Until February, reduced prix fixe menu lets you sample at a much lower cost
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Chef Dale Mackay of the newly renovated Lumiere restaurant, with the Mosaic of Venison with Juniper Celery Root, Sweet and Sour Chesnuts and Black Truffle. Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
2551 West Broadway, 604-739-8185. www.lumiere.ca. Open for dinner Tuesday to Sunday.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
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By the time we went to Lumière, we didn’t need crampons, snow shovels or road salt to walk the streets. And the pummelling from the financial markets was beginning to feel normal. But what a time for a restaurant to be born . . . actually, make that’s born again, for Lumière had another life before this complete makeover.
Lumière faltered after chef Rob Feenie left in the very messy business divorce but owners David and Manjy Sidoo pulled off a spectacular rescue, persuading rock star — pardon me, superstar — chef Daniel Boulud to oversee the kitchen. Boulud is a New Yorker with a stable of other international restaurants, but he’s living up to his reputation of being hands-on and involved in every detail.
Executive chef Dale MacKay runs the Lumière kitchen but Boulud is in communication twice a week and works with MacKay until he’s happy with every dish. Video communication allows him to see how dishes are being prepared and how they look and how they can be improved. “It’s not because we just opened. He always knows what dishes are on in each restaurant,” MacKay says.
The verdict on the food? Pretty much spectacular with a couple of nitpicks. On my first visit, there were weak spots here and there but some of the dishes were ravishing. On a second visit, the quality was more consistently amazing.
But first, something more urgent: Until Feb. 1, given the hard knocks of snowstorms, an economy against the ropes and the annual January slowdown, Lumière’s three-course prix fixe menu is selling for $58 which is an incredible bargain. However, MacKay has cut down the number of choices from each course to keep kitchen costs down. Regular prices are $98 (three courses), $135 (six courses) and $175 (nine courses). The trio of amuse-bouches, basket of about a dozen mini-madeleines and mignardise (plate of confections) will be included as usual in the discounted price.
During our dinner, nibbling his way through the piece of slow-baked Arctic char I slipped onto his plate, my partner was impressed. “This is easily the best char I’ve had. It’s like reading a good book. I just don’t want it to end,” he moaned. He talks about scotch like that but not, typically, about fish. Another gorgeously flavourful dish was the duo of triple-A beef, a seared rib-eye and red wine-braised shortrib which looked lacquered with reduced wine sauce.
Ingredients are pristine and utterly fresh (B.C. spot prawns seemed ocean fresh); presentations are visual poetry at times (beet and vodka-cured tuna with white sturgeon caviar, baby beets and horseradish cream was one of them) but other dishes need a tweak to elevate to something special (hard-to-decipher, teeny veggies linking the prawns didn’t distinguish themselves). My Redbro chicken was spectacularly tender and delicately textured and delicious but amazingly, the shaved black truffles sandwiched between the breast meat had little flavour. I got a second opinion from across my table, thinking my truffle receptors had gone dead. But he agreed. Very little flavour. In purchasing truffles, the lack of aroma should be a giveaway.
Desserts were notably superlative (cassis poached pear carpaccio-thin and fanned out, accompanied by gingerbread and brandy custard; chocolate fondant with Sicilian pistachio ice cream; chocolate mocha bar with espresso caramel ice cream).
The dining room is well staffed and servers are good at anticipating needs and are cheerful and warmer than I remember from the olden days. Napkins are not only refolded if you leave the table, they’re replaced with fresh ones. And while one might think the little tuffet for my purse by the table is twee, I actually liked not having to fold myself in half to retrieve my purse from the floor (to get my notebook and pen). The bus people do need more training (one must not walk away when the bread she places on the plate falls off and one must not mumble).
As for the room, gone is the minimalist modern look which was criticized as being too cold by some though I’ve always been partial to a cool Zen feel. It has completely warmed up, embraced in antelope and taupe shades. The entrance is a denouement — small and curtained, my closet is bigger. But the rug is so plush, it feels like thick moss, and bright artwork adds bling to the room.
Compared to the next door sibling DB Bistro Moderne, Lumière is like Bach to DB’s Rolling Stones. If you’d like a sampling of a Boulud concerto, now’s the time at an insanely good price.
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