FINE-DINING — REVIEWS

SAY MERCY!

It's a few hours before dinner service on a late summer afternoon. Antonio Cayonne and Andrew Jameson are seated in their restaurant's dining room, laptops open and chairs stacked around them. We begin talking about their early years, long before Say Mercy! even broached the horizon. The business partners—who speak to each other with evident admiration and clear respect—met in Toronto over a decade ago while working in the hospitality industry. It would only be a few years later when they both found themselves in Vancouver for different reasons: Jameson had family in the city and Cayonne, a talented actor and performer, wanted to further explore the West Coast film industry. But fate would have it that the duo soon meet a skilled chef named Sean Reeve.

FRASERHOODTracy GieszAugust 29, 2020CASUAL, PATIO, FARM-TO-TABLE, VANCOUVER, ITALIAN, MODERN-CANADIAN, COMFORT-FOOD, LUNCH, FINE-DININGComment

ROW FOURTEEN

At the back of Row Fourteen, a sous chef picks green leaves off a purslane stalk while another slices peaches. The Klippensteins aren't on site: like every weekend, they're in Vancouver. The duo has been selling their family farm's organic produce at the Vancouver Farmers Markets for over a decade: their children often by their side, running the cash (and market coin) tills. Yes, the Klippensteins are dedicated vendors, but from youth, their dream was always to start a restaurant. Today, they can do both.

ST. LAWRENCE

No one at St. Lawrence is trying to impress you. That’s not to say the service isn’t gracious, thoughtful, and even unrivaled at times; it’s to say that they know the food speaks for itself. There is no picking through the menu, carving out the gluten, meat, or dairy: dishes come as the kitchen intends them too. And for good reason. Having won multiple local and national awards in just the two years they’ve been open, the team—a combined experience of decades in Vancouver's most distinct establishments—can relax and just do what they do best: serve up French food and libations.

WILDEBEEST

Wildebeest Executive Chef Ian McHale connects with British Columbia-based foragers—Victoria’s Lance Staples, for example, who forgaes full-time—and sources from small farms such as the family-run Subtilia Ranch and Salt Spring Island’s 120-acre organic Foxglove Farm. Sourcing his nori from Haida Gwaii cultivators, McHale also aims to illustrate the centuries-old knowledge of Indigenous foragers. He spearheaded Wildebeest’s in-house canning routine—preserved fruits and vegetables sustain the restaurant’s menu through less foliaged winter months: Lady Fern fiddlehead vinegar, Grand Fir salt, and pickled wild strawberries, to name a few.

GASTOWNTracy GieszJune 3, 2019FARM-TO-TABLE, VANCOUVER, OPEN-LATE, FINE-DINING, COMFORT-FOOD, MODERN-CANADIAN, LUNCH

CACAO

Alvarez echos Ramirez in his passion for promoting genuine Latin-American cuisine. “We’re doing Latin American food, to the bone, with locally-sourced ingredients,” he says. “Yes, we have some ingredients from Venezuela and Peru, that don’t grow up here, but we grow our own South American plants in the garden too.” This includes huacatay (black mint)––a plant species indigenous to Andean Peru where its name is derived from the Quechuan dialect.

KITSILANOTracy GieszMarch 17, 2019VANCOUVER, PATIO, OPEN-LATE, FARM-TO-TABLE, FINE-DINING, CASUAL, GLUTEN-FREEComment

BLENHEIM RESTAURANT: PASTURE TO PLATE

Blenheim Restaurant owners Morten Sohlberg and Min Ye, an accomplished husband and wife duo, merely intended to create a neighborhood staple, but wound up with a highly sought-after Michelin Recommendation, ushering their team into a rare class of pre-trend innovation. The intimate nook in Manhattan's West Village sits at the intersection of two tree-lined, cobblestone streets: a romantic throwback to the days when the Chase Banks and Walgreens of the world had less of an imposing presence.

WEST VILLAGE, NYCTracy GieszNovember 30, 2017FARM-TO-TABLE, FINE-DINING, NEW-YORK, LUNCH, OPEN-LATE, WEST-VILLAGEComment

MISSION

Top Chef Canada's "All Star" alumni, Chef Curtis Luk constructs distinctive dishes using his philosophy of nose-to-tail and root-to-tip cuisine in this award-winning Kitsilano dining room. Showcasing the abundance of the vast Pacific Northwest region, Luk offers both share-plate and tasting-menu options to lead guests on a mouthwatering adventure through the province's fields and oceans. With virtuosity, mastery, and flare, each seasonally-changing plate at Mission delights. The kitchen's novel and ingenious tastes are never simply following trends, but rather, are creating them.

KITSILANOTracy GieszSeptember 25, 2017VANCOUVER, FARM-TO-TABLE, FINE-DINING, MODERN-CANADIANComment

CHAMBAR RESTAURANT

Located in Crosstown (the ambiguous mid-zone between Chinatown and Yaletown), the remodel of the second location of Chambar was a collaboration between co-owner Karri Schuermans and Carscadden Stokes McDonald Architects, who are also based in Vancouver. Their design goal was to parallel the reach of the restaurant’s ambitions with "exquisite cuisine, exceptional service, and a room that glows", branding it as "an unpretentious fling with fine dining.”

CROSSTOWNTracy GieszAugust 13, 2017VANCOUVER, FINE-DINING, LUNCH, CASUAL, PATIO, OPEN-LATE, WIFIComment

BAUHAUS

A blend of classical German fare with contemporary European cuisine, Bauhaus' menu is one of the only delectably old-world dining experiences Vancouver has to offer. Being this far West of the multicultural continent known for its richness in art and culture, it's rare to come across a genuinely European eatery, but this award-winning German kitchen gives you that oft desired escape.

GASTOWNTracy GieszJuly 30, 2017FINE-DINING, OPEN-LATE, VANCOUVER, PATIO, LUNCH, WIFI

NIGHTINGALE

Only recently has the term "Modern Canadian" become so reiterated. It's often offered up as an erudite way to describe a Chef's interpretation of their menu and where they draw inspiration from. Cooks across the country are seeking vision from traditional fare but putting a modern spin on each dish, while respectably trying to "keep it Canadian". The term is rooted in the mass Farm-to-Table movement that has taken restaurant culture by storm, championed by the likes of chef personalities like Dan Barber and famous food journalists like Michael Pollan. But Modern Canadian cuisine has rightly found that a focus on local produce--and a connection to the farmers they source their ingredients from--lends exceptionally to achieving the richest of flavour, texture, and succulence. Enter Nightingale.

FINANCIAL DISTRICTTracy GieszJune 24, 2017VANCOUVER, MODERN-CANADIAN, COMFORT-FOOD, LUNCH, WIFI, FARM-TO-TABLE, OPEN-LATE, ITALIAN, FINE-DINING, CASUALComment

HOMER STREET CAFÉ

Featuring an open-concept Rotisserie, Homer Street Café is known for its juicy and perfectly seasoned chicken - so much so, that with an order of chickpea dip and crackers you get a crispy, fried chicken skin. Partnering with BC farms like Salt Spring Island's Foxglove Farm, the team behind Homer's menu is committed to sourcing humanely raised proteins, and freshly harvested produce, where nothing sits in a fridge or on a shelf for longer than it should.

YALETOWNTracy GieszMay 12, 2017COMFORT-FOOD, VANCOUVER, FINE-DINING, PATIO, LUNCH Comment

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