Harry Kambolis looks beyond the sustainable food he serves

Bruce Constantineau
Sun

Vancouver restaurateur Harry Kambolis has established himself as a leader in offering environmentally responsible food items at his three city restaurants.

His C Restaurant was a founding partner in the Ocean Wise program that promotes the protection of ocean species and habitats.

Now he has taken that green initiative one step further by hiring Burnaby-based Wisent Environmental to help make his business operations more sustainable.

Traditional cleaning supplies have been replaced with pH-neutral concentrated products that eliminate extreme acidic and alkaline properties and require far less packaging.

Restaurant paper products now meet or exceed green-standard certifications — such as Green Seal, EcoLogo and Green Restaurant Association. Wisent says the use of the paper products at Kambolis’s C, Nu and Raincity Grill restaurants will save about 58 trees, 255 kilograms of landfill waste and three kilograms of atmospheric pollutants every year.

Existing takeout supplies and packaging are being replaced with biodegradable and compostable supplies made with sugarcane or corn instead of styrofoam plastic. Biodegradable cling wrap is currently being tested in kitchen trials.

Future energy and water conservation measures could include lighting and fixture retrofits and the introduction of touch-free automatic faucets and low-spray valves.

Kambolis said it makes sense to push harder for green business operations now because it has become an affordable option and may even be less expensive than doing business the old way.

“Fifteen years ago, it would have cost 50 per cent more to take this route,” he said in an interview. “You’d have to go out by yourself and find each individual product one by one.

“To actually have somebody on your side helping you move forward makes it so much easier.”

Wisent partners Brad Mepham and Tom Chisholm said their service is not restricted to restaurants as the measures can be applied to almost any kind of business.

“Every single business out there has an environmental footprint,” Mepham said. “We look at what they’re using today and replace it with better products in a financially viable way that makes sense.”

Kambolis said his customers are concerned about the environment and expect him to do whatever he can to make his business operations more sustainable.

“We can make choices, save money and do the right thing so why not choose that route?” he said. “If we don’t, those guys over there who are doing it are going to take all the business and run with it.”

B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association president Ian Tostenson said a handful of higher-end restaurants have embraced the concept of sustainable business operations but expects many more will jump on board soon.

He said the biggest challenge now is to get more chain restaurants and quick-service restaurants to move towards greener operations.

Tostenson said former U.S. vice-president Al Gore’s recent Vancouver appearance forced many city entrepreneurs to consider adopting more sustainable business practices. He said Gore told him that within two years, businesses that aren’t sustainable will pay a heavy price.

“If you’re not seen to be doing something for the environment, you’re going to lose business or be out of business completely,” Tostenson said. “There’s just so much momentum out there that consumers are demanding change.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Malcolm Parry
Sun

BUSINESS LUNCH: New blacktop and fast-moving traffic are seen through the Pied-a-Terre restaurant’s four vertical windows, visible as Andrey Durbach tucked into a chef-style lunch of onion soup, $8, a 12-ounce cote de boeuf steak with roquefort-and-mustard sauce and pommes frites, $25. Betraying his four years of cooking in England, he called his $6.50 crème caramel “pudding.”

Durbach and business partner Chris Stewart tasted a Vosne Romanee 2005 burgundy that will likely go on the wine list at their upper-market Parkside restaurant, They then switched to the more modest Pied-a-Terre’s bestseller: Gres St. Paul Romanis from France‘s Languedoc district, that is $45, or $11.25 by the glass.

Most of Pied-a-Terre’s 32 seats were occupied by folk ordering the three-course price-fixe lunches that are $20.07 until 3 p.m. They fill completely most evenings as the Cambie-off-18th-Avenue joint serves up to 80 covers.

That’s right: Durbach and Stewart opened on woebegone Cambie in early November, and have had a hit from day 1.

They hadn’t planned to own a third restaurant 10 months after opening their 32-seat La Buca in a Macdonald-at-24th strip-mall. But the long-established Don Don noodle-shop’s business, goodwill and liquor licence became available for $40,000. And though monthly rent there may double the more remote La Buca’s $1,900, the two took possession June 15 and put $250,000 — $75,000 more than they expected — into a revamp and black-and-white decor by designer Erik Lauzon.

“It’s all about real-estate opportunities,” said Durbach, who wishes he and Stewart could have bought the site as Vikram Vij reportedly has to open a Cambie-at-15th satellite of his off-South-Granville Vij’s. “If you want to own a small restaurant, the most important thing is your lease. Location, location, location is one thing. But people end up biting off location with rent they can’t manage.”

That happened to Durbach when his Etoile went dark on Hornby Street in 1999. Four years later, he and Stewart solved the location-rent equation with their 56-seat Parkside on Haro Street. Originally Delilah’s, the well-maintained deep-West-End eatery needed only $50,000-worth of cosmetics when Zev Beck vacated it. Their total rent for the 2,300-square-foot facility is $6,700 monthly.

“Restaurants get very centralized — Yaletown, Gastown,” Stewart said, not to mention the nine on Pied-a-Terre’s block. “But it’s just dinner.” The objective for globally popular neighbourhood restaurants, he said is to provide “casual fine dining at Earl’s prices.”

“Restaurants are thirsty for labour,” Durban said, noting that his and Stewart’s three employ 40 between them. “And a 30-seat restaurant needs the same staff to serve 30 sinners as it does 60. So the key element is turnover. If you’ve got a 300-seat place, maybe everyone comes in at 7 p.m. But we stay open from noon to 10:30.”

As for Pied-a-Terre’s no-nonsense French dishes — steak-frites, coq au vin, duck a l’orange, trout amandine, etc. — Durbach said: “Vancouver is such a modern city. Instead of avant-garde being all the new, progressive stuff [served elsewhere], the good, old-fashioned food is new to people here.”

And the best people to talk it up, he and Stewart agreed, are the industry folk who spend afternoons at Pied-a-Terre.

“Nothing will help your business more than waiters at other restaurants recommending it,” Durbach said. “They know what side is up. And if you want to cultivate that reputation, you have to offer them high quality and good value.”

Even on born-again Cambie Street.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

49th Parallel offers 13 roasts and the best in pastry and chocolate treats to nibble on

Mia Stainsby
Sun

When coffee worship migrated north from Seattle, java-philes launched into this dark brew with the intensity of ardent oenophiles. Our version of Starbucks is Vince Piccolo, former owner of Caffe Artigiano and now, coffee wholesaler.

His company, 49th Parallel, buys, blends, roasts, packages and then sells coffee to discerning retailers around North America. His 49th Parallel coffee bar in Kitsilano is the “showcase lounge” for the dark, rich brew.

The room is like a cup of coffee itself, in signature dark browns and “Tiffany blue” — colours that also conjure a Birks‘ blue box, wrapped in its brown ribbon. See? Colour psychology at work!

But it’s not all about packaging. To go with the excellent coffees, he brings in coffee-friendly edibles from Thomas Haas, the prince of pastries and chocolates — brioche, pain au chocolat, croissants, almond croissant and quark cheese danish zapped with lemon zest and raisins. Other edibles include chocolate sour cherry torte, biscotti, carrot cake and brownies.

As for coffee, there are 13 roasts, including single-origin beans from Australia called Australian Mountain Top. It’s served in their espresso-based drinks on Fridays. For drip coffee, they use a Clover coffee system which brews up fresh coffee by the cup in one minute. And regulars, take note.

Every so often, Piccolo or one of his staff will be conducting cuppings, which, in coffee-speak, means tastings.

“Our goal is to be the world’s best coffee roaster. We only see the best coffees and are meticulous in buyng green, the way it’s shipped, sample-roasted, the way it’s cupped, roasted, packaged and produced,” says Piccolo.

In the end, coffee isn’t about words. Go and check it out yourself. I think you’ll like it. It’s open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

– – –

49TH PARALLEL

2152 West Fourth Ave., 604-420-4901, www.49thparallelcoffeeroasters.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

BRUCE CONSTANTINEAU
Sun

Restaurant serves straight-forward dishes with good value, although some dishes need more depth to be knock-outs

Mia Stainsby
Sun

SUVAI

2279 West 41st Ave. , 604-261-4900

Overall 31/2

Food 31/2

Ambience 31/2

Service 31/2

Price $$

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

– – –

It’s dressed down on the outside and you could sail past it without a blip on the radar. But Suvai gets more interesting inside with a warm, intimate bistro feel. Note the chocolate walls (dark, that is, not milk), spare but twinkly chandeliers, ’40s retro music and regulars, a grateful bunch who make a point of telling the chef how much they enjoyed the meal.

The man behind the stove at Suvai (means taste in Tamil) is Segar Kulasegarampillai, who started in the restaurant trade at the bottom rung in Toronto.

“I started as a dish pig,” he says in restaurant lingo, “and I worked my way up.”

Along the way, he’s done a stage at Ontario’s culinary zenith, Michael Stadtlander’s Eigensinn Farm.

In Vancouver, he’s sourcing ingredients locally like a good chef should and applying what he learned during his mind-expanding experience with Stadlander. “Huge,” he says of Stadtlander’s influence. “I learned how to be simple, how not to mess with food and to be true to myself. I learned how to be a good chef.”

Before moving to Vancouver in 2005, he was the chef at Mildred Pierce, a Toronto restaurant that’s been doing things right for 17 years. (It recently closed but it’s reopening at another location.) Kulasegarampillai also taught at Cookworks, the adjoining cooking school.

At Suvai, his food is straightforward and for it to be worthy of revisits, it’s got to be delicious and succulent, not boring. He delivers with most but not all the dishes on his streamlined menu. Some need more depth to be knock-outs but the thing is, this is a good-value restaurant so you cannot complain that you’re not getting exquisite returns.

Starters are $7 to $11 and mains are $14 to $29. The best dish I had — the star anise ginger-braised beef shortribs with scallion mash and sautéed spinach — was $19. If you eat meat, I insist you order it.

To start, try the crab and shrimp cakes with chipotle aioli, with an abundance of crustaceans.

A maple-roasted butternut squash soup with duck confit had a silky, luscious texture but was strangely, not flavourful; Fanny Bay oysters with black tiger prawn dish might be better received without those imported prawns — I’d prefer a greedy assault on local in-season oysters.

The pan-seared scallops were great — it still had the wobbles, which meant it wasn’t overcooked. It was served with lentils with bacon, swiss chard and a lovely sauce tasting of truffle.

Grilled salmon didn’t hit the bulls eye; it was cooked longer than I like and had turned a little tough; the black Thai rice and coconut ginger broth held their own on the plate though. Roast rack of Australian lamb was perfectly cooked and came with roasted garlic mash, ratatouille and rosemary jus.

Desserts are comfort dishes — a bread pudding was better than most, not too dense and heavy as it often is; creme brulée was more of a home-style version, not velvety smooth.

The wine list features some good-value choices for a neighbourhood restaurant. The Almansa Reserva Piqueras Castillo de Almansa and Cotes du Roussillon Chateau du Parc were delicious by-the-glass choices.

Servers are older, experienced guys, appropriate for Kerrisdale market and refreshing, really. On one visit however, the quiet ambiance was rudely interrupted by the arrival of the dishwasher, who works in the open kitchen. He banged, crashed, clanged and rattled like he might be capturing an elephant back there. The boss didn’t seem to notice.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Food is fresh and original, although some dishes are conceptual mishmashes

Mia Stainsby
Sun

If you experience déjà vu while dining at Toratatsu, your taste buds might be recalling something — perhaps a visit to Shiru Bay Chopstick Cafe in Yaletown? Both restaurants are operated by the same family and Kodai Uno is chef at both places, explaining the flavour reverb.

Uno’s sister works at the front of the house, his mother does the books and his father … well, he owns 18 restaurants in Tokyo so he jets between the two cities.

Uno Jr. is particularly excited about wine. You can tell that in his timbre when I mention the wine list: “I love wine,” he says, and I can feel his face light up and melt into a grin over the phone. In fact, he thinks of Toratatsu (tiger-dragon) more as a wine and tapas bar than an izakaya.

“It’s still Japanese but I’m trying to match world wines with the food. The food has a little western influence. I’m trying to bring in wines from different parts of the world and prove a point that they do match with Japanese flavours.”

Upon arriving and settling in, you’ll see what appear to be a couple of peppermints in a small bowl on the table. Do not eat them. They are, in fact, dry, compressed oshiburis (hand wipes). The server will pour water over them and they will inflate into a tight roll. You unroll it and wipe your hands. A diner has posted a how-to oshiburi video, with giggling sound effects, on YouTube.

The menus arrive in a flurry of papers — the regular menu, a sheet of specials, sashimi (on lovely cedar paper), chef’s recommendations.

Toratatsu doesn’t have the buzz or the resources of Hapa Izakaya or Kingyo but Uno’s food is fresh and original although some dishes are conceptual mish-mashes.

At this location, Uno includes a section called Kushitem, or tempura bites.

“Most places would bread them but I use tempura batter for a lighter, crisper texture,” he says.

And they are nice bites to start off the meal. Fans of the ebi mayo (extra-large deep-fried prawns) will find it here; mushroom soba pasta with mountain yam is quite a substantial dish, made slippery in the mouth by the mountain yam; spot prawns are sliced carpaccio thin and topped with a salad that perhaps overwhelms the delicate seafood. Negitoro avocado was one of those mishmashy dishes — a tuna tartare, mixed with mayo and topped with avocado tempura, which survived the quick plunge into hot oil.

Smoked-kissed duck is one of those east-meets-west creations, showcasing Uno’s French training at Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, as well as while cooking at L’Emotion under Jean-Yves Benoit (now of Mistral Bistro).

The east-west merger I liked best was Berkshire pork meatloaf with grated daikon in ponzu sauce. They were actually meatballs — tasty, light and not in the least bit oily.

A good test of quality control is the sashimi. We ordered striped jack and tuna. Both were great. The Toratatsu roll came with tiger prawn, salmon caviar and avocado in rice paper. Rice paper wrapped around sushi rice is a bit redundant and doesn’t work as well as the winning combination of nori and rice

Uno says the desserts were made to go with wine. They are, as Japanese-inspired desserts can be, unusual. I tried a pink pepper ice cream with olive oil. It was pink with crushed red peppercorns and olive oil on the top. “It’s savoury so it will go with a lot of white wines,” Uno says, “like the Red Rooster riesling.” Another somewhat savoury dessert is azuki sembeh (rice cracker) ice cream.

He also makes chocolates to be paired with red wine. “Definitely, I’d pair them with the Tarapaca Chilean cabernet sauvignon.”

Notably, the restaurant is open to 2 a.m., so it’s become a late night haunt for hungry industry sorts, especially cooks and chefs from other izakayas around town.

TORATATSU

Overall: Rating 3

Food: Rating 3

Ambiance: Rating 3

Service: Rating 2 1/2

Price: $$

735 Denman St., 604- 685-9399. Open Monday to Saturday, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Jonathan Kerridge and Oswaldo Abolio found new location suited an expansion into a business with some bold-stroke flavours

Mia Stainsby
Sun

It’s like stepping into a pair of warm slippers. Soma has that kind of feel.

It’s tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Main Street so it feels like it’s under the radar.

Soma was once a coffee bar on Main until the landlord took that space over; in the new location in the same neighbourhood, owners Jonathan Kerridge and Oswaldo Abolio decided to expand the food department and opened a bistro that’s casual enough to work on one’s laptop, read the paper over a beer or have a full-out meal. And there’s always good music filling the room.

They’ve appropriated an idea from Salt, the oh-so-hip charcuterie in Gastown. On a blackboard, there’s a mini-charcuterie menu as well as a great beer list with unheard of brews, like Innis Gunn, a Scottish beer, aged 72 days in a whisky cask.

My partner was mesmerized by the beer list and I had to snap him out of his hynotic trance.

“How often do I get so excited over a beer list?” he asked, explaining his mental absence. On weekends, you’ll also find brunch offerings on this blackboard.

The chef is Jeramie Adams, who has worked at Oasis, Lolita’s South of the Border Cantina and Bin 941 and 942. You’ll find some of the bold-stroke flavours that he’s picked up, cooking at the Bins, in dishes like fricasee of duck with roasted shallots, portobello and nugget potatoes and herbed cream sauce. And here’s the sweet part — it’s $14.

We tried the meat and cheese tasting ($15 for three items), opting for wild boar salami, caribou fig terrine and Roaring 40s Blue Cheese which was very good. There were jellies and mustards accompanying each item and slices of baguette and I’d be happy to pop in to lunch on this or the Tasting Trio, with hazelnut fig tapenade, marinated olives, feta/white bean hummus.

I tried the fish of the day (ling cod) and he cooked it up with love, teaming it with sweet roasted shallots, thyme hash, sauteed spinach and truffled caper aioli.

For lunch one weekend, we tried a chicken salad sandwich and a Niçoise tart. The sandwich was yummy with a fat layer of good chicken salad; the Niçoise tart, alas, wasn’t as successful. I expected a pastry crust but it was a baguette with a stylized Niçoise salad atop.

Desserts weren’t knock-outs. Pumpkin bread pudding would have been unremarkable were it not for the caramel brandy sauce, worthy of licking down the plate. Citrus-infused goat cheese cake was nicely presented in two half spheres but it had a dry consistency and the crust was tougher than my fork.

For a hip little joint, the service is attitude-free and helpful with suggestions. The next time you have the urge for a Monty Python Holy Grail Ale, check it out.

– – –

SOMA

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3 1/2

Ambience: 3 1/2

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $/$$

151 East Eighth Ave., 604-630-7502,

www.somavancouver.com

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Tunisian cuisine includes wonderful mussels, chicken tagine

Mark Laba
Province

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day but it probably took the Romans only half that time to completely sack a city. Well, it took a little longer when it came to Carthage but they finally got it on the third try. And now, lo and behold, a Carthage Café has opened in the middle of Little Italy. Talk about irony.

Paid a visit with my old psychoanalyst, Dr. Zongo, who was relating to me his new theory of psychoanalysis through his patients’ approach to corn on the cob and their biting patterns while stripping corn niblets.

“How much they leave, how much they don’t, are they meticulous, are they sloppy — I’m telling you, this new theory is going to make Freud look like a hayseed from Saskatchewan.”

for couscous?” I ventured.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to keep my eye on you over dinner. You’re already a borderline case ,so I may be able to find a correlation between your couscous consumption and your unbalanced state of mind.”

We settled into a room that radiates warmth and evokes an exotic setting, befitting a restaurant that specializes in Tunisian cuisine. Wood furnishings have an ancient quality, heavy red drapes over leaded windows and smatterings of tiling conjure up night-at-the-casbah imagery and various tchotchkes of North African origin, both brass and clay, flicked by the shadow-play of candles, all work upon the brain to ready it for the edible journey.

To test the waters we began with an appetizer of Doigt de Fatima ($7.50) or “the fingers of Fatima.” A classic Tunisian starter, named for the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter whose hand wards off evil, these spring-roll pastry tubes filled with cheese, beans, tuna and eggs were very tasty and the accompanying salad of diced tomato, cucumber and onion bedded down on butter lettuce was refreshing and had a bit of zip from the herbal dressing. I’m not sure if spring-roll dough is the classic way to prepare Fatima‘s digits but a little improvisation is not a bad thing.

From there on, it’s mostly variations on couscous, except for the wonderful mussels with three sauce options and a few other seafood dishes. If you try the mussels I highly recommend the cumin, spicy harrisa, white wine and olive-oil broth.

I laid siege to the Couscous Carthage ($18.25), a daunting citadel of steamed couscous, merguez sausage, braised-lamb shank and chicken with big hunks of veggies like zucchini, potatoes, peppers and carrots, the whole shlimazel finished with a light touch of tomato sauce. The merguez was particularly inspiring and the chicken was delicious but I felt the lamb could’ve been more tender. Dr. Zongo tore into his lamb-shank couscous with the abandon of a Roman legionnaire sacking a city and had no reservations about the lamb texture.

On a non-couscous note, try the chicken tagine with saffron sauce or the steak frites and start with a classic French onion soup or Coquilles St. Jaques. For dessert try the rosewater baklava or the tart of the day.

“So, what can you tell about me from my couscous remnants?” I asked Dr. Zongo.

“You’re disorganized, bipolar and you’d better floss your teeth.”

REVIEW

Carthage Café

Where: 1851 Commercial Dr., Vancouver

Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-215-0661

Drinks: Liquor license is in the works

Hours: Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun., 4 -11 p.m., closed Mon.

 

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

This sibling to Lolita’s on Davie lightens up stodgy Mexican comfort food

Mia Stainsby
Sun

They had me at “Now Open.”

With some new restaurants, I’m jelly and I’m in there with mouth wide open before giving it a chance to iron out wrinkles.

Me & Julio was one of them. On day four, ready or not, I was there. It’s because M & J is a close relative of Lolita’s South of the Border Cantina on Davie Street, one of my favourite casual restaurants.

,” but it’s not really. It’s not tapas; the food isn’t carefully sculpted nor does it sit strikingly on a virginal white plate. Rather, it’s homey, comfort food that knows not how to primp or preen. What’s different and what I like is that chef Shelome Bouvette lightens up the stodge that often weighs down North American Mexican food. She does it with lashings and layerings of bright vegetation — it could be a mantle of pickled and julienned cabbage over the halibut taco or huge nests of mesclun greens or yummy salsas.

Or it could be bright, humming notes like lime crema fresca or turmeric yellow pickled green papaya or grilled pineapple slaw or agave honey dressing on spinach. These bright notes are happy notes.

Not all dishes were wonderful but I do like the collage of savoury, sweet, sour and salty flavours, all dancing around.

The down side to this abundance of greens and fruits and veggies is that sometimes you’re not getting a lot of the protein element. For example, my halibut taco, while delicious with the beet-hued pickled cabbage slaw and mango salsa and lots and lots of green, was short on halibut. And the same with the calamari salad — lots of greens and spinach salad and white beans but not generous with calamari.

These rock’n’roll plates of flavours isn’t surprising. Before she started up at Lolita’s, Bouvette was day chef at Bin 942, where flavours are bold and forward. Bouvette met Lila Gaylie, another owner, at Bin. (Her brother Jaison is the other in the ownership triad.)

When I first visited, the place was already jumping and, as they say in the biz, in the weeds. After an hour of nursing our drinks in the stemless wine glasses, we wished we’d had a bite to eat before we went. The food was omigosh-slow coming out of the kitchen. But hunger and impatience didn’t drive me to bite anyone’s head off — the music was great (tends to be upbeat, like reggae) and the servers were appropriately apologetic and looked like they would grovel if we needed them to (even though they all wore tough-girl tattoos). The place was buzzing, but not to the point where you had to yell like a hockey fan to converse.

So yes, the service was incredibly slow and the server forgot to bring a glass of wine, but it wasn’t a bad place to hang out. A second visit proved much smoother and the joint, again, was hopping.

The food is a festival of flavours. (Entrees are $16 to $20.) Sopa de tortilla is made with roasted tomatoes and held chicken, pasilla chili, fresh cheese, tortilla strips and on the side, a delicious cornbread; panela cheese with a chili’d mushroom saute, cilantro and pepita pesto crostini and lots of greens was an earthy dish; seviche habanero with scallops, wild sockeye and halibut in pomello-citrus marinade, blue corn tostadas, guacamole and pickled papaya featured fresh seafood, albeit not glistening with moisture.

The sasparilla-glazed baby back ribs was the best. It came with jicama and pineapple slaw and smoked gouda and cascabel mac and cheese. The fall-apart tender meat was deliciously sauced and the salad lightened the heavy load of meat and cheese. The grilled flat-iron steak, however, was chewy — not rubbery, but certainly exercised the jaw. The Malbec and roasted shallot demi glace was lovely, the agave honey candied beets a nice aside although the horseradish and avocado mash was mysteriously mild.

Me & Julio hearkens to the Paul Simon song, but Julio is also the Spanish word for July, the month in which both Lolita’s and M & J were leased. It’s a great add to a street already teeming with affordable restaurants.

– – –

ME & JULIO: MODERN MEXICAN KITCHEN AND CANTINA

Overall: 3 1/2

Food: 3 1/2

Ambience: 4

Service: 3 1/2

Price: $$

2095 Commercial Dr., 604-696-9997, www.meandjulio.ca

Open 5 p.m. to midnight daily.

Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.

 

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Partners forced him out of his two restaurants, celeb chef says

Mia Stainsby
Sun

Rob Feenie, one of Canada’s most celebrated chefs, says he has been forced out of his two Vancouver restaurants, Lumiere and Feenie’s.

In the past few days, he says, he has been in the fight of his life in a failed bid to regain his status in the two Vancouver jewels.

Two years ago, with his restaurants facing bankruptcy, he signed over majority ownership of the restaurants to David and Manjy Sidoo. Feenie says he was in the red for $350,000 after spending $1.2 million to upgrade the Lumiere kitchen and to pay off what he owed his original partner, Ken Lei.

“I’m no longer with the company because, most importantly, my role as a chef was taken away,” he said in an interview.

David Sidoo, an investment banker, says he’s shocked at what has happened. He said in an interview that the sides had been trying to work out their problems.

Feenie said he had an employment contract with the Sidoos.

“It is in his [Feenie’s] view that they [the Sidoos] are in breach of that employment contract,” Feenie’s lawyer, Randy Kaardal, said.

“They have diminished his role and responsibility as it relates to food, marketing and operation of the restaurants. He was to have the role of executive chef and the duties were defined in the agreement.

“He has now elected to no longer be associated with the restaurants as a result,” Kaardal said. “He could not tolerate those circumstances.”

“The parties will have to work out damages that Mr. Feenie has suffered and attempt to work out in good faith where to go from here,” Kaardal said.

Sidoo confirmed Feenie has left the restaurants. “It’s finished. He quit.

“He came in on Wednesday and took all his stuff. He met with the staff, had a goodbye drink, shook hands with them.

“Right now, we’re in shock. We were trying to work things out the past few days.

Sidoo called Feenie “a wonderful chef . . . . He’s done a lot of good things for Vancouver.”

Sidoo also said he and his wife’s investment in the restaurant “was substantially more” than $350,000, but would not go into details. Neither party would talk about their financial arrangements.

Asked why Feenie left, Sidoo replied: “You’re going to have to ask him that.”

Feenie is a star, a giant in the Vancouver culinary scene. In 2005, he became a bit of a pop culture icon by winning the Iron Chef America competition. He’s written several cookbooks, he’s had his own television cooking shows and hobnobs with towering international chefs such as Thomas Keller and Charlie Trotter. Under him, Lumiere was distinguished with the prestigious Relais Gourmand and Tradition et Qualité awards.

Recently, a full-page ad appeared in Vancouver Magazine’s annual glossy eating and drinking guide “introducing executive chef Dale Mackay” with his photo with owners David and Manjy Sidoo’s names at the bottom.

Sidoo says that was an error: “The ad was an unfortunate typo error we couldn’t catch in time. With all other marketing materials, all the dinners we’ve done, Rob was on the menu as executive chef.”

Feenie said the problems began when Mackay was hired two months ago. The 28-year-old chef, a Canadian, was previously working at uber-celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s New York restaurant.

“As of a month ago, David Sidoo informed me the duties and title of executive chef were taken away from me. Dale was given carte blanche to do what he wants and the final approval of all food for Lumiere had to go through David and Manjy,” Feenie said.

“One of the things he [David] said to me was that the reason he wanted Dale to have carte blanche is that he and Manjy wanted to see more consistency in the restaurant. He wanted us to work together.”

More recently, while the partners were negotiating their way through the issues, Feenie was advised to stay away, he says.

“It’s not that he wanted me out of there. He [Sidoo] wanted my face, my name,” he says. “The fact is, the food in the dining room is no longer Rob Feenie. I was no longer able to make comments and criticisms. If I didn’t think the food was worthy of Lumiere, it had to go through David and Manjy.”

Feenie’s side of the story reads like a backroom deal that occurred without his knowledge. Feenie said he interviewed Mackay in New York for a position as chef de cuisine. Feenie felt Mackay came at too high a price and had interviewed another chef from Toronto. Unknown to him, Sidoo had hired Mackay.

Sidoo disagrees with that version of events. “Rob is the executive chef. We didn’t have anything to do with the food. Rob went to New York and said ‘We found our guy. He’s not willing to come unless we can compensate him properly.’ I told Rob it’s his decision. We made it work for Rob, so Dale could run the kitchen as chef de cuisine. The two of them had conversations over duties. From my understanding, Rob gave Dale complete freedom with the menu as long as the two signature items, the sablefish and the squash ravioli, stayed. Dale was hired as chef de cuisine for Lumiere.”

Two days ago, Feenie told The Sun he had investors in place to make Sidoo a buyout offer. “I’m trying to buy it back. If he rejects the deal, it’s then personal and if he wants to make it personal, I do have the ability to take it to that level,” Feenie said. “I will not let these restaurants go. I’ve worked too hard.”

The offer, he said, is what Sidoo wanted and “more than what the restaurant’s worth.”

But on Friday, Feenie was officially out.

Sidoo says he’s always approached with offers. “I did have interest from outside parties. Those discussions were terminated several days ago. They are confidential discussions. The terms were not satisfactory so we moved on. I don’t know if Rob was attached to them.”

Regarding the partnership, Feenie says: “It was one of my biggest mistakes. In doing that, it’s put me in the situation I’m in now. What can I tell you. I’ve made big mistakes in my career but this was the biggest I’ve ever made. At this point, it’s a fatal error. In January ’06, he [David] said we’ve got three choices,” Feenie said. “He said ‘We can close down. We can find someone to buy us out. Or we [the Sidoos] can take over. Not only will we take over, we’ll try and make it so that you’re still a partner.’ “

Asked what brought him to the point of bankruptcy two years ago, Feenie said: “I’m a chef. I’m not an accountant or bookkeeper. It’s not my thing. I put the wrong people in the wrong places to be accountable. I’m disappointed for my clients, for everyone. It’s been 12 really fabulous years.”

The relationship with the Sidoos wasn’t always conflicted, Feenie says. “They [gave] me the opportunity four years ago to open Feenie’s and that’s something I have to thank them for — coming in when I needed help and they were always there when the restaurant needed help. I never felt they ever had bad intentions.”

As for Mackay, Feenie says: “He’s the luckiest guy on the planet. He gets a Relais Gourmand and Tradition Qualité restaurant.”

Sidoo said his priority has to be with the team at the restaurant.

CHEF’S CAREER TRAJECTORY

ROB FEENIE’S RED LETTER DATES:

1992-1994: Watershed years, building skills at Le Crocodile in Vancouver

1995: Opened Lumiere

1997: Restaurant of the Year, Vancouver Magazine restaurant award

2000: Opened Lumiere Tasting Bar at Lumiere; won Relais Gourmand award

2003: Opened Feenie’s; won Tradition et Qualité award

2005: First Canadian chef to win Iron Chef title

1998-2004: Hosts New Classics with Chef Rob Feenie on Food Network Canada

2007: Exits Lumiere and Feenie’s

Vancouver Sun

© The Vancouver Sun 2007