Chef Teresa Meilleur doesn’t have a publicist. Or if she does, I guess I’m not on the distribution list for her news releases. But I don’t think that’s it; I would read more about her if she had one, in other peoples’ columns.
No, just like the food she puts up at Burgoo, where she has been the chef for as long as I can remember, Chef Meilleur doesn’t invite a lot of glitz and glamour. She works behind the scenes in a modest kitchen to ensure that the rustic, comfort-oriented dishes for which her restaurant is known maintain their reliable, delicious quality.
I have had many very good meals at Burgoo, each one marked by pleasing flavours and textures, and not by fussiness or coy sleights of hand. I have never encountered a foam on a plate there, for instance, nor have I been served anything that has been set afloat in a nage, set aflame with a torch, or set adrift in a stream of consciousness culinary experiment.
And for these privations, Chef, I am thankful. Yours is a menu I seek when I just want to sink my teeth into something real, to sate a deep, rumbling hunger with a hunk of something or a wedge of another thing. Ladles over dollops, slabs rather than morsels, and cast iron pans instead of side plates: this is the winning vernacular that best describes Burgoo’s food.
Don’t mistake this approachable authenticity for simplicity, however. It takes tremendous skill and honed technique to pull off rustic comfort in a way that is still elegant and contemporary. And as we head into the fall, the insoles of my shoes recently soaked through for the first time since March, it is this sort of thoughtfully conceived, unaffected comfort fare that will sustain me through the dark, wet months ahead.
In acknowledgement of the unstoppable transition into fall, I popped by Burgoo on a hopping Friday night with my wife DJ for a late, kid-free dinner. We were seated right away despite a waitlist (all the waiting parties were three or more people) and soon felt our shoulders drop as routine parenting tension dissipated, coaxed out, in part, by a round of stiff drinks. DJ’s spicy, potent Dark and Stormy (dark rum and ginger beer with lime) was superior to my Caipirinha (cachaça, sugar, lime and ice), subconsciously chosen, I suspect, in a vain attempt to retain some vestige of summer.
Our server came by to describe the evening’s specials and made a specific point of recommending the soup, a vegetarian option made with green peas and mint. Having worked in restaurants for years, I know that servers push certain dishes for two main reasons: either the dish contains an ingredient with a high food cost that the chef has in abundance and needs to deplete in inventory before spoilage, or the dish is truly outstanding and the server is pretty sure you’re going to like it. As neither peas nor mint are particularly costly, DJ and I surmised our server was motivated by the latter and so we ordered a bowl, along with a basket of Burgoo’s signature white cheddar and parsley biscuits, an eminently shareable fondue starter called the Fonduemental, and a Cubano sandwich.
Let’s tackle that soup first. Simply put, it was great. This is not terribly helpful news for you, reader, as evening specials are fleeting and this particular concoction may not make another appearance.
That said, it has been my experience at Burgoo that the daily specials are worth checking out. In a restaurant with a well-established repertoire of favourites, like this one, and that is also part of a broader family of venues (there are four other Burgoos around Vancouver), specials can often be a welcome creative outlet for the kitchen team. The pea and mint soup supported this idea, with its bright, sweet and savoury notes and wonderfully velvety texture.
The Fonduemental, made with Emmental and Gruyere, was luscious, offset with fragrant but nicely integrated splashes of white wine and Kirsch (a bone dry, cherry eau de vie) and served with sliced apple, grapes and mounds of dense bread. Fondue is the one remnant of 1970s suburban North American culture that I can still stand behind and it makes for a fun, interactive dish on date night.
My sandwich, the El Cubano, was a clever riff on the classic, substituting the standard roast pork for slow-braised pulled pork, but preserving the other essential Cubano ingredients, including ham (in this case spicy capocollo), cheese, grainy mustard and pickle. The sandwich was toasted, as per convention, melting the cheese atop the generously portioned other ingredients. With a cold pint and the accompanying garlic-heavy kale Caesar salad, the sandwich hit the spot and was a filling main for $15.
We had ordered a snack of cheese straws to munch on as we awaited our other dishes and while they were indeed good bar snacks (like crunchy, cheesy bread sticks), they proved entirely superfluous given the size of the other dishes.
Our meal as described, which also included a glass of wine and a pint of beer, was $95 before gratuity.
Burgoo is located at 3 Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver. To view the full menu visit Burgoo.ca. 604-904-0933.
