Pied-a-Terre’s Andrey Durbach isn’t into inventing, just cooking French favourites with skill and top-notch ingredients
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Pied-a-Terre’s atmosphere is cosy and friendly with an intimate glow. Photograph by : Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
Since Pied-a-Terre is Number 3 in a growing family of restaurants run by Andrey Durbach and Chris Stewart, it was possible to imagine what was coming: delicious, uncomplicated food.
Durbach shows his global positioning on food with his snub of molecular gastronomy, that trend to make scientific experiments of food.
“I don’t put pop rocks in my tuna or white chocolate foam replicating chantilly [flavoured whipped cream],” he says. “The way forward is to make a perfect beurre blanc, a beautifully silky chocolate mousse. I like the big, bold classic flavours and textures in food. I like that more than I like mucking around with molecular gastronomy and super-fancy plate presentations.”
Word-of-mouth on the bistro’s opening had spread quickly. Even with Cambie Street in a dishevelled mess, it was hard to book a table for the hour we wanted.
Pied-a-Terre rounds out the trio of restaurants perfectly. Parkside is impassioned West Coast; La Buca is a well-dressed Italian trattoria; and this latest is a classic French bistro. Durbach’s strength is simple food with a culinary laying on of hands, producing dishes with impact, with layers of flavour and nice transitions.
The other down-home French bistro, Jules, in Gastown, immediately springs to mind in comparison. Pied-a-Terre has better food (and that’s saying a lot because I’m nuts about Jules’ food) but Jules has more atmosphere in the charming space in the heritage Dominion Hotel.
That’s not to say Pied-a-Terre lacks atmosphere. It’s warm and neighbourhoody with an intimate glow about it. On the menu, you’ve got your steak frites (four kinds of steaks, four choices of sauces), your beef bourguignon, your steak tartare, coq au vin and duck a l’orange.
He’s not inventing anything here. He’s just making those classics in the best way he can with top-notch ingredients and a lot of know-how. He manages to keep the prices reasonable ($16.50 to $27 for dinner mains).
“It’s a carte of French bourgeois classics,” he says. “This is personally right in my wheel-house.
The build-up to his Alsatian onion pie involves onions that have been sweated “forever and ever and ever” until it’s condensed to a rich caramelized mass. He mixes in sage, rosemary, egg yolks, cream, gruyere cheese and it turns out to be the best I’ve had. Baked mussels were small but came with an incredible sauce. Entrecote (New York steak) with frites, creamed spinach and baked tomato was delicious. Fillet of trout amandine was a satisfyingly large portion cooked properly and set atop tiny, turned vegetables.
I don’t think you can beat the huge escargots you get in Burgundy but here, you get better than average. Yummy! Steak tartare, if not done well, turns my stomach. Here, I loved it with the lively seasoning and very fresh beef. Duck a l’orange had a glossy sauce and good flavour. My only disappointment was the lamb “a sept heures” (cooked, I guess, for seven hours); it was fall-apart tender, but strangely, not moist or delicious.
For dessert, the rustic tarte tatin is a burst of apple and the lemon tart comes with a brulee topping. Drinks, assembled by Stewart, feature affordable French whites and reds (“I challenge anyone, pound for pound, to punch out that rich, spicy taste,” Durbach says, of a $35 bottle of Fabas Minervois from Languedoc) as well as a classic French bistro selection of apertifs.
It’s no wonder that a carved-up Cambie Street had little impact on this restaurant but the 20 parking spots behind the restaurant is definitely a plus.
PIED-A-TERRE
Overall: 4
Food: 4
Ambience: 4
Service: 3 1/2
Price $$
3369 Cambie St., 604-873-3131
Open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Friday; dinner only Saturday and Sunday, www.pied-a-terre-bistro.ca
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
