Feel-good atmosphere at the right price
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Mary Ann Masney and chef Wayne Martin have opened the Fraiche restaurant in West Vancouver. The restaurant has a beautiful view of downtown Vancouver. Photograph by : Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
The breadbasket is a foreshadowing device. If we empty it, it’s a sign of good food to come.
At Fraiche, we gobbled up the bread in no time. Not surprising when you consider the man in the kitchen. Chef and co-owner Wayne Martin also runs Crave, the great-value Canadian bistro on Main Street. Before that, however, he was the big cheese at Four Seasons in Vancouver and at other locations; one does not lead Four Seasons kitchens without being in alpha league of cooks.
Fraiche sits like a crow’s nest on the slopes of upper West Vancouver with a sweeping view of water and city. (Actually, that should be cities, plural, because on a clear day, you can see out to Richmond.) I’m happy that this is more than a place to force march out-of-town guests to gloat about our beautiful city. Just don’t miss out on the food experience. Gloat about it, too.
Co-owner/general manager Mary Ann Masney runs the front with ease and expertise. She’s done the same at Araxi, Bacchus, and Quail’s Gate Winery restaurant. The idea was to offer the community above the Upper Levels a neighbourhood restaurant. To get there, you ascend the mountain, past palaces occupying far too large a carbon footprint than any household deserves and you come upon Fraiche in modern envelope of glass, wood and views. Once inside, you behold a dramatic 400-pound dogfish sculpture by Robert Davidson. Masney is the welcoming committee; she does the rounds, chats and all of a sudden, it’s a feel-good room.
Fraiche is everything the former restaurant, Bread and Tulip, was not. Starters are $8 to $18 (the latter for Quebec foie gras) and mains are $18 to $40 (the latter for butter-poached lobster). The lounge menu will be up and running, offering favourites from Crave that people have asked for — burgers, cobb salad, tuna nicoise — and they can be ordered in the dining room, too.
The food didn’t disappoint. When I first opened the menu, I spied “truffle” on a couple of items and my heart raced. For starters, roasted celery root soup with fine shavings of black Perigord truffle was perhaps a little too thick but quite luscious. Roasted beet root salad was fresh and tasty. Crabcakes were light, full of crab and sat in a wading pool of seafood chowder. Organic chicken noodle soup featured flavourful chicken.
I had the most tender, buttery duck I’ve ever come across and it wasn’t just the magnificence of the duck meat. After rendering it down, stove-top, Martin roasts it in a very slow oven. He cuts it thick but that’s no hindrance to knife or teeth. Arctic char had a golden crust but inside, it was cooked just to the edge of doneness; it was served with bacon and brie ravioli and caramelized onions. Lemon and herb marinated lamb rack proved to be a gorgeous piece of meat and a fresh-made pappardelle with roasted mushrooms and artichokes was light and earthy.
The pastry chef, 24-year-old Amanda Cheng is one to watch. Dessert offerings are limited but I can see she’s very skilled. Her passion fruit chocolate bombe is on a par with a Thomas Haas creation. Did I really say that? Yes. And I’ll stick by it. On our second visit, we didn’t share as we customarily do. We each ordered one and were glad we did.
The “chocolate bar” was like an ingot of chocolate enrobed with ganache as shiny as patent shoes. My lemon tart was luscious, a perfect balance of sweet and sour.
One server was like a Jim Belushi stand-in, with a great sense of comic timing. “Well, in that case, do you want a bottle?” he asked my husband when I declined wine. “You have a designated driver.”
The wine list is limited by space but Masney, who’s the wine director, has been cherry-picking the some favourites from California and France with pepperings of Australia, New Zealand and B.C.
This is one view restaurant where a windowful of water and mountains aren’t the only payoff. It’s worth the trip, even when the view is nothing but grey clouds.
– – –
FRAICHE
Overall: 4
Food: 4
Ambience: 4
Service: 4
2240 Chippendale Rd., West Vancouver. 604-925-7595. www.fraicherestaurant.ca. Open for dinner only. To offer lunch and brunch at later date.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars. [email protected]
© The Vancouver Sun 2008