Restaurants
The Next Course
By Andrew Morrison published Jan 1, 2010
Additional Images click to enlarge
In the restaurant game, those without the experience or talent to endure hard times wither and die in short order. Here are the rooms that adapted and blossomed in 2009
It's a Thursday night at the bar of a busy, buzzy 113-seat room in Gastown, a room that honours its ancient brick-and-beam bones (and these shaky economic times) with a design amalgam coolly evocative of the Prohibition Era. The crowd, a healthy mix of downtown suits and neighbourhood hipsters, spills onto Victorian armchairs and sofas in a long saloon bar that specializes in brown spirits. Antique radiators are cleverly reclaimed for a one-of-a-kind balustrade. The dining room is gussied up with white linen and wine glasses. Everything is lit by replicas of Thomas Edison’s first commercial lightbulb.
Hard to believe this charming space once housed Gastown’s short-lived Flux Bistro. Flux’s biggest problem? A terminal absence of customers, clearly not a challenge faced by its successor. Even before the recession hit, Flux suffered from zero concept, an invisible marketing plan, and an unfortunate name that can either mean “a state of uncertainty about what should be done” or “an excessive discharge of fluid from a body cavity or an organ.” When it finally shuttered last winter, subject to a distress warrant for $42,086.64, it freed up a prime location off the high-trafficked corner of Cambie and Water streets, opposite the steam clock.
The address was pounced upon by industry veterans Jay Jones and Chris Irving, who between them have worked behind the bar (Jones) and in the kitchen (Irving) in some of the city’s finest rooms. Smartly, when it came time to install the restaurant’s stunning bartop, the partners made a day of it by inviting neighbourhood restaurant owners and staff to the construction site to ceremonially lower the massive fir beam into place. Once the bar was fastened and secure, Jones lined up shots of Maker’s Mark bourbon for the assembled, raised his own glass, and asked them all to participate in the christening of Pourhouse.
There was a palpable, almost euphoric sense of camaraderie in the room that day. The owners and managers of Boneta, Salt Tasting Room, Revel, Two Chefs and a Table, Cobre, Deacon’s Corner, and The Diamond weren’t just toasting the arrival of a new competitor. They were sizing up Pourhouse, keenly aware of how a successful replacement for Flux would benefit them all in the long run by upping the area’s reputation as a dining destination.
If Pourhouse is aesthetically emblematic of Gastown’s rapid gentrification, the food gets in on the uppity act too. This is chef Irving’s first walk as an independent after rising through the kitchens at Tofino’s Wickaninnish Inn, Granville’s storied West, and London’s Michelin-starred Petrus. At Pourhouse he is tabling a simple menu that aims for refined, wintry Canadiana. Iconic dishes (with origins lost to Canuck lore) are done up “all fancy like”: rich white bean cassoulet is mixed with high-quality white sausage chubs to become nouveau pork-and-beans; neatly sliced baguettes layered evenly with ground local Pemberton beef and Sloping Hills pork are an upscale take on Sloppy Joes.
Recent Comments
Discussed
I like the idea of the upscale sloppy joes. Sometimes I get jealous because I'm in a smaller town and don't have the great restaurants you have in Vancouver. Kalamazoo Restaurants
I've been to Bishop’s and I liked the food.
________________________________________________
Living in Japan | Home & Garden | Secured cards
details of the Irish Heather's Jan/Feb Long Table Series can be found here:
This is a very comprehensive article on the goings on in 2009 for the Vancouver restaurant scene. Thank you for such a detailed synopsis and I will continue to read on in 2010 and beyond. casino online
