Gastown restaurant prides itself on an ambience that is welcoming to every taste
JOANNE SASVARI
Sun
So.Cial chef Romy Prasad with lemon-braised lamb shank with Gorganzola and bacon tomato.
For a chef, it’s a pretty sweet deal when your restaurant has its own butcher shop, is located in trendy Gastown and has owners connected to major sports franchises. Add in a charming historic building, and you’ve got what seems like a surefire recipe for success. You’ve also got a lot to live up to. That’s what Romy Prasad faces as the new chef at So. Cial at Le Magasin. And so far, he’s embraced the challenge.
So. cial, famously owned by former Vancouver Canuck goalie Kirk McLean, former coach Bob McCammon and his wife, Maureen Fleming, opened in 2007 to much fanfare, thanks in large part to a loving renovation of its 1911 location in Gastown’s vintage Le Magasin shopping arcade. It features a casual-fine-dining restaurant upstairs, an oyster bar downstairs and a butcher shop in back where guests can pick up a slab of housemade terrine or a gourmet sandwich to go
Right from the get-go, though, So. Cial was a bit of a puzzle. Was it a tourist joint? A place for the city’s social set to see and be seen? A hipster hangout? A serious foodie destination? All of the above? Or none?
“ Our customer base is eclectic — just like the area,” says Prasad, who joined So. Cial in November, replacing original chef Sean Cousins, who is now at C. “ We have business people, artists, fashionistas, hipsters, techies, gamers, students, locals living and working in the area, and tourists. Our ambience is welcoming to everyone.”
Prasad, who was formerly chef at the now-closed Savory Coast and before that executive chef at CinCin for eight years, admits that the restaurant’s multiple components keep him busy, especially as he considers improvements for the new year.
“ We are expanding our deli line to include products from Oyama, as well as expanding our deli offerings to include things like housemade chili and meatloaf,” he says.
“ In the main restaurant, we are changing our menus seasonally and I am looking at adding a tasting menu in the near future. We are also looking at expanding our offerings in the oyster bar to include seafood towers. In addition, we are also starting to offer off-site catering.”
So far, he seems to be doing everything right, in his own unique way.
His cuisine is equally influenced by both the West Coast and the Mediterranean. It’s vibrant and flavourful, and follows the culinary dictum du jour of local, seasonal and organic where possible.
“ My menu is akin to the word So. Cial — if you are out to socialize then you want to be comfortable, at ease and enjoy yourself,” Prasad says. “ It is old school and traditional while at the same time emphasizing regionality and freshness.”
At dinner ( So. cial is also open weekdays for lunch and weekends for brunch), things get started with $ 2 “ little bites” that are not, in fact, so little, like the crispy-but-tender arancini, saffron-and truffle-scented risotto balls filled with tangy pecorino cheese.
After that, it’s hard to resist the charcuterie board, which features whatever is being served at the butcher shop, usually a slice of terrine, some house-cured sausage and a ramekin of potted meat, which is satisfyingly salty and savoury, but unnecessarily heated.
Or, if you prefer to start things off with seafood, Prasad has a deft hand with the denizens of the ocean, and offers fresh oysters, crispy crab cakes and three different kinds of mussels, served, of course, with fries.
He also offers great seafood mains, such as seared salmon, herbcrusted halibut and a heart-warming cioppino, a very West Coast seafood stew of hearty chunks of salmon and plump mussels in fragrant broth, served with toasts topped with Provencal-style rouille.
But since Prasad has his own butcher shop to play with, it’s worth checking out the daily butcher-shop feature.
The night we’re there, it’s a flavourful ribeye steak that arrives perched atop a slab of potatoes au gratin. It’s the priciest dish on the otherwise reasonably priced menu, and while perfectly respectable, doesn’t showcase Prasad’s lighthanded creativity the way, say, the pork tenderloin scaloppini with spaetzle does.
The mostly B. C. wine list perfectly complements the cuisine, and includes interesting and hard-tofind labels, both by glass and bottle.
We’re not so enchanted by the cocktails, which are overly sweet and without the flair we’ve come to expect in Vancouver’s top eateries. The list itself is an odd mix of the quirkily retro and the once-trendy, and is a major missed opportunity, given the gorgeous wooden bar that should be one of the hottest spots in town.
Th at sa id, we may see som e improvements there, since the So. cial team plans to offer live jazz at the bar on weekends.
Another discordant note is that, despite the beautiful room and the careful renovation, a glaring streetlight outside the dining room window casts an unfortunately harsh light on the ambience.
We’d love to see some soft window coverings at night reduce the glare.
Still, So. cial is definitely a place to check out and maybe even to hang out. And if Prasad’s cooking continues the way it’s begun, So. cial could become that rare restaurant that satisfies all appetites.