Chain’s latest addition raises the competitive bar
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Chef Rob Feenie and owner and president Richard Jaffray present new dishes at Cactus Club. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun
CACTUS CLUB
Overall: ***1/2
Food: ***1/2
Ambiance: ****
Service: ****
Price: $$
588 Burrard St., 604-682-0933. Open 7 days a week, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. www.cactusclubcafe.ca (No reservations except for large parties.)
It inhales 300 people at a time. Others patiently wait their turn, waiting up to 45 minutes on the adjacent plaza, tapping their high heels, straightening their business suits, talking on cellphones as they await a seat in this $6.5-million glittering glass prima donna of casual glam dining.
The optimistic owner (doesn’t he have to be, opening up the 19th, most expensive Cactus Club yet?) is astounded by how busy it’s been. “Basically, it fills up before noon and stays full until the end of the day,” says Richard Jaffray, owner of the downtown restaurant.
“It’s been spectacular to watch,” says Rob Feenie, the celebrity chef hired to steer the 19 kitchens. “I haven’t seen anything like this except in Las Vegas.”
It’s the West Coast chain dance of the casually chic restaurant chains (think Cactus Club, Earl’s, Joey’s, Milestones), where each new opening is ritzier than the previous. Jaffray says this market has become so competitive, it forces everyone to get better. “And maybe the people of B.C. are a little more sophisticated [than the East]. There’s a big interest in food, and customers here are demanding. They expect quality wherever they go.”
Inside, the soaring ceilings blunt the jagged edges of conversation; like many of the C.C. restaurants, the servers are uniformly young, pretty and exceptionally cheerful. Paintings by Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, Sir Anthony Hopkins (yup, the actor) and Brent Comber (local wood-working whiz) hint at how all-grown-up Cactus Club has become since the first one opened in 1988 in North Vancouver. It’s not a place you’d go for a quiet dinner, though. It’s boisterous and high-energy, but, at the same time, incredibly well run. We expected a long wait for our food but the courses moved along without a wrinkle.
The hiring of chef Feenie (enough of his ‘food concept architect’ title) has been a big draw, although curiously, his exalted name is absent on the menu. His presence on the menu is becoming noticeable and I do mean “becoming” because this is a whole different gig for him and menu changes occur at a snail’s pace. “Instead of 20 employees, I’m working with 2,200,” says Feenie, “and consistency is important.”
About 10 of the dishes on the menu are his. One of them, the butternut squash ravioli, is as good as I’d had at Lumiere Tasting Bar and my heart flutters at the thought of it. “If we ran them company-wide, we’d have to be doing 15,000 ravioli a month,” Feenie says. (Currently, only the Burrard and Ash Street locations carry Feenie’s new dishes. They’ll be on all Cactus Club menus by the end of summer.)
Other Feenie dishes I tried were the barbecued duck club sandwich on pecan fruit bread (great flavour and combination of ingredients, but the thin-sliced bread split apart making it awkward to eat); calamari sandwich (would have loved it even more with a touch more seasoning); tuna tartare (gorgeous!); spinach salad (had heft and flavour, with balsamic figs, candied pecans, goat cheese, sherry vinaigrette and it was crisp and fresh). I’d love to try his spaghettini with prawns and scallops (and I do appreciate the restaurant’s support of the Ocean Wise sustainable seafood program).
Of the pre-Feenie dishes, some were good and others really need his attention. The pesto-crusted halibut, for example, didn’t trumpet freshness and the pond of Thai curry sauce encircling it was just wrong. A touch of pesto would have sufficed if the fish were nice and fresh. A trio of mini-burgers with red pepper relish was delicious as was the West Coast “pocket” (sushi rice and smoked salmon in tofu pockets). A key lime pie was superior to the usually sad excuses I come across; chocolate lava cake, however, didn’t erupt with oozing chocolate or heavenly chocolate flavour.
I’ve given this Cactus Club three and a half out of five stars for food, but as Feenie’s dishes start to dominate more, that would move to an easy four. Right now, the menu’s in transition.
Feenie’s much-talked-about departure from the high-end Lumiere earlier this year is behind him. “Honestly, I love it here because it’s such a great group of people. It’s fun to be here and for me, I feel like a kid again,” he says. “The price points are lower here and I love that part. The buying power is so huge, it makes it easier. A big part of what I want to do is give good value.”
And that, I would say, is the other good reason people are lining up, tapping their feet, and waiting 45 minutes.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008