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Household cleaning products and award-winning cuisine are not the likeliest of bedfellows. Yet here we are at Chambar Belgian Restaurant and the diner at the next table is doing a fairly tidy job of analogizing the creative culinary surprises that continue to astound year after year, plate after plate.

“It's like eating an air freshener – but it's okay,” she says, savouring a forkful of Turkish cucumber, fennel and sunchoke salad, fragrantly aromatized with pistachio and blossom-water vinaigrette.

I may have phrased it differently. But I must say, she does seem to be enjoying her edible potpourri.

Chambar, which will be celebrating its fifth anniversary on Saturday with an outdoor family pig roast and late-night Mardi Gras-style feast, is difficult to categorize. How does one describe a restaurant that offers spicy coconut Congolaise moules frites and Moroccan rubbed lamb loin alongside coquilles St. Jacques and duck foie gras terrine?

Is this funky, high-end brasserie Belgian, Moroccan, French or something in between?

The menu's cryptic introduction doesn't help to clarify matters: “Forget what you've heard. This is a new evening for you to enjoy in the simple pleasures of dining. Leave your day at the door and open yourself to a new experience.”

Given that I've heard many unhappy stories from disappointed Chambar customers who say they have been charged for corked wine bottles that were sent back, condescended to by snooty servers and forced to shout over the raucous background music, this somewhat defensive-sounding welcome note could be interpreted rather ominously.

But after two superb recent meals in this vibrant brick-walled hot spot (the first time I wasn't recognized, the second time I was), I'm more inclined to take it is as a purposely vague invitation to enjoy some remarkable innovations from a constantly evolving kitchen, for which the most important consistencies are bold flavours and fantastic textures.

Consider, for example, les octopus grilles ($15). These mollusk morsels are as tender as you would expect from any decent seafood restaurant. But the crispy sides of lightly breaded, deep-fried chickpeas and broccoli (or cauliflower, depending on the day you visit), punctuated by mouth-puckering bursts of pickled arugula (shrunken into fried papery florets that look like unfurled capers) are scrumptiously original. Smoothly supported by a creamy bed of chili aioli, this addictive appetizer packs so much punch into one small plate I'm tempted to order a second helping to relish again every scrappy ingredient.

Les amuses bouches d'Escoffier ($18) draws on chef Nico Schuermans's classic training at several famous European restaurants, which included a stint as chef de partie at the then three-Michelin-starred Comme Chez Soi in Brussels.

This sensational sampling platter's forest mushroom vol-au-vent (which envelops a richly reduced Madeira, morel and cream sauce in a thin wrapping of flakey phyllo pastry) and creamy duck rillettes (topped with a crunchy pickled bean and cauliflower tartar) are as traditional as it gets.

But in homage to its namesake, the legendary Auguste Escoffier, the dish also slickly refreshes a few leathery chestnuts in a contemporary sheen: think chicken liver mousse whipped with cassis and sweet pistachio paste, escargots bathed in an intensely herbaceous absinthe pesto and salty golden sweet breads gently reined in by tiny, tartly acidic ball bearings of maple syrup marinated apple.

“We want to make sure each bite is wow, totally different than the rest,” Mr. Schuermans later says by phone, explaining his kitchen's “in-your-face” cooking philosophy.

No one was more blown away by Chambar's runaway success than him. The original plan was to open a casual 40-seat bistro. Prodded by his wife and business partner, Karri, who said: “If we're going to do it, let's go all the way,” they launched a 130-seat restaurant (now expanded to 160), which immediately captured the Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Award for best new fine dining.

Five years later, Chambar hasn't just survived – it has thrived. In addition to its neighbouring Café Medina (owned with former Chambar staffer Robbie Kane) and the new Dirty Apron Cooking School (owned with former chef-de-cuisine David Robertson and his wife Sara), the restaurant now boasts 400 covers, on average, every night.

There are obviously some customers who return time and time again for such signature items as the braised lamb shank tajine ($28), a fall-off-the-bone stew cooked for five hours in a deeply sweet sauce chock full of ginger, honey, figs, cinnamon and cilantro.

But the best part? In typical Chambar eccentricity, this overwhelmingly soft dish is complemented with a spray of peppery bok choy. It sounds crazy, but the juxtaposing raggedness of these barely blanched Chinese greens works brilliantly.

The Chambar classics, which include its famous mussels, are always pleasing. But to keep ahead of the casual fine-dining competition, which has multiplied vociferously in the past few years, the restaurant is constantly reinventing its menu. Le tournedos de veau ($28) is one new entrée that I've enjoyed so much I've ordered it twice this season.

The succulent puck of young beef, rubbed with fresh sage and ground green peppercorns, then wrapped in a double-smoked pancetta, is reason enough to order this main. But when combined with ricotta and stilton gnocchi – brightened with shards of fresh snap peas and a crumbly knob of Stilton sunk in a port-cherry compote – it makes a beautiful dish that is as pleasing to the eyes as it is to the tongue.

Having turned out more talented bartenders than any restaurant in the city, Chambar continues to apply a similarly sexy fastidiousness to its beverage program.

The current head bartender Wendy McGuinness is one of its best. Her complex cocktails are garnished with lacy fennel fronds, dehydrated pear slices and oven-roasted figs that she cooks up all by herself. One sip of her chipotle-spiced Veracruz cocktail, rimmed with ground celery salt and toasted sesame seed, and you'll never be satisfied with a plain-old bloody mary again.

With all these diverse flavours, wine is a tricky course to navigate. With lamb shank, veal – and an exceptional hot peach strudel on order – we were steering toward a full-bodied red. Thank goodness for an experienced sommelier, who turned us back to a more forgiving, multidimensional Spanish albarino.

In a city where the same old salmon steaks and lightly soy marinated tuna tartare are becoming staler by the minute, Chambar's kick-out-the-jams cooking style is much more than just an “okay” breath of fresh air. In fact, I could confidently say that this is one of the most brazenly seductive restaurants in Vancouver.

Chambar Belgian Restaurant: 562 Beatty St.; 604-879-7119