Article content

Beach Club Resort Restaurant And Lounge

Where: 181 Beachside Dr., Parksville

Article content

When: Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily

Info: 250-947-2109; beachclubbc.com

Somewhere in his subconscious, chef Nate Catto must feel comforted by his seaside job. His last was a baptism of fire.

A month after he was hired and six days after opening for the season, the restaurant at the Fort McMurray Golf Club burned to the ground. Yes, it was that Fort McMurray fire of 2016, which destroyed more than 2,400 buildings. Catto lost years of recipes and his heart broke, but the golf course survived, so they set up trailers and tents to serve meals and hold fundraisers.

Article content

“It was never dull up there. Three, four years later, there was flooding when the river broke. We learned how to cope with drastic things.”

Now as executive chef at the ocean-front Beach Club Resort in Parksville, he’s comforted for other reasons, having grown up in Sooke and spending family vacations on Parksville beaches. Catto was hired last December along with food and beverage director Erick Poulton, by new general manager Lisa McCormick, to raise the resort’s level of food and service. Indeed, past reviews were pretty brutal. Poulton brings experience from luxury resorts including the International Hotels and Resort in Dubai, Toronto’s Royal York, and the Algonquin hotels.

“The resort’s shifted,” says Catto. “It had been surviving on summer tourism. A big part of my plan is to find ways to bring the locals back. We’re showing something different’s happening, that the whole vibe is different.”

In fact, he’s backing away from the former restaurant name — Pacific Prime. The website refers to it as Beach Club Resort Restaurant and Lounge.

“I didn’t keep a single thing from the previous menu,” he says. “We’re striking a balance. It’s not just an expensive place for special occasions. There’s another side to the menu, so you can come for a pint and the view and have a pub classic with a homemade twist.”

Article content

Article content

When I called for an interview, he was excited. Some pine mushrooms were just delivered. “I’m going to put on a fantastic special with them this evening — maybe make some light, pillowy gnocchi with ricotta and parmesan cream.”

With the “go-go-go” of summer decelerating, Catto recently held the first of a chef’s dinner series — a winemaker’s dinner collaboration with Unsworth Vineyards, a top-tier winery on Vancouver Island, which also operates a seasonally inspired restaurant. To me, it said the restaurant was now Unsworth worthy. Catto plans to team up with other local producers in coming months.

At the collab, he showcased local ingredients he uses at the restaurant — sablefish and tuna from an area fisherman, oysters from Bowser, seaweeds from Bamfield, Kuterra salmon from a sustainable First Nations land operation, mushrooms from foragers, cheese from Little Qualicum Cheeseworks, and produce from Island farms. “It’s Vancouver Island first, then B.C., then Canadian,” Catto says about sourcing ingredients.

He worked with the winery on each of the courses, and dishes were filled with passion and thought, starting with kushi oysters brightened with green apple mignonette and salt and caviar. Sashimi-style Albacore tuna looked gorgeous against a herb purée with complements of horseradish foam, macro kelp and preserved lemon oil.

Article content

Sablefish was almost upstaged by meaty, flavourful, finger-length miso-braised leeks, served with a kimchi butter sauce. Kuterra salmon was cured, then grilled, and served warm, unlike the usual thinly sliced gravlax. The idea came from a cook’s idea of a snack. “It’s where the best ideas come from,” says Catto.

Risotto with foraged mushrooms and local brie came with a delightful surprise — drizzles of his spruce tip syrup. It tasted like a sweet forest. I was alarmed when the sixth course arrived — a massive 63 Acres fall-off-the-bone beef shortrib with veal glace, potato pavé. “They were a little larger than intended,” Catto said. “If I cut them, the meat would have fallen off the bone. We checked the plates when they came back. Most people managed to finish it.”

Dessert, a dark chocolate tart with fig jam and a sprinkle of Vancouver Island sea salt, was paired with Unsworth’s Ovation, a rich, dark fruity, yummy, port-style dessert wine. Fitting, as the wines and dinner really did deserve an ovation.

On the regular restaurant menu the Dungeness crab cakes — all crab, no filler — are a bestseller. “The crab’s from right here in our waters,” Catto says.

Article content

The charcuterie board with meats from Helmuts Sausage Kitchen in Vernon is another popular item. “Whenever we get a cool seasonal ingredient, we pickle and preserve them to put on the board. It could be garlic scapes or green strawberries,” says Catto. Other dishes vary from Humboldt squid with Moroccan spices and preserved lemon yogurt, to burrata with roasted peppers and orange, to a striploin or ribeye steak with all the fixings, to burgers, fish and chips, salads and bowl foods.

And that spruce tip syrup, which he recently jarred up, will now be making appearances on different dishes.

As for the next collaboration, he is leaning toward a beermaker dinner with Love Shack Libations. The Qualicum Beach-based nano-brewery, the smallest in Canada, produces award-winning brews like the Killer Kolsch and the Post Ride Pilsner. The Beach Club is one of the few places you can sample these beers.

The wine list is well-priced and includes some excellent choices from BC. Don’t miss the chance to sample wines from Vancouver Island’s own Unsworth, Alderlea, 40 Knots and Millstone wineries.

Article content

[email protected]

twitter.com/miastainsby

instagram.com/miastainsby

vancouversun.com/tag/word-of-mouth-blog/

SIDE DISHES

B.C. takes three spots in Canada’s Best New Restaurants

Three B.C. restaurants won spots in the Air Canada’s annual best new restaurants roundup

They were Wild Blue in Whistler (No. 2), Marilena Cafe and Raw Bar in Victoria (No. 3), and Folke, a vegan restaurant in Vancouver (No. 7). Toronto’s Kappo Sato took No. 1 spot.

Here are Mia Stainsby’s reviews of the B.C. winners:

Wild Blue: vancouversun.com/life/food/local-food-reviews/wild-blue-scores-a-wow

Marilena Cafe: vancouversun.com/life/food/local-food-reviews/top-tables-marilena-brightens-victoria-restaurant-scene

Folke: vancouversun.com/life/food/local-food-reviews/folke-offers-vegan-cuisine-to-get-excited-about

Maui Gold helps recovery from deadly wildfire

The Maui Gold Pineapple Company is now shipping its prized — and pricey — pineapples directly to Canadians. Grown on the nutrient-rich slopes of Maui’s Haleakala volcano, Maui Gold pineapples are famed for their sweetness and low acidity. Most pineapples in Canadian supermarkets are picked before they are fully ripe and take up to two weeks to get from the farm to store shelves. Maui Gold pineapples are harvested by hand at the peak of ripeness and shipped via courier the same day, arriving at your doorstep within two or three days. Options include a single pineapple for $90, a two-pack for $100 and a 25-pound case (which has seven or eight pineapples) for $200. Ten per cent of all sales support Maui’s recovery from this summer’s deadly Lahaina wildfire. Maui Gold pineapples are available all year and can be ordered online at mauipineapplestore.com.

Article content