North Van’s Ethical Kitchen serves up organic, wholesome food made from scratch
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Jazmin Riddell (left); Tessa Pauls, three months; Barbara Schellenberg, the baby’s mom; and sister Fiona Schellenberg of the Ethical Kitchen in North Vancouver. On the table is a beef burger, beef stock, borscht, pastries and a jitterbug, a bug-shaped hazelnut chocolate espresso cake. Photograph by: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
ETHICAL KITCHEN
1600 McKay Rd., North Vancouver (across from Indigo Books)
604-988-6280
www.ethicalkitchenbc.com
Open Tuesday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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The name: Ethical Kitchen. The ambience: a lighter shade of The Naam. The staff: wholesome young women with fresh faces. Food: 99-per-cent organic. First impression: It’s a vegetarian haven, a Birkenstock collective.
So what a surprise — I had the most delicious, juicy burger here. The beef stew was crammed with very good beef. I could have had an equally meaty, juicy sausage on a bun.
When you put together the bits and pieces of information posted on the cooler display, you realize Ethical Kitchen is an unexpected mix of healthy and sustainable and lots of meat.
The owner, Barbara Schellenberg (the one with baby Tessa swaddled on her chest), comes about the meat thing naturally. Her parents are ranchers near Williams Lake, producing grass-fed, organic beef and lamb and organic pork and poultry. She started out marketing their meats (under the label Pasture to Plate) to Vancouver stores, but she longed for more people contact. At Ethical Kitchen she sells the meat from a walk-in freezer, but the dining area is more like a farm kitchen. A small menu of healthy dishes (her background also involves herbal medicine and body work) will delight carnivores who want wholesome, made-from-scratch food.
The burger ($13) came on a fresh-made sourdough bun (I saw the next batch proofing in bowls). Inside the bun, yummy condiments; it came with a crisp red and green coleslaw. A grilled fruit and Vancouver Island brie sandwich would have been excellent but for the bun, which in this case was too tough for the delicate filling, smooshing it into a mess.
Ethical Kitchen is open for breakfast, too, serving up waffles, flourless apple pancakes and bacon and eggs — it’s organic everything, nitrate-free bacon, orchard-run eggs, bio-dynamically grown potatoes, Jerseyland raw milk cheese.
Other dishes include: chicken coconut stew; sausage on a bun with a salad; sandwiches (beef, pork, chicken); gnocchi with tomato beef sauce; beef goulash; and a hearty salad plate.
Schellenberg’s mission is to return to the diet of a century ago.
“It’s something that worked. This isn’t a fad; it’s what traditional cultures do all over the world. It involves fermented vegetables, bone broths and organic foods from the local area,” she says.
She offers many fermented foods, good for digestion and anti-oxidant qualities — kombucha tea, kimchee, sauerkraut, house-made ginger beer and something called beet kvass, “a great blood builder,” she proclaims.
Even the house-made sourdough bread has fermented starter dough. Her stocks are simmered for three days until the bones break down and the minerals are all leached out. Hazelnut oil is expensive, but it’s local so she uses it.
Her walk-in freezer helps to keep food miles low. She freezes local fruits and vegetables in season. “I froze 3,000 pounds of tomatoes and a couple thousand pounds of fruit last summer,” she says. Even the kiwi is local.
Ethical Kitchen doesn’t preclude sweets. I fell into the hypnotic power of the bakery display. Jitterbugs will please the kid in you — they’re three-dimensional bug-shaped hazelnut chocolate espresso cakes dipped in dark chocolate. The muffins have a nice crisped top and a substantial feel.
Schellenberg has more plans up her sleeve. An edible hedge, for one. “We’re trying to grow as much food as possible — native plants, saskatoon berries, wild strawberries, huckleberries and we’re starting to grow our own micro-greens. And we’re hoping to do a roof-top garden and grow as much as we can on site. And we’re also planning to have a farmers’ market in the summer.” Instead of just marvelling at her energy, I’m thinking I should load up on kvass and kombucha.
She says the best compliment she’s received was when a customer walked in and told her it was like he’d “walked into some lady’s kitchen.”
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