If Vancouver's Pacific Northwest persona comes wed to the ocean, it also embraces the palette of accents rolling in from Japan, China and the shores of Southeast Asia. Even at La Casa Gelato ice cream shop on Venables Street, the Pacific fix is in, with Vince Masceo's velvety ice creams assuming flavours such as Thai tea and coconut, coconut red rice and Vegemite.
Critics say Vancouver has no culture, but they're wrong: Restauranting is culture, with theatre and opera distant seconds. Vancouverites buy into The Formula. The Formula goes like this: First calculate the probable number of years you have to live. Then multiply that number by 365. There. You have the number of dinners left in your life. Which means you can't afford a bad one.
Vancouver chefs step high (not unlike their cousins across the pond in Sydney). The city is a hothouse of young, fearless and outward-looking talent. Vancouver flavours are focused, concentrated, uninhibited, even enthralling. Montreal, by comparison, remains cozily ensconced in its Gallic bubble, while Toronto seems lost in yet another binge of trying to find itself.
Vancouver is a young person's game and the proof sits squarely on the plate. Harry Kambolis was 22 when he opened his popular Raincity Grill 10 years ago. He was 27 when he unveiled his restaurant C. He was warned every step of the way: The restaurant's False Creek location was cursed. The name would baffle everyone. A dedicated fish restaurant was too risky. But Kambolis went ahead anyway -- and opened the most original and exciting fish and seafood restaurant this country has ever seen.
The first time I walked into C four years ago, I was knocked flat by what Kambolis and chef Rob Clark were doing: Wrangel Sound scallops, Manila clams, Hecate Strait halibut, Hawaiian swordfish, Arctic char, Dungeness crab, B.C. spot prawns, sea urchin, ahi tuna, rock cod. The oysters, the salmons, even monkfish liver sold as "foie gras of the sea."
Now I'm back, gazing out at a flotilla of sails under a purple-streaked sky. Lately, C has been demonstrating ecological conscience: Ten per cent of the proceeds from its tasting menu go to the David Suzuki Foundation, a player in the controversy over responsible aquaculture on the West Coast. In response to a personal challenge from Suzuki, Clark is approaching resources differently, using not just the best bites, but the whole fish: trimmings go into stocks and sauces; "salmon ribs" may show up as a garnish; bones are recycled (Clark cleans them, boils them, dries them and grinds them in a salt mill as near-addictive "salmon salt").
The kitchen thrives on invention: A cute little kusshi oyster lolls around, sunomono-style, with vinegared cucumber noodles, ponzu jelly and wasabi-infused salmon roe. Smoked sablefish (marketing jargon for Alaska black cod) arrives in style with slashes of blood orange and that miraculous Venturi-Schulze balsamic vinegar from Vancouver Island, the only balsamic produced on this continent. Scallops wrapped in octopus bacon -- tentacles cured, double-smoked and sliced -- sprawl in a lip-sticking pool of veal and Cognac sauce misted in truffle oil. The combination allows impish sommelier Tom Doughty the chance to practise the red-wine-with-fish principle, and a vintage Pommard proves the point.
When C won its gamble on Vancouver's appetite for fish and seafood, a green light flashed for the Bluewater Café and Raw Bar. Set among the warehouses-turned-lofts and door-to-door restaurants of trendy Yaletown, the Bluewater comes by its brick-and-beam décor with the honesty of a century-old building. At the handsome cherrywood bar, chef Masanori (Max) Katsuno turns out sushi and sashimi second to none in this raw-crazy town, while executive chef James Walt mans the kitchen, sending out plates of terrific simplicity and refinement.
Sablefish, ubiquitous hereabouts, is unquestionably one of the most delicate fishes on Earth. Walt marinates the unctuous white flesh in miso, letting it break like a wave in a pool of smoked tuna broth rippled with soba noodles.
As with Divellec in Paris, as with C, as with any great fish restaurant, the Bluewater's soul is absolute freshness. And its seafood towers, a riff on those shellfish extravaganzas that account for three-hour lunches in Normandy and Brittany, are pure Pacific Northwest.
Long the glamour girl of Vancouver restos, Diva at the Met is the West Coast outpost in restaurateur Henry Wu's empire (which also includes Toronto's Hemispheres, Lai Wah Heen and Sen5es). Located in the Metropolitan Hotel, it has survived the departure of superchef Michael Noble. The room glitters warmly, the choreography of the open kitchen sets the beat and it carries on under chefs Christopher Mills and Andrew Springett, in an unfaltering tradition of romancing local produce and Okanagan wines. Diva hits the high notes. Fat Queen Charlotte scallops arrive sweetly smoked in maple and paired with sockeye salmon marinated in lemon. Foie gras does its turn in a crust of hazelnuts, well-matched with Okanagan peaches and nectarines. A powerfully floral Saturna Island Riesling coaxes out the vitality in a salad of lobster, grapefruit and spinach spatzle.
Overlooking the sails of Canada Place and positioned to snag Alaska-bound cruise ship passengers, Aqua Riva takes the high road by feeding tourists better than anyone would expect. Wood-fired pizza dresses up with hot-smoked salmon, tiger shrimps and artichokes. Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and deep-fried in tempura batter is a guilty pleasure. Mains are strongest on slabs of tuna, salmon and swordfish from the wood grill, and an Okanagan pinot gris stands up to all of them.
Lucy Mae Brown, named for the proprietor of the brothel and opium den that occupied this Yaletown house a century ago, is the last word in Vancouver cool, and has been from opening day: You might get a table on three weeks' notice, and if you're over 35, you're probably the senior in the room. Lucy Mae entertains a crowd barely old enough to say "foy grass."
But the youngsters know how to eat. Chef Andrey Durbach's menu rhymes off the usual icons -- foie gras, rare tuna, organic this and that -- and his cooking is something else: grilled-in-shell B.C. spot prawns are drenched in lemon-chili-garlic butter, and tartares of scallop and yellowfin tuna go Japanese in a vinaigrette infused with wasabi and lime.
Despite perceptions to the contrary, not all restaurants that sell a view are lousy. At Seasons in the Park, overlooking downtown from a hilltop in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, the view is grand, but not at the expense of the food. Chef Kelly Cochrane maintains a tight focus on his kitchen, venturing out to California for bouts of inspiration in much the same way as Toronto chefs raid New York.
Cochrane retools the ghastly shrimp cocktail as a tiger prawn martini, the shrimps poached in lemongrass, and orange-chili replacing the pink goop. Grilled tuna takes on Asian hues with a crust of black sesame and a swelter of coriander, ginger, basil and homemade ponzu. Carnivores can swing to Northwest Territories caribou, sour cherries offsetting the sweetness and largesse of the beast.
Chalk up another one for The Formula with the Five Sails, the swank waterfront restaurant facing the ultimate Vancouver panorama of the Lions Gate Bridge, Stanley Park, Grouse Mountain and the sails of Canada Place. Five Sails, in the Pan Pacific Hotel, delivers flickering candelight, silken-gloved pampering and seamless cuisine that has copped the coveted AAA/CAA Five-Diamond Award six years in a row.
Quails make their appearance as twin rosettes stuffed with foie gras. Dungeness crab ravioli is full-flavoured and downright slinky in nicoise olive and basil butter. Mains excel with Saltspring Island rack of lamb and date-crusted B.C. venison.
Perennially named by Vancouver magazine as the city's best restaurant -- not an easy title to hold in a town constantly reinventing its dining scene -- is the luminous Lumiere. In its seventh year a flawlessly oiled machine, Lumiere practically runs itself when Rob Feenie is out gallivanting as celebrity chef. But give the man credit, he lets no grass grow under his feet: Two years ago, the restaurant joined the elite ranks of Relais & Chateaux -- that international fellowship of country inns, small hotels and remarkable dining establishments based in Paris -- as Canada's first Relais Gourmand.
Lumiere marks another first as Vancouver's only all-tasting restaurant. The seven-course vegetarian menu is $80, the eight-course seafood menu (including a duo of melt-in-the-mouth scallop and butter-braised lobster with mascarpone ravioli) and chef's tasting menu (with a carnivore's duet of deliciously braised Black Angus short rib and beautifully aged beef tenderloin) are $90.
What follows is as dazzling as the neon-lit onyx bar -- surely the hippest bar in town -- that casts a lemon glow from the adjoining room. An amuse is much more amusing when it's a Yukon Gold blini with a dollop of beluga caviar or a little pot of prawn and sea urchin custard splashed with soy and mirin.
Outwardly French -- the techniques are resolutely classic -- the year-old Ouest is a showcase for Vancouver native David Hawksworth's joltingly intense take on contemporary cooking. His theatre is a two-storey-high, leather-walled dining room in which nothing distracts from the artful frenzy of the showcase kitchen. The performance is a sellout.
Seared foie gras, sided with caramelized endives, apricots and a splash of Pinot des Charentes, proves another high-flying twirl for the cocaine of cuisine. A riotously flavourful ballotine of duck, prosciutto and artichokes is dusted in Chinese five-spice and capped with a round of crispy-fatty duck skin.
This pleasuring follows clear through to pastry chef Thierry Busset's pear tarte tatin with star anise and cinnamon ice cream.
It brings to mind the bestowal a French friend saves for profoundly pleasurable dinners -- dinners worthy of The Formula: "Ahh," he says, "you know you have eaten."
Where to eat in Vancouver Aqua Riva: 30-200 Granville St., (604) 683-5599. Blue Water Café and Raw Bar: 1095 Hamilton St., (604) 688-8078. C Restaurant: 2-1600 Howe St., (604) 681-1164. La Casa Gelato: 1033 Venables St., (604) 251-3211. Diva at the Met: Metropolitan Hotel, 645 Howe St., (604) 602-7788. Five Sails: Pan Pacific Hotel, 300-999 Canada Place, (604) 891-2892. Lucy Mae Brown: 862 Richards St. (604) 899-9199. Lumiere: 2551 West Broadway, (604) 739-8185. Ouest: 2881 Granville St., (604) 738-8938. Seasons in the Park: Queen Elizabeth Gardens, (604) 874-8008.