Restaurant review: Stepping outside the boundaries in North Van

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Winston

Where: 228 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver

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When: Brunch, Wednesday to Monday. Dinner: Wednesday to Saturday

Info: 778-340-6393, winston-on-lonsdale.com

You might have noticed this fancy-ish restaurant on Lower Lonsdale.

Winston opened two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting owner Andrew Boutilier to say that he’s felt like a Ping-Pong ball for the past two years.

Winston was meant to be like his other operation, Koffie, a coffee bar in downtown Vancouver, but with a larger kitchen. It would also offer dinner service. 

Boutilier hired Douglas Lee as chef last September. Lee comes with a resumé that includes stages and employment at Hapa Izakaya, Joeys, Savio Volpe, L’Abattoir, Royal Dinette, Tocador and Nightingale.

Lee possesses pit bull tenacity and an out-of-the-box work ethic. He didn’t do well in school so he set about redeeming himself, sponging up culinary skills. At 17, he staged at a three-Michelin star kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto, the mecca of kaiseki. He lived in the basement, sleeping five hours, and learning incredible knife skills while not knowing a word of Japanese.

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“I went to learn about food, discipline and how kitchens work,” Lee says. “I couldn’t back down because I didn’t have money to go home.”

Lee then went for experiences at Michelin-anointed restaurants in L.A. and San Francisco — some paid, some not. At one, he worked 15 to 17 hours a day, sometimes up to 22, then went ‘home’ to a train station 15 kilometres from work where he slept with his luggage. In the morning, he ordered pizza from a nearby Domino’s for delivery to his workplace.

“I’d sit outside and ask the driver to deliver me, too,” Lee says. “It takes a lot of work to do the kind of food these restaurants do.” 

When Boutilier interviewed him, Lee wore a baseball cap, glasses and a face mask. It was only later that he learned his chef was 24 years old.

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“He’s a very unique individual, super hard working, super intense and very knowledgeable,” Boutilier says. “He’s very, very particular about who he takes on board and I want to make sure Doug’s comfortable.”

The restaurant name alludes to Winston Smith from the novel, 1984, the protagonist who fights against totalitarianism. Boutilier isn’t a fan of small-business-gobbling corporate giants.

“Communities are based around independent businesses. They’re the life blood of a city,” he says.

Brunch at Winston, which is fairly conventional, is “super busy,” Boutilier says, “and dinners are picking up.”

Lee’s dinner menu isn’t safe and familiar, aiming instead for diners who welcome the unique.

“For the most part, Lonsdale doesn’t step outside boundaries,” Boutilier says. “My way is doing what I think is best at the time, seasonally and we’re lucky enough to have very good local suppliers. There are some foodies in the area who come back night after night.”

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Boutilier has just a couple of asks: No offal. No heads.

An a la carte menu — with dishes from $10 to $32 — changes monthly. A more adventurous $50 per person, five-course ‘Dinner Roulette” menu constantly changes.

Lee has been influenced by Thai, Chinese, and Latin American cuisines and he shows a lot of love for vegetables.

“I do pride myself on decent vegetable cookery,” Lee says. “Anyone can cook meat but it’s harder to cook delicious vegetables.”

I loved the large, delicate, almost floating cracker made by deep-frying rice paper and seasoning it with Szechuan peppercorn and salt. I would like a constant supply of that, please.

A Hiramasa kingfish and ahi tuna dish, a checkerboard of white and red sashimi over shiso leaves, is served with a Vietnamese green sauce thickened and sweetened with condensed milk. Really good!

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A wedge of sesame milk brioche arrives with condiments of pomelo skin and pineapple weed marmalade, salted duck egg and curry leaf. Pineapple weed looks like a daisy, tastes a bit like Szechuan peppercorn, “numbing or dehydrating the tongue a bit,” Lee says.

Dry roasted Taiwanese cauliflower came with sesame tahini dressing and clown’s pickles — dubbed that for the array of colours — and sliced jazz apples and chili oil. Dry-aged char siu pork ribs, dry-aged and brined for two days is roasted with fermented red tofu paste and showered with a blanket of chives. Lots of umami here.

Indian eggplant, enrobed in guajillo mustard dressing and roasted, was topped with contrasting crispy lotus. I didn’t find much flavour happening on this dish but it has changed since I visited — it’s now barbecued and served with Vietnamese pesto and taro chips.

Roasted beef digital, the muscle controlling the digits of the cow’s foot had been brined, then braised for several hours and served with red curry leaf vinegar sauce — tender and tasty but not a moist cut.

Wines are currently curated by Boutilier who has a penchant for natural wines. He’s looking for a wine person but finding seasoned staff in the North Vancouver labour market has been very tough, he says.

mia.stainsby@shaw.ca

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