The pH5 Dinner Series

Left of centre.

Crisp white tablecloths and equally crisp starched-collar servers. Epic wine lists that read like the Gutenberg Bible. All recognizable components of a fine-dining experience, yet there’s a movement afoot that’s endeavouring to subvert these conventional expectations.

Chef David Gunawan relinquished the helm of West Restaurant in August 2011, decamping to Belgium for a three-month stage at In De Wulf. His European culinary sojourn reignited his curiosity, and he returned to Vancouver with a singular purpose: “to eliminate the pretense of fine dining and shift its focus back to the essence of food and drink at its most basic.”

Young chefs Josh Blumenthal and Jacob Deacon-Evans join Gunawan in a collaborative pursuit to, as Blumenthal says, “promote our local community of chefs, farmers, vintners, and artisans by showcasing their hard work, passion, and products.” Their collective food and dining movement is dubbed pH5, referencing the slightly acidic state at which an animal’s muscle tissues come to rest after slaughter. Vis-à-vis pH7 as neutral, it implies a figurative position left of centre, a fertile environment for change.

pH5’s five-course dinners are held in the relaxed, convivial atmosphere of a modest South Granville café; further information about the ongoing series is available via [email protected]. Past dishes have included 40-day-aged and hay-cured beef striploin carpaccio served with tarragon emulsion, toasted buckwheat, and Hannah Brooks Farm radishes and radish greens, all drizzled with dwarf juniper oil. Simple and earnest, from the growing process through preparation to plated product—in Gunawan’s words, “food the way it was meant to be enjoyed.”

Tags:

Post Date:

March 18, 2012