chachos
Hasib braises cuts of beef in a variety of Mexican spices for over seven hours and you can taste that patience in the quesabirria tacos. They also offer a birria ramen. Some may question it but the broth is so rich it works quite well. Having these two vastly different cultures under one roof is a perfect snapshot of what the culinary scene in Saskatoon has become.
Baba’s Homestyle Perogies: A Masterclass in Comfort Food
You cannot visit Saskatoon and skip the perogies at Baba’s as their food is a tribute to the Ukrainian roots that run throughout this prairie city. Baba’s is an absolute institution. The restaurant itself is a small area with a counter, a few booths and a freezer where you can get their hand-made items to go. If you don’t want to eat there you can even hit the drive-thru as it’s the world’s first perogy drive-thru restaurant.
To get the full experience I recommend getting the Super Combo plate. It comes with five perogies, two cabbage rolls, and a smokie, and a variety of toppings. They go through 2,500 pounds of potatoes in a single week so you know they aren’t cutting corners or skimping on the most important ingredient in a perogy.
Postal Pizza: Neapolitan on Wheels
We found Postal Pizza outside of Cafe Del Rey, a local cafe on 3rd Avenue South. Postal Pizza is a food-truck and they do move throughout the city, but catching it near more traditional restaurants in downtown Saskatoon is a great way to see a different side of the city’s core.
The restored 1974 Dodge Postal Pizza truck parked near restaurants in downtown Saskatoon
It’s easily one of the more creative setups I’ve seen. Chef Devereaux Gatin, who coincidentally also owns Cafe Del Rey, runs his pizza ovens out of a restored 1974 Dodge postal truck, hence the name.
Devereaux is a classically trained chef who spent time in Asia and thought street food from around the world would work well in Saskatoon. Unfortunately the logistics of sourcing ingredients caused him to look at other ideas and he pivoted to pizza. His pizza dough is made using only flour made from local grains. The crust on his Neapolitan-style pizza is thin with just the right amount of chew that holds up to the heat of the wood-fired oven. It’s fast, it’s casual, and it’s an absolutely delicious lunch. It’s a pizza that you’d expect to come from a brick-and-mortar restaurant, not out of the back of an old postal truck.
Las Palapas Resort Grill: A Tropical Escape in the Prairies
You know those days in Saskatoon where the wind just cuts right through you? Las Palapas is exactly where you go to hide from it. Walking inside is a bit of a trip—one minute you’re in the prairies, and the next you’re surrounded by these bright, high-contrast rooms that honestly made me feel like I’d been dropped right back into a Mexican Pueblo Mágico.
It’s a regular go-to for lunch in Saskatoon because the atmosphere does most of the work for you. It’s just such a stark departure from the usual flat landscape outside the windows. While you’ve got plenty of more “buttoned-down” restaurants in downtown Saskatoon, Las Palapas is more about that loud, high-energy vibe that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you end up there, do yourself a favor: grab the tacos, order a margarita, and just lean into the fact that you can basically forget where you are for a while.
Conclusion
I wasn’t sure if the whole “Paris of the Prairies” thing was just a really good marketing campaign. But after spending a few days in the city, I get it. While you can certainly find plenty of reliable restaurants in downtown Saskatoon, the real magic is happening in the places you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like a shared kitchen on Avenue B or a literal postal truck parked on a street corner. Deciding where to have lunch in Saskatoon isn’t actually the hard part; the struggle is choosing between a seven-hour braised birria and a mountain of handmade perogies. This city’s food scene is the real deal, not because of fancy tablecloths, but because of a chef community that’s embracing global flavors with as much heart as prairie traditions.
Huge thanks to Discover Saskatoon for hosting us on this trip. Even though I was compensated for this article all opinions expressed are completely my own.
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