If only every vegetable tasted as good as The Acorn

Fine dining. It’s a type of food that, if not done effectively, can err too far into the “fine” and less on the joyful experience of exceptional food. Artifice replaces authenticity, exaggerated art replaces taste, and contrived creations get in the way of the ingredients.

Before you know it, you’re three hours in, and you barely recognize or remember the dishes, foams or little bites. You leave, uncomfortably full, noticeably lighter in your wallet and mostly unsatisfied. 

Then, there’s fine dining like what I experienced at The Acorn, what many call Vancouver’s best vegetarian restaurant. 

It starts when you walk up to the restaurant. Unassuming as you enter, the space is just so, with hardwood checkered floors, light wooden tables, and ample vegetation, in a space that argues pretentiousness isn’t a requirement for fine dining.

The casualness of the restaurant carried over to the staff. Friendly, warm and helpful, the team displayed a level of attentiveness you’d find at much more expensive restaurants, without the disregard we could’ve experienced as three men wearing only t-shirts.

The chef’s menu embodies that feeling. Rather than individual plating, it’s a family-style dinner, with around ten dishes, which is my preferred form of chef’s menu, allowing guests to pick and choose their favourites. At $85, it’s a reasonable price for the volume and quality. The menu changes often, and you can also order a la carte. But doing so would be a mistake. 

The restaurant styles itself as a vegetable-forward, and farm-to-table, with most ingredients locally acquired. It’s reminiscent of both the approach of a restaurant like Chez Panisse, with a focus on foods of the region, and even the meal I was lucky enough to have there. Servers were excited to explain where many ingredients came from, many nearby. 

A sip of the first dish, a small bowl of tomato dashi broth, bright and immediately invigorating, and you realize this will be unlike any vegetarian meal you’ve had.

Thickly sliced hunks of bright red tomatoes, alongside grape-sized smaller varieties, topped with basil, walla walla onion, smoked kombu, green blueberries that I could’ve sworn were capers and a light dusting of breadcrumbs that added a chunkier bite. Sharp, tantalizingly sweet, think of it as the opposite of a beefsteak tomato. 

The corn dish featured yellow nugget potatoes, lobster mushrooms, tomatillo and a jalapeño cream sauce. But the rest of the ingredients were an afterthought. What sticks in my mind, even as I write this, is the sweetness of the corn, an intensity unmatched in any corn I’ve had. 

Finishing the meal was what the server called a chamomile meringue, along with a yogurt and wild berry compote. Dense and chewy, the chamomile surprised me, with a hint of flavour on the tongue, but gained strength as I ate it, melting into my mouth and leaving a faint aftertaste like the best chamomile tea does.

The quality of the ingredients here cannot be understated. It begs the question of why our vegetable and fruit aisles, chock full of so-called red “delicious” apples, massive barely-sweet strawberries and waterlogged beefsteak tomatoes do not contain even a tenth of the flavour of the ingredients at The Acorn. 

Maybe that would change our feeling about meat needing to be the centre of every dish. Maybe we would place our farmers in the rarefied position reserved for astronauts, doctors and other exalted professions. 

I’m not sure that corn dish, served to everyone in Canada, could change anything, but at the very least, it would make us demand better of our food systems, that food we buy at the grocery can and should taste this fresh and good, and that everyone deserves to try corn and tomatoes this good. 

The Acorn is a restaurant best experienced, not described. It’s fine dining done right, a welcoming space, and outstanding vegetarian and vegan food, done by a team that clearly is at the top of their game. With an ever-changing menu based on the seasons, the restaurant makes a case to visit four times a year, lest you miss out on root vegetables in the winter, or mushrooms in the fall.

Atmosphere: Intimate, welcoming, darkened in the evening. 

Noise Level: Easier to hear, not loud. 

Recommended: Chef’s menu, because you get to try everything.

Drinks: $15-$18 for cocktails, many non-alcoholic options.

Price: $$$.

Other details: Vegan and celiac-friendly options.