For sommelier Bryant Mao, pairings take on orchestral notes
The wine director of Hawksworth Restaurant has music in mind when he pairs drinks with set menus
Bryant Mao seeks out rare gems in the world of wine for Hawksworth Restaurant.
WHEN BRYANT MAO goes about pairing drinks for a set menu at Hawksworth Restaurant, where he’s been wine director since 2012, he’s not just thinking about each individual dish and what beverage—not necessarily wine—would be the best pick to enhance it just so. He’s considering more than the food’s ingredients and flavours and whether to complement or contrast them. He’s also thinking of the progression of the meal from start to finish—the way a concert director might go about programming music for a full-length show. It’s all about tempo and pacing, crescendo and diminuendo.
“You’ve got to think back to your audience: how are you going to orchestrate their experience and how do you plan your high notes?” Bryant tells Stir. “The opening is very important to draw them in, to get them hooked. That first course has to have an impact.
“Then after that, everything has to work to match the food, but you can’t go on high notes all the time, or the palate gets tired. You don’t want Guns N’ Roses. After the high notes, you need the November rain. You have to soften then build it back up. You’ve got to have that flow.”
Mao has mastered the art of food and drinks pairing, having been named Canada’s Best Sommelier of 2020 by Canada’s 100 Best. The hospitality industry is all he’s known in his working life. Having moved to Vancouver from Taiwan at age 14, he got a job after high school helping out behind the bar at the River Rock Casino, working his way up to bartender. Roles at George and Brix followed. Wanting to learn more about the world of wine, he earned a diploma from the International Sommeliers Guild program. He spent nearly five years working at Chez Bruce in London, where he met Terry Threlfall, his mentor, who would ultimately introduce him to chef David Hawksworth. As Hawksworth Restaurant’s wine director, Mao manages a list of about 700 wines and a cellar of about 8,000 bottles.
Like everyone in the hospitality industry, he’s taking things day by day amid the pandemic. He’s prepping for the restaurant’s holiday season, and he has just finished selecting the wine pairings for the November 25 four-course dinner in celebration of the newly released Hawksworth The Cookbook. A collaboration with Jacob Richler and Hawksworth Restaurant Group’s development chef Stephanie Noel, with photography by Clinton Hussey, the book features recipes spanning more than three decades of the chef’s career in London and Vancouver and includes selections from Nightingale, Bel Café, Ouest, and Hawksworth. (The cookbook dinner series may return in the New Year.)
For the November 25 menu, Mao pairs the Wagyu beef carpaccio with Xavier Gerard Viognier from France; turns to a Pinot Noir from Okanagan Valley’s Meyer Family Vineyards to accompany sockeye salmon, scallop and nori; and goes with Terre di San Leonardo, a Merlot blend from Italy’s Tenuta San Leonardo, to sip with quail pot-au-feu with parsley dumpling, turnips, and Brussels sprout. For dessert (caramel pot de crème with whipped crème fraiche, vanilla Breton, butterscotch sauce) he’s picked De Bortoli Noble One Botrytis Semillon from New South Wales. (The menu is $89 per person, with $56 optional wine pairing.)
Mao never wants his pairings to be predictable, especially on larger menus that run anywhere from seven to 14-plus courses,
“We always like to include something outside the box,” Mao says. “We don’t like to play it too safe. You can always find classic pairings like Champagne and caviar or vodka and caviar—traditional, safe pairings. It’s important for people to feel familiar and comfortable with certain dishes, but if you have time with the longer menus, and you want to have a little fun with it, we like to push peoples’ boundaries. We do a lot of pairings with sake, beer, whisky, and cider; there are no rules anymore. It’s not ‘white wine with fish, red wine with meat’.
“Seasonality is always very important,” he adds. “Knowing the chef and the kitchen you’re working with and your audience is important. Sometimes a perfect pairing comes from impulse, sometimes it’s experience, and sometimes it’s trial and error. For a tasting menu, sometimes you have to keep going back to tweak it; sometimes a dish is too perfect, so you have to communicate with the chef. I keep going back to the idea of a concert: you have to know how you start, how you end, and how it’s going to flow. You have to think about how you’re going to tell your story.”
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