Toronto’s Haifa Room owners open restaurant in Vancouver

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Bar Haifa

410 West Georgia St., Vancouver

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Lunch and dinner, Monday to Saturday

hello@barhaifa.com. barhaifa.com

The swanky Bar Haifa, off the atrium of the Deloitte Summit building on Georgia Street, looks flattering on any diner. And the food conjures that of Yotam Ottolenghi, the iconic London chef known for Middle Eastern restaurants and cookbooks.

That Ottolenghi comparison drills deeper — owners of both Bar Haifa in Vancouver and the Ottolenghi enterprises have Palestinian and Israeli roots — a microcosm of possibility in the larger world.

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In both cases, the partnerships are built on friendship and a love of their shared food culture.

When offered the space in the Deloitte building, the hitmaker team from Toronto’s The Haifa Room — Mark Kupfert, Waseem Dabdoub, Fadi Hakim, Yossi Misrahi Eastwood, and Daniel Suss — planned a lunch-only business, but when the pandemic struck, it hammered downtown lunches.

Pivoting, they partnered with their Toronto chef, Jason Hemi, who moved to Vancouver to command an elevated version of Toronto’s Haifa Room, offering lunch and dinner. They held onto Haifa in the name to honour the centuries-long peaceful co-existence of Arabs and Jews in that Israeli port city.

“We’re all Canadians, but we all have family there,” says Kupfert in a phone interview, referring to Israel and Palestine. “No matter what, we all eat the same food. This is our love letter to Canada. It says we can create this in Canada. People are always surprised. We have different opinions, but we agree on a lot.”

But did they go to battle over falafel. It was resolved before chef Kupfert joined the team, and all he has to say is this: “I’m thankful I wasn’t there. Making 16 batches of the same thing trying to get it right would have been too much for me to bear. From what I hear, there were spreadsheets and cross-referencing of ingredients.” Correction. Kupfert says it was 35 different recipes. I regret that I didn’t try the falafel when I visited. I wonder, does it have a residue of bitterness?

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In Vancouver, they hired a couple of local talents — Cassandra Mosher as general manager (Bao Bei, Como, Bacaro) and Alex Thornley as wine director (Published, Bar Susu, Como).

I can’t say our server was super up to speed, but then I visited right after the restaurant opened in November, which isn’t entirely fair, and I would hope that has improved.

The space is uniquely situated off a spacious and soaring lobby. A Fazioli grand piano as statement art greets you — a signature Westbank Corp. development move. This piano, called The Cloud, has a “cloud” of small mirrors floating over it. “Like the building itself, the piano is as much a reflection of its context as it is a means of reflection,” according to a Westbank description.

The restaurant has three areas — cocktail lounge, chef’s table facing the kitchen, and dining room. The menu is written in three languages — English, Arabic and Hebrew. “It’s part of our brand identity,” says Kupfert.

New to the city, Hemi is in the process of securing his supply chain. “I want to work with local farmers. Getting ingredients I have access to in Toronto has been difficult here. For instance, I can’t get Israeli pita here. I get it from a bakery in California. We’re still working to get the best products.” Making his own pita isn’t “scalable” in the small kitchen, says Hemi, a former baker in Haifa and at the top-notch Blackbird Bakery in Toronto.

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I can say that I loved my Bar Haifa experience. The food was unwaveringly good. Hemi’s proud of the hummus ($15) that took him years to perfect. “When I was working in Israel, there was one hummus spot I liked and I wanted to emulate theirs. My objective was to make hummus that would pair with grilled peaches, something that’s light and creamy.” And it is a lovely hummus. He achieved that intriguing balance of light yet creamy.

A compressed honeydew salad with cucumber, celery, fennel, shallots, sumac, powdered Persian black lime and pomegranate ($18) was a refreshing sight and bite, with red pomegranate popping against the green, flavours and crunch to clean and awaken the palate. “It’s a fun, fresh, whacky salad,” says Hemi.

Nazareth boneless chicken legs with sumac yogurt and honey butter harissa ($18) had an audibly crispy batter and the meat was juicy and flavourful. The bed of yogurt, tinged sumac pink, was a counterpoint to the fried chicken.

The loaded eggplant ($25) isn’t the prettiest dish, especially in the diminished light of the evening, but it is loaded with flavour. The Middle East really understands and loves eggplants. This one walks on the wild side with shatta, a Middle Eastern chili sauce, but is calmed by tahini sauce, giving lots of dimension to the quiet-spoken vegetable. Farro and pine nuts add texture. “It’s like an eggplant banana split,” jokes Hemi.

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Boneless lamb shoulder ($48), one of the signature dishes, spends a spicey 24 hours in the sous vide, and at service, it’s roasted and seared on a flat-top. There are crunchy outside bits and tender flesh inside. It’s served with sumac yogurt, herbed tahini, and toum, a garlic sauce.

I tried a new-to-me dessert. Knafeh ($14) is constructed with kataifi, a spun pastry that looks like shredded wheat. It’s soaked in saffron syrup then layered with ricotta and served with a preserved lemon curd sauce and pistachio — a really nice mix of sweet and savoury, enlightened with citrus.

The wine list is strong on sparkling, white, rosé and orange wines, and includes two Lebanese wines. There is a short cocktail list and a selection of local craft beers.

When I interviewed Kupfert after the first couple of weeks of service, he said politics hadn’t entered the restaurant. “There have been Palestinians, Lebanese, Jews. The vibe’s been good. There’ve been some weird one-star reviews, but generally speaking, everyone’s been super supportive.”

As for me, I loved the food, and I love how it trumps conflict.

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