Renowned Victoria restaurateurs serving up elevated comfort food at Birdman

The restaurateurs behind two of Victoria’s most popular eateries, Wind Cries Mary and Rudi, are opening their third venture on lower Johnson called Birdman. 

Located in the former Friends of Dorothy space at 537 Johnson Street, Birdman will officially open to the public on Friday, May 22nd. 

Though the restaurant is new, the concept of Birdman is not. 

During the pandemic, the team at Wind Cries Mary were forced to pivot their approach to serving food to their patrons, like many other restaurants at the time. 

“We pivoted to the chicken sandwiches when everything was coming out of a box, takeout style, and most of our menu items at the time would not exactly travel well,” said Jesse Dame, founder of Cottage Hospitality Group. 

“Fried chicken was doing very well for us at the time at Wind Cries Mary, so we decided to expand that out to five fried chicken sandwiches. It stopped feeling like just another menu item and started to feel like it needed its own room.”

Executive chef and partner in Cottage Hospitality Group David Healey noted that the concept grew due to its popularity during the pandemic, and once things opened back up, it became a late night staple for many who work in the restaurant industry. 

“We always wanted to make sure we had something accessible to people after service for the restaurant folks because there was nothing when I moved to this town,” Healey told Victoria Buzz. 

“Anything after nine o’clock was barren for food.” 

Dame said that they had been looking for a suitable permanent home for Birdman for around two years, but wanted to wait until they found the right fit. 

“For me it had to be the right space—obviously spaces come and go in Victoria, and I sniffed around quite a few of them,” explained Dame.  

“This space just made so much sense. So many nooks and crannies.”

He added that the restaurant’s exposed brick, central bar, covered patio and open patio all offer unique experiences that he thinks patrons will enjoy thoroughly. 

Food

As far as the food at Birdman goes, it will not come as a surprise that fried chicken is front-and-centre on the menu. 

Some staples from Wind Cries Mary’s late night offerings will remain, but Healey wanted to grow the menu to bring more elevated comfort food to the table. 

“Here we’re able to expand upon the different cuts of a chicken we can use… I really wanted to put chicken wings on the menu, that was really important to me—I feel like doing a whole wing is kind of an iconic wing,” explained Healey.

Healey added that having a standalone Birdman restaurant has allowed for him to start using meats other than chicken. Some examples on their menu are the pork ribs, pork belly, shrimp cocktail and oysters. 

On the menu that Birdman will open with, there are nine categories. There are the meats, platters, from the sea, the bird, between two hands, something greenish, side hustle, just the dip and guilty pleasures. 

One menu item Healey was excited about having in the ‘from the sea’ category is the fried catfish. 

“We have a fried catfish that we’re doing that allowed us to have a pescatarian option,” he said. 

The chef also highlighted the ‘something greenish’ section, which features vegetable-forward dishes. 

This category includes a salad, fried cauliflower and halloumi. Furthermore, many of the dishes on the ‘side hustle’ section are vegetarian-friendly.

“I was able to really lean into vegetarian sides,” he explained. 

“I feel like we have so many great vegetables in BC and I feel it’s closed-minded to say ‘we’re not going to cook vegetables,’ I wanted to be able to offer a great experience to people who come in and might not eat meat.”

In the ‘guilty pleasures’ category, both Healey and Dame noted that the soft-serve ice cream and the sundaes take them back to their childhoods. 

“Just even seeing soft-serve brings that memory of being a kid again,” said Healey. 

Check out the full menu here. 

Drinks

As for drink options at Birdman, there is a little bit of everything for patrons to imbibe, but the focus is on sparkling wine. 

Dame explained that it is a classic pairing, putting fried food alongside sparkling wine. 

“There’s something about the fattiness of the chicken and the sharpness and dryness of the wine—its fantastic,” he said. 

“We’re also leaning into the oysters here, fried and baked, peel and eat shrimp, it all lends itself really well to a Cava or Champagne.”

They also have boilermakers, beer, white and red wine as well as a cocktail program dialed in by the same beverage director who oversees Wind Cries Mary and Rudi’s cocktails. 

What’s next

For the time being, Dame and Healy will be focussing on “letting the Bird take flight,” but now that Birdman has a home of its own, the late-night menu at Wind Cries Mary will undergo some changes. 

“Now with the opening of Birdman, we are going to be transitioning that concept to here, but we are starting to put together a whole new late night menu that’s going to be at Wind,” said Healey. 

“We want to almost juxtapose ourselves and offer two different experiences for what people are looking for.”

Though the new late night menu at Wind Cries Mary is still in the works, Healey did reveal that he wanted to put a grilled cheese on the menu, along with other items that he and other other restaurant industry workers crave after a long shift. 

Birdman will open to the public on Friday, May 22nd, and will be doing service from 4 p.m. until midnight through the weekend. 

On Monday, May 25th, Birdman will open for lunch service as well, and will be open from 11:30 a.m. until midnight, seven days a week.

Reservations can be made online, here