Mia Stainsby
Sun
Illuminate Ristorante chef and owner Roland Smith with the popular carpaccio featured on their menu and some of the wines in their cellar. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
ILLUMINATE
Overall 4
Food 4
Ambience 4
Service 4
Price $$
1077 — 56th St., Tsawwassen. 604-943-5900.
Open for dinner, Tuesday to Sunday.
www.illuminaterestorante.com
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
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I’ve always wondered why smart, well-heeled Tsawwassen is so thin on the ground with good restaurants.
I put the question to Roland Smith, chef/owner of one of the few on the town’s main street and in his opinion, Tsawwassen is a small community (population 20,000) and it’s also a family-oriented one.
Which is good for him. His restaurant, Illuminate (pronounced illum-ah-NAtay), does very well with the relative lack of competition and lots of repeat customers.
But if you don’t live nearby, Illuminate might be the place to have dinner before catching an evening ferry to Vancouver Island or one of the Gulf Islands. That’s what I did recently, avoiding an encounter with a B.C. Ferry burger.
Illuminate is an Italian restaurant and Smith worked under Pino Posterero, who’s known for his stellar food at Cioppino’s. That was when both worked at Il Giardino.
“I must say, it was a major inspiration for the way I cook now,” Smith says, meaning he learned to be less complicated on the plate, use more natural ingredients and simplify flavours.
The room took some cues from Il Giardino with the Tuscan-style tiles and warm colours but the design budget didn’t stretch too much beyond that. Painting over the sponge-painted walls, I think, would update the room. Smith scored a couple of veteran servers, one from Il Giardino and another from Le Crocodile and the professionalism was a refreshing change from eye candy servers.
We noticed the good value when appies arrived. My large bowl of Quadra island honey mussels ($15 and gorgeous) alone would have been an ample meal. They were large, buttery in texture and wonderfully fresh.
But I managed to finish my seafood agnolotti ($16) with lobster sauce and half of the dessert, a pumpkin mascarpone mousse as well. No ferry food was required for my journey.
I took bites of my husband’s grilled calamari (two large ones, smokey from the grill, $12); it came with a refreshing contrast of tomato, olive and caper salad. Marsala added depth to a braised Angus shortrib with herb risotto ($28); the risotto was a high-quality product and was cooked with a hint of rosemary.
One signature dish is the crab galette, which is to say, it’s not a puck-shaped crabcake; another is the baked bocconcini with prosciutto, tomato and basil.
“We try not to be a special occasion restaurant,” says Smith.
“We serve everything from lasagne to foie gras.”
The wine list features both old and new world wines; most are mid-range but there are some high-roller ones as well.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
