Restaurant: Meo joins siblings Kissa Tanto and Bao Bei in Chinatown

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Meo

Where: 265 East Pender Street, Vancouver

When: Open from 5:30 p.m., Wednesday to Sunday

Info: 604-559-6181. meochinatown.com

The team behind groundbreaking Vancouver dining experiences like Bao Bei and Kissa Tanto has opened another spot, a cocktail lounge called Meo. It slipped into their former Nancy Go Ya Ya space, a Singaporean café that didn’t survive the pandemic. I liked Nancy and was sad to say bye-bye to my favourite kaya toast.

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Although Meo is serious about cocktails, Tannis Ling, one of the partners says: “I’m a restaurant person at heart. I don’t think I could just sell alcohol.” With Joël Watanabe, a Michelin star chef, overseeing all the kitchens, the food doesn’t get a slack pass.

Ling is keen on a boho demeanour in her restaurants and Meo’s no different. The room, inspired by a photograph she saw of Hong Kong nightlife, circa 1970s and 80s, is atmospheric and transporting. “It was kind of dingy but romantic, didn’t take itself too seriously,” she says of the room in the photo. “I loved the gaudy combo of pink and red, kind of like a love motel.” I promise you, it isn’t literally gaudy nor does it signal an icky love motel.

A vintage jukebox sits mid-room, announcing a reverse time travel. “It does play music,” she says. “At some point, we’ll figure out whether the coin mechanism can be used.” Say what? Coins? She’d have to change the artists — the likes of Ian Tyson, Conway Twitty, Loverboy and Blondie won’t cut it with this crowd.

Meo, the name, references Gatto Meo, a foam rubber toy cat designed by Milanese designer Bruno Munari some 75 years ago. “A cat’s always been our unofficial mascot,” Ling says.

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She and partners Watanabe and Alain Chow hired Denis Bykov, who last worked in Dubai at Sucre, as head bartender. His ease with modern techniques like clarification, fermentation, infusions and culinary methods helped seal the deal. Bykov takes a lighthearted and fun approach. Some cocktails are mischievous twists on classics.

The Cosmo Fizz subs shochu for vodka and beet shrub for cranberry juice. An Espresso Carrotini has citrus-infused cold brew coffee and, yes, a carrot reduction. I loved my modern take on the Grasshopper, with sake instead of crème de menthe, and Asian flavours like pandan and Thai basil.

The signature cocktails continue with Asian influences. A vodka highball includes turmeric and coconut water. The gin highball comes with matcha and banana milk. A spicy margarita is served with your choice of chilies, guided by a helpful Scoville unit chart, up to and including a blistering ghost pepper. The Sinful Blossom includes gin, port, rose wine, sour and salty pickled Japanese plums and osmanthus tea.

If you’re with a group of four of more, ask about their punch of the week, served “cold tea style”. The wine list is all about bubbles, from a fizzy red Lambrusco and sparklers from the U.K. and Portugal, to low-alcohol pét-nats and pricey French Champagne.

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In the kitchen, chef de cuisine Macià Bagur was exec chef at Bishop’s before it closed and at Naramata Inn under Ned Bell. In Spain, his home country, he worked in vaunted kitchens, including as chef de partie and pastry chef at the three-Michelin Sant Pau restaurant near Barcelona.

It was operated by Carme Ruscalleda, now retired, but who is the only female chef to have earned seven Michelin stars. “In the end, cooks come from mothers,” says Bagur, in praise of female chefs.

“I worked for one of the most important woman cooks in Europe and she had a big influence in the way I run a kitchen. She changed my mentality.” He was also demi chef de partie at the three-star Celler de Can Roca, which was twice ranked best in the world and second-best four times.

He finds cooking in Canada somewhat freeing. “In Spain, the food culture is bound by tradition. Here, there’s a lot to build but also an opportunity to feel free. When I cooked in the Okanagan, I couldn’t find old wines but found wines so special, you can’t find anywhere else in the world,” he says.

“I’m enjoying the short seasons of the products. You just take them as treasures.” In Spain, with longer growing seasons, he didn’t appreciate the products as much. And he was initially shocked at how cocktails are part of fine dining here. “In Spain, it’s all about wine. Here, the cocktail culture is so huge. I think it’s a good thing.”

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The opening Meo menu was created under Watanabe’s watchful scrutiny but Bagur has been working on new dishes which will be going live soon. One of the dishes that he sweated over before getting the nod from Watanabe is the lovely, fluffy Japanese milk bun with curried potato filling.

“It took a while to get there. I looked around the (Chinatown) neighbourhood and the steamed baos and thought if they can do that, I can do this.” It’s a great dish! Good job, chef!

Watanabe’s own pride and joy is the Doubles, a Trinidadian street food of curried chickpeas atop pillowy bara (flat bread). The bara is soft and chewy and puffy and what really clinches the dish is the banana raita blanketing the works.

I kind of went bonkers for it. It’s served with tamarind chutney and peppa sauce that has scotch bonnet pepper in it. Yikes! I said. “It’s lacto-fermented for seven days and it develops flavour. If you use it fresh you only feel the spiciness,” Bagur says.

You’ll find Spanish influences on the menu from Bagur’s homeland and also, some shy Korean forays, influenced by his Korean-born wife. “Right now, I’m working on a type of Korean tartare. Instead of chopping, they make thin julienne strips with the beef. It’s a difficult cut,” he says.

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From Spain, he brings us fideuá, “a Valencian noodle dish in the manner of paella, with shrimp and squid,” as the menu describes. The noodles are toasted in the pan, intensifying flavour.

“The most important thing is the alioli, which literally means garlic and oil,” Bagur says, adding that it’s the derivation of aioli, which in North America refers to a mayonnaise-based dip or sauce.

“The word mayonnaise comes from Mahon, a city on Menorca (an island in Spain where Bagur grew up). It was called mahonesa, the sauce of Mahon. The French took it and added egg yolk to it.”

At any rate, don’t miss the fideuá dish. It’s unique in Vancouver. Shredded chicken croqueta is another Spanish guest. “It takes time to make these balls,” he says. “It looks simple but takes time.”

He serves it atop béchamel sauce on romaine lettuce leaves and a soft drift of grated Parmigiano. The patata brava and Basque cheesecake are other Spanish tourists. I usually detour around cheesecakes but this one — barely sweet, light, charred on top, served with stewed plums, was amazing.

Surprisingly, he bakes it at a really high temperature, quickly, rather than low and slow. “I was trained in both food and pastry,” he says. “If you bake it slowly, it gets cooked evenly with the same texture throughout. This way, you have a beautiful oozy part in the middle. But if you cook it one or two minutes too long or less, it doesn’t set right.”

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We agreed the Basque cheesecake, with its creamy interior and caramelized crust outside, must have been born of someone’s mistake. (It originated in San Sebastian at La Viña restaurant.)

Some dishes are light-bulb inspirations — like the sweet green curry with seasonal fruit, sunflower praline and pandan lime sorbet. “I was making a staff meal of green curry and thought it’s curious that in one part of the world, coconut is savoury and in another, it’s dessert. I took a curry recipe from Thailand and sweetened it with a coconut milk crème anglais, and I treat the seasonal fruit like a vegetable, burnt, and with chili oil.”

Next, on the Meo journey, is a happy hour program. “We’ll call it Cinq a Sept, starting at 5:30,” says Ling. “It’s a time in France where lovers meet up, have a treat. We’ll tie it in with the love hotel idea,” she jokes. I think.

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