Lumiere - DOV

Lumiere
2551 West Broadway
Vancouver, BC V6K 2E9

Ah…this is what you’ve all been waiting for…the crème de la crème of Dine Out Vancouver…LUMIERE! Hahhaha! Well maybe not all of you were as excited about this as I was but let me tell you, I was counting down the days until I was going to critique Dale Mackay’s handiwork and judge for myself if all the crap he’s been getting is unfair or well deserved.

I went to Lumiere on Sunday night with my mommy as a celebratory dinner for my birthday (quarter century…sigh…but lets not dwell on that :P). We got there a bit early and while it was easy enough to find parking on Broadway, they actually have complimentary valet parking now! Hurray for free stuff! The hostess was extremely pleasant and we were seated right away. Now keep in mind that this is the tasting bar, not the main room of Lumiere, since only the tasting bar was providing the Dine Out menu. I’ve never been to the tasting bar and was surprised by how small it actually is. It’s literally a bar on one side and tables lining the wall on the other. It does get pretty cramped in there but if you’re sitting down at your table, you don’t really seem to notice. The room itself only sits about 20 people or so but it’s very comfortable and intimate.

So we got seated at the table right by the door, which really worried me since I get cold really easily but surprisingly, the way the tables and dividers were positioned, I was pretty comfortable. Our server, Amy, was really great. My cup of hot water was never empty throughout the entire dinner and the entire team was very attentive to our needs.

For dinner, my mom ordered the fois gras parfait to start while I had the onion mushroom veloute. The fois gras parfait was AMAZING! Super smooth and just a great silky texture with no hard aftertaste. It’s pretty mild for people who are not familiar with the dish and honestly, I think I prefer this to an actual piece of fois gras. I’ve had fois gras before at Lumiere (back in RF days) and it was horrible! So defiantly one point for Mackay. My veloute was also very delicious and had ample amounts of mushrooms.

Moving on to the main, my mom had the artic char and I went with the pork belly. Again, just superb! The pork belly is (obviously) very fatty and a bit too much for me, but the flavours were all there and just blended perfectly! My mom said it’s like Chinese “siu yok” and it was…but classier! The char was delicious too and given that my mom doesn’t actually eat red meat fish and she still enjoyed it, I think it’s a good sign.

For dessert, we both went with the apple millefeuille and wow! This is probably the best dessert I’ve had so far. The pastry wasn’t as light as a typical millefeuille but it really worked (and plus I like more buttery pastries) and hazelnut crème in the centre was sooo good!

The only grip I had about Lumiere is that the point of Dine Out Vancouver is to showcase VQA wines but Lumiere didn’t do that. They didn’t have any wine parings and their wine list featured mainly non-BC wines. Both my mom and I ended up ordering German wines with our meals (which, according to their sommelier, was the perfect wine to pair with our dishes-especially mine!). It didn’t really matter to us about the BC wines but it was just something I noticed.

In all, Lumiere was a great success! The food was delicious, the service was attentive and the presentation of everything was just beautiful. Their dine out has actually been extended to February 13th so if you can get in, I highly recommend it. I really think Dale Mackay will come into his own in this kitchen and garner the recognition he deserves. I mean he worked his way up in Gordon Ramsey’s kitchen from dishwasher to sous chef! The guy just got a bad rep from the whole Feenie fiasco…poor guy. But it’s not about the drama or the temper tantrums. Ultimately, it’s about the food and Lumiere’s menu defiantly sings its praises! Hallelujah!