Opening Soon — Page 2

Communities formed over the culinary blogs and websites have become powerful and egalitarian marketing machines. In the din of restaurant openings early in the new year (see “Opening Sooner or Later" below), they have loudly raised the voices of some of the new entrants and have built an immediate following. Combined with other web-driven tools, such as the online reservation service Opentable.com (where Chambar is the highest-rated reservation request), they have made many restaurants—small businesses with notoriously fickle customers and fragile margins—more capable of survival, and more profitable.

There’s another twist to community building that introduces a decidedly vintage concept back into the equation—the notion of old-fashioned hospitality. Service should not be confused with hospitality, argues New York über-restaurateur Danny Meyer in his book, Setting the Table. His thesis is that service is something you do to the customer, while hospitality is something you do for the customer. When restaurants perform above the call, customers tend to tell stories to their friends and colleagues. In Vancouver, where our most hospitable proprietor is surely John Bishop, those stories—after-dinner delivery to downtown hotels for out-of-towners; sourcing special wines for celebratory dinners—are legion.

Such stories are vitally important to community building. In the case of Danny Meyer, I know this to be true. A few years ago we enjoyed lunch at his Union Square Café in New York City. A hotel car was idling curbside as we finished our desserts, ready to whisk us to the airport. Our server, who figured out that we had a long flight ahead, brought a half-dozen freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to us and wished us a comfortable flight. I’ve told hundreds of people that kindness-of-strangers story and now, here, many thousands more. Such stories are increasingly disseminated on the web, to be shared and savoured like dinner itself—tales of where to go and how to eat, and, increasingly, why.

OPENING SOONER OR LATER
The annual gavotte of New Year restaurant openings spun faster this year, while the dance floor got bigger—seriously bigger. Frenzied deal-making—for premises, equipment, fast-tracked renovations, chefs and service staff—took on a lean and hungry look. In the city’s largest restaurant expansion ever, you’ll find everything from neighbourhood Italian trattorias like the West Side’s La Buca, to the multimillion-dollar build-out of Tojo’s and The Shore Club. It’s a scary take on musical chairs: there’s not going to be room for everyone.

Joe Forte’s kingpin Bud Kanke recently bought Circolo (from long-time pal Umberto Menghi) in Yaletown, with rumoured plans to reopen it as an Asian small plates room this spring. The Glowbal Group, headed by Emad Yacoub, starts construction in February on Italian Kitchen, a modern downtown take on Italian, New York tratt-style. The infamous Gianni Picchi (ex-Il Giardino and Gianni’s), is relaunching West Vancouver’s Beach Side Café, which went dark last fall. David Aisenstat (Hy’s, Gotham, The Keg) will soon open the eye-grabbing Shore Club, scheduled for March in the Hudson Building. Let’s hope it breathes nighttime life into this stretch of the Granville Mall.

The Ocean Club principals are opening Whistler’s The Mountain Club, while Browns Restaurant and Bar is repositioning itself as Browns Social House in two upcoming locations: Park Royal South in March, and in the former Vineyard space on West Fourth in May. Justin and Lea Alt’s Hapa Izakaya will expand Kits-ward into the former Urban Well location on lower Yew Street’s gastronaut mall this spring, while Shiru-Bay is looking to add a satellite restaurant at Robson and Bute. The new Ebisu will open in the old Hooters location. Tojo’s has evacuated its careworn premises, doubling in size at 1133 West Broadway (opposite Toys R Us and the city’s best hotdog stand out front), where a reported $7 million is being dropped. Finest at Sea—a co-venture of chef Bruno Born, Pacific Salmon Foundation director Ian Angus and Victoria fisherman Bob Fraumeni—offers neat, sustainable fish dishes in a combo store/bistro setup in a mini-mall on Arbutus just north of 33rd. Stop by for oysters Rockefeller or polenta-crusted halibut, and take home a one-kilo box of spot prawns. Partners Am Mann, Neel Singh and Shaun Galvao have regifted Yew Street Caffe Dall’Acqua into a tapas bar, Yew York.

Meanwhile, in Steveston, Ella and Marat Dreyshner will open Reflections Gastronomie this February, a European fine dining room overlooking the Fraser River. Restaurateurs are by nature optimists, and so might be some of these projected opening dates—please call ahead.

Beyond Restaurant & Lounge
Now Open
Former steakhouse space at the nether end of Burrard undergoes total facelift—and looks slightly surprised. Large, lofty, ex-urban moderne rooms are carved over split levels by strategic lighting, elegant staircases and demi-walls. And the multi-tasking of hotel dining (thrill the visiting Winnebraskans, invite in West End flaneurs) turns up again in chef Jeffrey Young’s (ex-Four Seasons) small plates bar menu, and the director’s cut version that plays in the quieter dining room behind. Young’s hand is steadiest in the plasma TV bar where a cone of tip-top frites and crispy phyllo spot prawns made a meal. A main of seared jumbo prawns with lemon risotto was fine, but a breakfast-sized steak underperformed at dinner. The bar is a cheerful rendezvous for televised hockey games and quality pupus (with a sound selection of beers, wines and cocktails), but chef’s handlers should let him range freely for the main event, the better to let him surprise us. 1015 Burrard St., in the Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, Downtown, 604-684-3474.

Chow Restaurant
Opening: Mid-January
South Granville arriviste Jean-Christophe Poirier’s hefty resume (Lumière, C Restaurant, Toqué and Le Rampart in Montreal) pays petit homage to regional cuisine torqued with hard-won technique. He’ll need it to attract the pre-Stanley Theatre crowd in an emerging nexus of fine dining. A mantra of simplicity is reflected in a 65-seater (two dozen in the bar) room of browns and oranges, with a sunny side patio opening this spring. Poirier will stake locality and the seasons in wintertime openers ($9-$15) of oven-roasted butternut squash milk potage, and mains ($19-$22), such as Salt Spring Island lamb with warm lentil salad and baby spinach in a cumin and yogurt meat reduction. 3121 Granville St., South Granville, 604-608-CHOW.

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