Burrard Street eatery successfully strikes while the … well, cast iron fry pans are hot
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Where: 1325 Burrard St., Vancouver.
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When: Brunch, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Dinner and Happy Hour, Thursday to Sunday.
Info: 604-707-7224. maxinescafebar.com
First, let us absolve her of rumours and allegations. Maxine MacGilvray did not run a brothel. She was not a bootlegger with a secret tunnel under her Mission Revival-style building in the West End. That, I believe, was the price of being a super-successful female entrepreneur in the 1920s. She ran a beauty college in the West End and operated Max Chemical Company, manufacturer of beauty products.
In December 2016, the City of Vancouver named a lane honouring her as part of a project naming eight West End laneways after prominent figures in Vancouver history. So when the Wentworth Hospitality Group planned to launch its third restaurant adjacent to the lane — a sibling to Tableau and Homer Street Cafe — it was a no-brainer. Maxine’s Cafe and Bar it would be.
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Wentworth tasked St. Marie Studio, conjurer of Vancouver’s happening restaurants, with the job of turning the old Musette Caffe Bar, a cyclist-friendly spot, into a solid vision of a French bistro. Sidebar: A Musette partner, Thomas Eleizegui, will be opening Isetta Provisions in West Vancouver very soon, at a long-neglected Cypress Park property. The last restaurant I visited at that site was L’Emotion, many, many moons ago.
Bobby Milheron joined as Wentworth’s exec chef just before the pandemic. I recall his elegant cooking at West restaurant before it succumbed to a rent increase. At Maxine’s, it’s more down-to-earth bistro style fare in a warm and handsome space signalling it as a ‘neighbourhood’ go-to. Chef de cuisine Levi Johnston, who moved over from Tableau, is in charge of day-to-day operations.
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Although it feels like a French bistro, dishes like linguine alla vongole, meatballs braised in sugo, and risotto swerve into Italian trattoria fare. The daily brunch menu from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. slyly seduces with dishes like Dutch Baby pancake laden with fried egg; housemade back bacon and Gruyere cheese mornay; eggs cocotte with fiore di latte and grilled bread; and a ploughman’s breakfast for big appetites.
The 120 cast iron fry pans in the kitchen offers a clue to the rustic cooking. Many of the dishes, like the Dutch Baby and bone-in pork chops are served in the heavy pans. But this isn’t slapdash, overly simple cooking. Milheron’s loving this stage of his career and mentoring cooks with time-consuming techniques to layer, infuse, enhance flavours and make things in-house.
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Take for example, the mortadella with peach mostarda and grilled bread ($16) — much simpler to leave this fussy-to-make emulsified sausage to experts like Cioffi’s or Oyama Sausage.
“It’s my opportunity to coach young cooks,” Milheron says. “The emulsification part is tricky because the ratios and temperatures have to be right.”
The mostarda condiment is made with Okanagan peaches they can in the summer. The mortadella was delicious.
A squash salad with apple, endives, smoked ricotta and pumpkin seeds ($18) was compelling. But it was the vinaigrette that used fermented apple for acidity that hooked me.
My husband had recently been blown away by a tomahawk cut pork chop at Five Sails restaurant, so he was fixated on Maxine’s bone-in pork chop with miso mustard glaze, served with brussels sprout kimchi ($32).
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The chop was as big as the cast iron fry pan, with the bone hanging overboard, and cooked, as ordered, slightly pink. It was buttery tender after a four-hour brine, cooked low in the oven and then seared on the plancha. The kimchi brussels sprouts, though — not a fan. It’s a nod to pork chop and sauerkraut but the gochugaru (red pepper powder) was too pungent and jarring with this dish.
I opted for the most classic of French bistro dishes, steak frites ($30) with cafe de Paris butter. The steak was nice and buttery, slathered with the compound butter first served at a Geneva restaurant in the 1940s. Milheron said his version had 30-something ingredients and I wondered how that wouldn’t be a muddy mess. He started naming them.
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“Shallots, mustard, herbs, anchovies, curry, capers, Tabasco, Worcestershire, paprika, butter…,” he said. “It complements the dish because hanger steaks can be so rich in flavour.”
When I think of the best molé ever (at Pujol in Mexico City), it has 26 ingredients, so why not! The steak came with an avalanche of skinny, nicely cooked kennebec fries.
After inhaling a mountain of fries with help from my husband, you’d think we’d go easy on dessert. We didn’t. Not wanting to decide between a chocolate eclair with dulce de leche cream and a cast iron apple crostata with ice cream, we ordered both. The eclair was substantial if not as light as could be; the apples rang with flavour in the still-warm crostata.
JS Dupuis, beverage director for Wentworth Hospitality, does the drinks — a selection of cocktails and a compact wine list with most wines available by the glass and priced in line with Maxine’s neighbourhood vibe.
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Nightingale restaurant is in downtown Vancouver but their artisan pizza could be in the freezer of your neighbourhood grocer. It’s now available at 30 locations in B.C. including at Fresh St. Market, Stong’s Market and IGA at the suggested retail price of $15.99. The pizzas, with a bubbled and charred crust, are tossed and stretched by hand and cooked at 800° F, which wouldn’t be possible in a home oven. There are three to choose from: Roasted Mushroom with fontina, confit garlic, arugula pesto; Spicy Spianata Salumi with piquillo peppers, San Marzano tomatoes; and Classic Margherita with San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, basil. For a full list of where you can buy, visit nightingalepizza.com .
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Here’s yet another vegan, ecological alternative to dairy. Sproud is made from yellow split peas and has five times the protein power almond and three times that of oat-based mylks. It requires 80 per cent less water than almond mylk to produce and contains 50 per cent less sugar than dairy milk — it’s certified by Sugarwise, which monitors claims about sugar content. The product comes four ways: Original, a thicker Barista, Unsweetened and Chocolate. It has a convincing creamy texture and can be frothed for coffee drinks. It’s now available in stores like Safeway, City Markets, Save-on-Foods and No Frills with a suggested retail price of $4.99. For a full list of locations, visit besproud.com .
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Source: vancouversun.com
