Bar Gobo is the third restaurant under chef Andrea Carlson with her unique signature moves.
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Bar Gobo
Where: 237 Union St.
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When: Wednesday to Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.
Info: 604-423-5400. www.bargobo.com
They’re gnarly as witches’ claws but Andrea Carlson admires burdock. Two restaurants she co-owns — Burdock and Co. and Bar Gobo — are named after it. Gobo is Japanese for burdock.
She marvels over the before and after of a burdock makeover.
“I just love it. It’s an unassuming root, but once you cook it, it has a beautiful ethereal sweetness and nuttiness. It’s ugly, but once it’s cleaned up, it’s a princess. I do love the more esoteric plants and botanicals, things that are surprising. You work with it and let the flavours shine.”
Seriously. Carlson looks for the soul of ingredients and regards fresh, local plant life with awe. “We just got some poblano peppers from Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island. Beautiful things. It sounds corny but I feel the life force in them. They’re taut, crisp and vibrating with fresh crispness. It’s what excites me. These subtle differences — not everyone picks up on them.”
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At some point, Carlson orbited into a culinary space, abandoning the tried and true, the rules and recipes, the predictable and familiar. The launch pad was at the groundbreaking Sooke Harbour House under chef Edward Tuson, mentor to many and now operator of Black Market Meats in Sooke.
“I blame Sooke Harbour House,” Carlson jokes. “That’s where I first started writing menus on a daily basis. We’d be writing menus the night before.”
She credits Sinclair and Frederique Philip, who ran Sooke Harbour House, with fuelling staff with energy, passion and an ethos to push boundaries. “It was a template that trained me to be spontaneous. We were literally in the kitchen day and night coming up with new things, writing down available ingredients, connecting the dots and doing whatever the heck made sense.”
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Since those early days, Carlson’s cooked at C in its glorious seafood days, Star Anise, Raincity Grill, and Bishop’s before opening Burdock and Co. and Harvest Community Foods, which is on the same block as Bar Gobo. All her places have ecological conscience.
Bar Gobo was designed by Carlson’s life partner and behind-the-scenes support, architect Kevin Bismanis.
“It’s about surfaces and wrapping,” he says in architect-speak. In other words, a neutral backdrop to allow the wine and food to promenade. “The lack of decoration allows guests to imprint that on their experience,” he says. It feels unpretentious, friendly, intimate, and neighbourhoody.
Fans of Burdock appreciate Carlson’s out-of-bounds style of cooking, lasering in on the beauty of ingredients and treading lightly around them, retaining their individual gifts.
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Dishes are unique with a signature umami. At Bar Gobo, Carlson is supported by chef de cuisine Neil Hillbrandt, who moved over from his sous chef role at Burdock. They developed the menu together, but Hillbrandt creates the specials. “He’s really knocking it out of the park,” Carlson says.
The small space was originally meant to be a new home for Harvest Community Foods but at the last minute, and with sommelier Peter Van de Reep’s backup, it became a wine bar with snacks considering the small kitchen and lack of vent system for frying and grilling. But after a ‘why not’ second, it morphed into a dinner destination. Individual dishes are $9 to $23 — or $60 if you include the B.C. caviar dish. There’s the option of a $59 a person prix fixe dinner with about seven share plates. We opted for à la carte.
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First on deck — anchovy toast. They’re more like angel wing crackers painted with anchovy butter. Within minutes, all that remained was a piece I’d dropped on the floor. I did consider the five-second rule. Anchovies made an encore appearance in the charred radicchio dish, funky with anchovy-flavoured bagna cauda sauce layered through the roasted veg. Not the prettiest dish and I thought a little too salty from the anchovies, but it was a flavour bomb. It was served over Hillbrandt’s focaccia.
“Neil,” Carlson says, “is a bread whisperer.”
That dish is one of Carlson’s favourite specials but I had my own favourite dishes — the winged crackers for one.
Tofu custard is a house-made silken tofu and leans into Japan, where Carlson often finds herself, liking the techniques and flavours for their subtlety. Ikura (salmon roe), peanuts, soy and mirin emboldened the oft shy, retiring tofu.
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Burrata, such a beauty when fresh, was heavenly with the little nudge of apricot and bay leaf preserves, a drizzle of good olive oil and bread-whisperer mini-baguette.
Another Hilbrandt special, short ribs with espelette pepper and smoked tomato sauce, was a down-to-earth dish with four succulent, delicious ribs. Yellow and red beets from Glorious Organics were roasted, quartered and tossed with smoked onion cashew cream, hazelnuts, lemon verbena and dill. The pop of fresh dill is a defibrillator bringing the dish to life.
We were so full, so done, we didn’t regret missing dessert. It’s a small kitchen, so sometimes they have a panna cotta, sometimes you make do with a cheese plate.
Van de Reep is the sommelier and manager. As winner of the B.C. regionals in the Canadian Association of Professional Sommelier competition, he was just returning from the nationals, which required a qualifying exam, service test in a second language, a blind tasting, and a business of wine exam. Alas, he didn’t make top three but, still, a national contender.
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His compact wine list is tweaked daily and he doesn’t make a big deal of perfect pairings. “I look for versatile, delicious wines that can pair with a variety of dishes and lean toward brighter, fresher, higher acid whites and reds since we don’t do seared and fried foods.”
There are only two cocktails because of the space squeeze and staffing problems.
“During the circuit breaker, it was just me and Neil doing a lot of the labour and I didn’t want to be behind the bar making cocktails. The Negroni we do have is batched. We might expand at some point, but we need the room for the wines right now,” he says.
Bar Gobo is one of the cool independents that’s brought the heartbeat back to Chinatown.
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Whistler Cornucopia turns 25
Cornucopia, Whistler’s fall celebration of food, drink and seminars, turns 25 this year and it’s back this year It runs from Nov. 5—28 with more than 125 events and experiences — wine tastings, signature events, dinners, cooking demonstrations, and food and drink seminars. Some highlights include Winery Speed Dating, Murder Mystery Dinner, Guided Finer Things Dinner Tour, Comedy Kitchen, and Single Malt Seduction. Unfortunately the 25th anniversary dinner with five Sea to Sky executive chefs cooking has sold out. Hurry to book tickets for events considering pent-up demand plus events have limited capacity. For information and tickets go to whistlercornucopia.com.
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Purdys plays Santa
Halloween’s done. Christmas next. Purdys is all set with a line of chocolates including a ‘Dear Santa’ bar made with sustainable cocoa, in shops and online, where $2 of the $5 price will be donated to seven children’s hospitals in Canada. Purdys has previously raised over $164,000 for children’s hospitals and this year, the goal is to raise $200,000. They’re stocking stuffers with a good cause. The biggest fear for hospitalized children over Christmas is that Santa won’t be able to find them, says Purdys chocolatier Rachel McKinley. So stuff away to help Santa find them.
Other new Christmas products include a vegan advent calendar and another with chocolates in a ‘winter village’ tree ornament for each day leading to Christmas. And fyi, the red in peppermint bark and candy cane truffles is from beet juice, not red food dye.
Source: vancouversun.com
