B.C.’s Hawksworth restaurant falls short of dazzling
ALEXANDRA GILL
It’s been almost four years since star chef David Hawksworth departed West to begin developing Hawksworth Restaurant in the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, which finally made its long-awaited debut on May 16.
Every cosmopolitan city needs at least one splashy, special-occasion restaurant that provides revelatory cuisine, impeccable service, a discerning beverage program and decor glamorous enough for royalty (be it of the regal, rock ‘n’ roll or princess granddaughter variety). Vancouver has waited for years for such a restaurant.
That is the potential that Hawksworth offers. Everything about the restaurant – the enormous crystal chandelier, the five staff sommeliers, the fanciful olive-oil cotton candy – flies in the face of the larger, North American-wide downscale dining trend. This is why the city has embraced it. (Have you tried securing a weekend dinner reservation without two weeks notice?) But that potential is as yet unfulfilled – and this is why we must ask it to be better.
Four years ago, Mr. Hawksworth was at the top of his game. His much-lauded cuisine blended a deep admiration for fresh, regional, seasonal ingredients with a mastery of classic techniques acquired from a decade in some of Britain’s most acclaimed kitchens (Canteen, Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons, L’Escargot).
After the long hiatus, his cooking still sings with the same confident voice. It’s a light-handed, harmonious style that puts flavour before ego and could respectfully be called feminine. But there are some changes.
He now folds more Asian influences into his repertoire, which seems a natural progression for a locally minded chef in Vancouver. His 48-hour sous-vide-cooked beef short rib – wondrously tender yet tense enough to be thinly sliced without falling part – is anchored with sharp smear of black-pepper jam, tartly soothing green papaya and salty crushed peanuts.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food...-falls-short-of-dazzling/article2144421/
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