Free Bird allows chef to spread his wings

To walk into Free Bird in Lumsden, Sask., is to enter JP Vives's world. The chef's personality is everywhere, from the portrait of Biggie Smalls, to the '90s hip hop playing, to the custom-made steelworks used to create the feature window bartop and shelving behind the bar.

"This is JP's man cave," said his mom and Free Bird's co-owner, Pam Vives.

"I don't like white walls. They get dirty," JP added. "I like dim, dark spaces. Warm wood;cold steel kinda thing."

It feels like you're in an urban loft space, not in a small town 20 minutes northwest of Regina.

While the menu definitely features food fit for a man cave ribs, wings, greasy burgers there are also refined dishes that reflect JP's culinary skill and experience: housemade gnocchi in ros sauce, jerk chicken karaage, and baked feta with tomato confit. Being able to sample this kind of variety is also to enter JP's world and why the name of his restaurant is so fitting: he's finally free to fully unleash his creativity.

"Our motto is, 'Common food, done uncommonly well,'" he said.

As for common food, Free Bird's menu features dishes his regulars crave.

"I want to offer the best burger," said JP. "I want the best fish and chips. I got the meanest f-ing fried chicken."

But then he's also serving up his own version of vegetable pakoras with honey spiced yogurt, and Agedashi tofu a Japanese dish tossed in buffalo sauce.

"I wanted to bring something that Lumsden was missing," he said, adding that the valley isn't lacking in great ingredients. His butcher is across the street. His baker is down the street. Free Bird also sources vegetables from the Heliotrope Organic Farm nearby.

Reginans of a certain vintage (Hint: I am 41.) might recognize JP from his previous stints, cooking under Adam Sperling at La Bodega in the early 2000s, then under the late Dave Straub at Flip in the 2010s, both heralded eateries in their prime. Those experiences helped shape the type of chef JP is today.

JP took a break from cooking in 2012 to become a father and moved to Saskatoon, where he briefly worked at a metal shop owned by his uncle.

"It was the perfect time to try a 9 to 5," he said, but his love of the kitchen pulled him back.

His friend Cole Dobranski, whom he met working at La Bodega more than a decade prior, moved to Saskatoon to open Congress Beer House. JP helped him launch it in 2013 and, over a five-year period, assisted in the openings of a number of Congress-group establishments: Ace Burger, Hometown Diner and Thirteen Pies.

It was a whirlwind period in his life and JP eventually needed to reorient himself.

"I just felt that my time and what I had developed with Congress was depleted already, and I just needed something new."

So, he moved back to his hometown of Lumsden (population: 1,800), to get a break from "that city life." He didn't initially set out to open a restaurant, but then he and his mom started looking at potential spaces, developed a concept and opened Free Bird in May 2019.

"I want to make feel-good comfort food," said JP.

About going into business with her son, Pam said "it's been a wee bit of an adventure, but I gotta tell you, everything weirdly fell into place." She is a dental assistant by trade but has customer service and bookkeeping experience from working the reception desk at the dental clinic skills she has applied to the restaurant.

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People visit Free Bird from Regina, Moose Jaw and as far as Saskatoon. Others have made the drive from Strasbourg. Many customers simply pop in off Highway 11.

"I want to put Lumsden on the map with a Top 100 restaurant in Canada," said JP.