The downtown Vancouverite notion that the North Shore is a sleepy suburb when it comes to dining has been the source of no little annoyance to me over the years.
Writing about food and restaurants, I experience this attitude quite a bit. "Haven't you run out of places to visit?" they'll ask, facetiously. "What time does the mayor shut off the power?" they'll quip. Which mayor, smart guy: District, City or West Van?
Look, I get it. Vancouver is the big urban centre on Canada's West Coast. It has a reputation to uphold. But consider this: the North Shore has just shy of 800 businesses registered as food establishments. That's one restaurant for every 217 people on the Shore. Even a small restaurant of, say, 40 seats, could service its segment of the population in just five nights of operation.
We are not shy on dining options over here and the scene is growing constantly.
More than this, the scene is getting cooler. Progressive menus, a hyper local ingredient focus, a thriving craft beer scene, and a savvy dining population all contribute to the slickening of the North Shore's dining environment.
In my opinion, one example of this sustained trend towards coolness on this side of the bridges is El Matador, the diminutive tapas room situated between Esplanade Street and Carrie Cates Court, facing the parking lot behind neighbours Anatoli Souvlaki, Gusto di Quattro, and Burgoo.
El Matador has just 40 seats and securing one on a busy Friday or Saturday evening can be a real challenge. That said, in my dozen or so visits to this little space, I have only once given up entirely because of the wait. On other occasions, I simply checked back in and was eventually seated, albeit intimately close to another diner; this place gets packed and elbows will not enjoy free rein. That said, there is something appealing about El Matador's heaving weekend traffic. Perhaps it is the authenticity of the experience, as Spanish tapas bars can often be similarly boisterous and jam-packed.
For a number of years, it was de rigueur for many Vancouver restaurants to call their small plate offerings tapas, even though the fare scarcely resembled the bitesized morsels typical of the original Andalusian approach. In the past few years (beginning, I would like to point out, with El Matador) there has been a shift in thinking about what constitutes tapas and those venues that claim to offer it tend now to more closely follow the Spanish roots of this style of eating.
Tapas is the plural form of the Spanish word tapa, which means lid or cover. Traditionally, patrons of Spanish bars would order sherry, the great fortified wine of Andalusia. While sherry ranges widely in style, many iterations of the drink are quite sweet. In the baking summer heat of the region, sherry drinkers found the need to cover their glasses in order to prevent flies from partaking of the sweet spirit. Accordingly, bar owners would provide their patrons with a small morsel of food, often on a small round of bread topped with something salty, in order to cap their glass. The practice became so popular, that an entire cuisine evolved from it and the food became every bit as popular as the drink it was meant to accompany.
El Matador, which serves a nice range of wines, sherries, and beers, preserves the traditional style of tapas and offers a long list of bite-sized items ranging in price from $5 to $7. The restaurant is currently gearing up for a mid-summer menu launch, one of the first major initiatives from owner Mike Parker, a former silent partner in the restaurant who took the spot over entirely from co-owner Paul Mon Kau (of District fame) back in February. I notice that of the dishes that have been stricken from the current menu, most didn't really fit the bill of traditional tapas (chicken wings, smoked salmon mousse), suggesting, perhaps, a shift towards an even more authentic Andalusian dining offering. I look forward to seeing where Parker and his kitchen team take the menu in the coming weeks.
I dropped in recently on my own for a quick bite and ordered a glass of lovely Rioja, which I married with a number of pleasing little dishes. My favourite of the lot was a trio of crostini topped with rounds of spicy chorizo sausage and fried quail eggs, served sunny-side up. The yolks burst as I bit into them, offering a wonderfully rich 'sauce' for the salty, smoky sausage. Another winning dish was a plate of plump and succulent prawns, simply fried with garlic and served with the tail attached, making them the ideal finger food. A bowl of seasoned olives was a welcome salty treat to take in with a cold bottle of Alhambra beer, a pale Spanish lager. An order of grilled goat's cheese with salsa fresca revealed generous mounds of soft, crumbly cheese with a subtle tang and a refreshing, house-made tomato topping.
My meal of tapas, beer and wine was $55 before gratuity.
El Matador is located at 131 West Esplanade. 604-770-1717 elmatador.ca
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. Contact: hungryontheshore@gmail. com.
