The Garden Dinner Series returns to the rooftop terrace of the Fairmont Waterfront. The enchanting al fresco long table dinners are held in the hotel’s own garden. From which you can see downtown Vancouver as well as the North Shore mountains. Guests dine surrounded by herbs, edible flowers, fruit, and vegetables — all grown for use in ARC restaurant.
Garden Inspired, Locally Grown
Celebrating the bounty of the summer season, this year’s Garden Dinner Series launched on June 19. Subsequent dinners are coming up on July 24 and August 21, with tickets available now. Seating is intentionally limited. This is done to preserve the intimate and immersive atmosphere, which is part of the pleasure of this series.
Each dinner showcases a different local winery, starting first with French Door Estate Winery. Next will be Burrowing Owl Estate Winery, and the series concludes with Quails’ Gate Estate Winery. Besides getting to enjoy a multi-course meal with expert wine pairings, this year, each of the wineries will include a special selection of their vintage library wines as well.
The wine served changes with each dinner, as does the food, making each dinner distinct. The multi-course menus crafted by Executive Chef Harris Sakalis vary, but will always showcase homegrown and local.
Bounty and Bees
Much of the vegetables, fruit, herbs, and edible flowers used by the culinary team are grown on site in the rooftop garden under the expert eye of Carissa Kasper of Seed & Nourish. To complete the menu, seasonal proteins like spot prawns and halibut are featured. Another key ingredient on the menu is honey. Chef Sakalis integrates honey made by the hotel’s bees in many ways. From the honey butter served with the bread to the dessert.
For over ten years, Fairmont Waterfront has hosted bees. In fact, it was the first hotel to do so. In a sense, the rooftop garden is as much for the bees as it is for the kitchen at ARC.
From now until August 31, the Fairmont Waterfront offers a daily garden tour. Guests can experience the bees up close with a member of the Bee Team. Getting a look at an active beehive is also a part of the Garden Dinner Series. Don’t worry, bee-keeper hats are provided to guests and the bees are sedated with smoke.
I must say, getting to taste honey right from the hive was an unforgettable experience. As was hearing Chief Beekeeper Julia Common speak. Common cares for the hotel’s hives and leads educational initiatives. A co-founder of Hives for Humanity, Common brings more than four decades of apicultural experience to her role, along with her infectious passion and evident joy.
The Garden Dinner Series kicks off with a Garden to Glass cocktail made with custom Wayward Waterfront West Coast Gin. Infused with local botanicals like spruce tips, lavender, and Nootka rosehips, this gin is also made with honey from the resident bees.
Simply Elegant
As an appetiser, we enjoyed an array of baby garden vegetables. Suspended on nearly invisible nails, they appeared to be hovering. Accompanied only by olive oil and salt, these vegetables firmly established the evening’s theme: simple, elegant, and wonderfully fresh local food. The Spot Prawn Carpaccio is another excellent example of this theme. Served raw, the prawns were seasoned simply with citrus, herb oil, and the salinity of the accompanying sea asparagus.
The perfectly poached halibut came in a beurre blanc sauce that was likewise seasoned by the salinity of smoked trout roe and BC sturgeon caviar. Another local protein featured was the Wagyu striploin from Abbotsford. The Corinthian black currant jus played well off the dual wine pairings for this course: French Door’s 2020 Heritage and the non-vintage Solera. A juicy strawberry sorbet cleansed the palette before a Flambé Honey-Rum Baba with lavender chantilly and a delectable macerated cherry salsa. From start to finish, the menu celebrates the garden.
Rooftop Oasis
Since 1995, the Fairmont Waterfront’s garden has blossomed with fruit, vegetables, and flowers. To be in the centre of the city in a space at once quietly peaceful and busily teaming with life is astonishing. It makes one think of the potential of other urban spaces to be transformed into nourishing gardens. As the sun sets and the sky changes subtly from pink to orange, then purple, the rooftop terrace takes on an air of magic. Notes from an acoustic guitar ride the warm breeze as a couple dances in the low glow of candle and fairy light. Such a setting alone is breathtaking, but the addition of a multi-course menu and wine pairings make the Garden Dinner Series exceptional.
