Stella’s on Cambie delivers a brew for every occasion, but the food is hit and miss
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Server Flavio Martins moves past the bar with a tray of beer, a specialty on the menu at Stella’s on Cambie. Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, Vancouver Sun
STELLA’S ON CAMBIE
3305 Cambie St., 604-874-6900
stellasbeer.com/cambie
Open 7 days a week, brunch, lunch and dinner. No reservations at dinner.
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The EU is headquartered in Belgium as are the Smurfs and Tintin. It’s famous for waffles, frites and Edda van Hemstra Hepburn-Ruston, better known as Audrey Hepburn (born in Brussels).
But for a certain someone I know, it’s beer that rocks Belgium. Absolutely delicious beer. And I’ll bet Dean Mallel, one of the owners of Stella’s on Cambie (which stepped into the old Tomato Fresh Food Cafe spot a few months ago) can’t see beyond beer, either.
This is the second Stella’s (the first is on Commercial Drive) and you’ll find 40 to 60 Belgian beers with 16 on tap. “At last count, there were about 600 different beers in Belgium and we’re just in the process of bringing in another three, four lines of Belgian beer that will be exclusive to us and Chambar. We have a wine list but we convince almost everybody to drink beer,” says Mallel. “That’s if they’re over 19,” he adds.
Mallel, with partners Don Farion and Craig MacMillan, also run the two Incendio restaurants, known more for pizza and pasta. The one in Gastown was best by fire last January and won’t reopen until mid-October.
The food at Stella’s on Cambie should be, and is, beer friendly with prices to match. You’ll find lots of sharing plates and at this location you can get a prix fixe menu ($22 for two courses, $28 for three) as well as entrees (all $17) and the kitchen tries to source locally and seasonally. Tapas dishes run from $5 to $14 so they’re in the beer price ballpark.
The only nods to Belgian food are the eight mussel dishes (moules) and frites.
All the mussels are from Saltspring Island and the kitchen burns through a thousand pounds a week with broths carrying flavours of Thailand, Madrid, Mexico, New Orleans, Persia and France. Shame there’s only one with beer (Stella Artois, cilantro, lime and butter). The mussels are $8 for half a pound and $14 for a full pound.
On the brunch menu, I noted the absence of Belgian waffles which would amp up the Belgian theme.
Although the kitchen had a good batting average over my two visits, I cannot say all is well.
I liked the mussels (I tried half orders of the Stella Artois and New Orleans); lemon parmesan cauliflower “popcorn” was fun, healthy and tasty; beer and chili-braised beef brisket taquitos with guacamole and chimichuri were soul friends with beer; a halibut dish with pea and pancetta basmati “risotto” and the wild sockeye with smoked corn and black bean salad and cherry tomato salsa were great buys at $17.
Dishes that didn’t excite were the Thai-spiced grilled jumbo shrimp (tough) and the Fraser Farms pork tenderloin with chocolate baked beans, johnny cake and Granny Smith apple sofrito. The pork lacked flavour and the johnny cake was too crumbly but the baked beans went down very well.
The comfort-style desserts didn’t win us over. Cardamom chocolate torte didn’t deliver a chocolate punch and had a dense pudding texture; apple rhubarb crumble turned out to be apple blueberry crumble and oddly devoid of blueberry flavour.
I’d take a pass on them but I wouldn’t discourage locals from stopping by.
It’s lively, the beers are great and so is some of the food.
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