Nero Tondo takes local to new extremes

There is a flow to Nero Tondo, like a lapping of the Pacific Ocean. You give yourself up to the current, the restaurant’s energy, forgetting who’s around you, your worries, your problems.

For us, it started with the very first dish, a lightly complex dashi broth with seaweed from Haida Gwaii, and it ended with milky ice cream, slightly frozen and almost melting, infused with light honey. It’s a journey from British Columbia’s sea to the farm.

Opened in February by co-owners Devon Latte and Lucas Johnston, Nero Tondo is a small restaurant with big ambitions. Located at 1879 Powell St., it takes up the spot formerly occupied by Elephant. This area has quickly become one of the most concentrated areas or high-quality restaurants in the city. And in that sense, Nero Tondo fits in snugly. 

While it’s a Vancouver restaurant, the entire menu and approach are a homage to BC. I was told 90 per cent of their food and drinks come from the province. Devon calls it “hyper-local,” a food experience that “relies on total cohesion between the ingredients used in our kitchen, the wines we choose to serve and the spirits used at the bar.” 

Their list of providers is long. So long I couldn’t include them all. Farms like Cropthorne, Klippers Organics and Glorious Organics, seafood providers Goodfish and Fanny Bay Oysters and foragers like Scott Moran and Lance Staples. It’s a big list. 

The drink menu somehow also manages to stick to BC. The wine is easy, but building a cocktail list? Somehow, they did it. The Bergamont Old Fashioned, made from Prospector Rye from Odd Society down the street on Powell, and a house-made bergamot syrup, is a more intense version of what you’re used to. They’ve also got a lovely selection of non-alcoholic drinks, including a memorable zero-proof wine. 

It’s not quite elbow-to-elbow, but at 18 seats, it is a small space. Yet rather than feel crowded, it’s intimate. Like any good restaurant, ask for seats at the bar. Lucas and Devon, while pushing out dish after dish, still find time to discuss the uses of fermented gochujang jam sitting on the shelves. You feel like a longtime local, back for your second visit of the week, even if it’s your first time. 

The front-of-house staff were everything you want in an intimate space. Warm and attentive, extremely helpful and most importantly, knowledgeable about each dish and drink, it’s a refreshing change from many spots in town where the focus is purely on delivering you food.

There’s a tension in every restaurant dish between creativity and simplicity, whether to add ever more complex combinations of flavour or pay homage to the ingredients. At Nero Tondo, simple flavours win out.

The asparagus, rolled in elderflower brown butter and doused in a house dressing of black garlic maple, is sourced from Hannah Brook Farm, where owner Paul has had his asparagus field for 20 years. Quite simply, it’s the best asparagus I’ve had, an epiphany and a taste that still lingers. Both my partner and I agreed it was the star of the menu.

The radish dish appears haphazardly thrown together, with a scattershot of pickled vegetables and a dinner roll. Yet the radishes themselves win out. Fresh, bright and spicy, the addition of a simple organic red lentil hummus-style dip along with preserved jalapeño emulsion serves to enhance the radish flavour rather than mute it.

Now, do not take my emphasis on simplicity as a sign that the chefs are taking things easy. Art and food shine with limitations, and constraints can and should foster intense creativity. It feels like chefs Devon and Lucas have set themselves a challenge, one that their ample amount of skill, honed from their years at popular Acorn, is put to good use.

 A simple dish of cavatelli, the tomatoes from Klippers Organic are cooked down into a rich, dark red sauce that, by itself, works. But it was an ingenious addition of pan-roasted rapini, infusing the entire dish with a smoky, ethereal flavour, like what you find in the best baba ganoush, that shifts it from good to great. 

With the focus on local ingredients, you’d expect an expensive menu. Blessedly, and I don’t quite know how, the team has kept the tasting menu at a reasonable $79 per person. It may be one of the best deals in the city. Devon also hinted that their Saturday late-night menu, bookable online, is where they have the most fun with the menu. I was told it’s where the fermented gochujang jam makes an appearance.

Nero Tondo’s small space belies its ambitions. Both Devon and Lucas are staking a claim to be the place in the city to explore the best farmers and produce BC has to offer. It’s a space where the exquisiteness of the ingredients chosen could mask the talent of the entire team, if it weren’t for the clear level of skill and creativity infused into each dish. 

Devon told me it’s “one of a kind in our city.” After my visit, I have to agree.