Vancouver Magazine
Opening Soon: A Japanese-Style Bagel Shop in Downtown Vancouver
The Broadway/Cambie Corridor Has Become a Hub for Excellent Chinese Restaurants
Flaky, Fluffy and Freaking Delicious: Vancouver’s Top Fry Bread and Bannock
Protected: The Wick is Lit for This Fraser Valley Winery
Wine Collab of the Week: The Best Bottle to Welcome a Vancouver Spring
Naked Malt Blended Malt Scotch Whisky Celebrates Versatility and Spirit
The Orpheum to Launch ‘Silent Movie Mondays’ This Spring
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (March 27-April 2)
Meet Missy D, the Bilingual Vancouver Hip Hop Artist for the Whole Family
What It’s Like to Get Lost on a Run With a Pro Trail Runner
8 Things to Do in Abbotsford (Even If It’s Pouring Rain)
Explore the Rockies by Rail with Rocky Mountaineer
The Future of Beauty: How One Medical Aesthetics Clinic is Changing the Game
4 Fashion Designers From African Fashion Week Vancouver to Put on Your Radar
Before Hibernation Season Ends: A Round-Up of the Coziest Shopping Picks
When David Gunawan opened Gastown’s Wildebeest last year (with owners Josh Pape and James Iranzad), the city instantly understood the project: personality-driven cooking that made stars out of bit players like marrow or an unsung radish. Way beyond farm-to-table, his cooking decluttered precious, precarious plates, zeroing in on a few bursts of pure flavour and attention-getting texture to deliver a consistent experience of whole-animal, micro-local excellence.
That precision and confidence made all the difference as this year’s judges considered Gunawan’s new room, the recently opened 28-seat The Farmer’s Apprentice. From a field of contenders-Andrea Carlson’s similarly chef-driven casual boîte Burdock & Co.; Best Upscale threepeat Hawksworth-they were moved to single out Gunawan’s daily drama of transforming the morning’s black box of area ingredients into a coherent, edited menu. “It’s a complete game-changer,” said one judge. “The food really has a sense of discovery and curiosity, but grounded in hyper-local ingredients and formal techniques. There is an underlying Asian restraint that brings forth flavours awash in nostalgia. The room and service set the tone that this is more than a restaurant meal, but a dialogue between Gunawan and the diner.”
Chef wasn’t always so restrained. In his 20s, he dropped out of civil engineering to yoke himself to the kitchen, where hard work could take a rebel far. Youth’s ego-in his early years at Vancouver’s Gastropod and Chicago’s Les Nomades-finally calmed, first at West and Wildebeest, and especially now at 2014 Restaurant of the Year, The Farmer’s Apprentice. “It’s about purity of ingredients,” Gunawan has said. “Not masking its essence with tricks. A plate that has just two or three delicious ingredients is more impressive to me than one with 15. That’s courageous cooking.”