Hopefully the installation of sound-absorbing baffles will reduce the noise or all the lovely food will drown in the cacophony
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Owner Mike Thomson holds warm calamari salad (ratatouille, shaved fennel, black olive, chorizo oil and piment d’espellette) at Chow. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
Modernism has its drawbacks. Chow, a much–
anticipated restaurant, is a glam arrangement of straight-edged bones and hard surfaces.
When eager foodies converged, the room became a megaphone. Voices rose in a crescendo as everyone yelled in ever-escalating decibels. My fight-or-flight response kicked in and I battled hard, trying to converse with my partner. Other couples, I noted, looked defeated and sullen. Groups loved the party atmosphere, making merry around the table.
Lesson learned, the owners are improving acoustics with sound-absorbing baffles built into the paintings that hadn’t yet adorned the walls when I visited. Hopefully, that will do the trick. Otherwise, all the lovely food (and it is) will drown in the cacophony.
The man behind the food is Jean-Christophe Poirier, who’s been sharpening his skills in some fearsome kitchens: the celebrated Toque! in Montreal as well as C and Lumiere restaurants in Vancouver. His food is assertively delicate. Let me start by describing the best lemon tart I’ve had — I keep ordering them, hoping for that holy grail of a perfect balance of sweet and sour encased in golden richness. The crust, so often thick and pasty, was as delicate as porcelain, crumbling into shards when my fork struck.
His menu will morph daily and weekly depending on what suppliers have on offer. He chants the mantra of any progressive Vancouver chef: fresh! local! organic! sustainable! He does buy locally as much as possible and even lists his suppliers on the menu. And in the newest trend among chefs, he’s doing some of his own butchering. He orders whole organically raised pigs from Sloping Hills Farm in Port Alberni and offers different cuts through the week as he works through it, front to back.
Dishes are appetizer sized and prices vary from $8 to $27. A warm calamari salad featured ever-so-tender calamari atop ratatouille, atop a shaved fennel salad; pepper-crusted ahi tuna with a cube of potato salad was gorgeous, albeit, there were only three small nibbles of tuna — just one more piece would have made for a sharing plate; roasted sablefish came with silky cauliflower puree and caramelized fennel and a perfect square of pork terrine; ricotta cheese ravioli is delicious with trumpet mushrooms, fresh fava beans and a curry froth.
And you do tend to froth at the mouth here — three of my dishes came adorned with froth, or foam, as some chefs call it. A milk froth on the lemon tart, curry froth with the ricotta ravioli, and onion froth with a delectable risotto. The risotto, in fact, was under a blanket of froth. I’m not a froth/foam fan but at least at Chow, the foam doesn’t quickly dissolve into nothingness.
Organic chicken, re-shaped into crisp-skinned orbs was so good, I ate the skin — avoiding skin is usually one of the few ways I expunge calories in my promiscuous eating life.
The wine list is one of the better small lists I’ve seen with unique offerings, although they stray from the ‘local’ here, going more global; servers seem knowledgeable or at least trained to help in the choosing. A cocktail list (about half the restaurant is a bar/lounge) is similarly thoughtful and even the coffee was right on.
Chow is definitely a contender as hot, haute restaurant, but not if you need earplugs.
– – –
CHOW
Overall: 4
Food 4
Ambience 2
Service 4
Price: $$$
3121 Granville St., 604-608-2469. Open for lunch and dinner, www.chow-restaurant.com
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
