Move over, wine: Craft cider is the focus for food pairings at North Vancouver’s Windfall
There’s nothing like it in the region: Metro Vancouver’s first urban cidery launches pop-up featuring a bold menu by chef Douglas Lee
Windfall Cider.
Windfall Cider.
YOU COULD SAY cider runs in Nathaly Nairn’s blood. Having grown up in Caracas, Venezuela, she traces her family roots to Spain, which happens to be Europe’s largest consumer of the fermented beverage. After leaving home in 2001, Nairn pursued a career in hospitality that lead her down the wine path, including working at the Four Seasons Hotel, managing the Michelin Star gem Auberge D’ Soleil in Napa Valley, and being part of the opening team at Vancouver’s Caffe La Tana.
Her fondness for cider deepened alongside her love for her husband, Jeff Nairn, who spent 25 years working in financial services before swapping numbers for apples; they remember discovering a Spanish cider while holidaying in Mexico that wowed them. Call it a midlife crisis or a firm belief in a business idea: in 2021, the pair opened Windfall Cider, Metro Vancouver’s first urban cidery. The bricks-and-mortar location came after three years of wholesaling and building the brand, “bringing a Seriously Dry perspective to craft cider”. Their goal is to raise cider’s profile nationwide and beyond. Using local fruits and botanicals, they play around with yeast strains, wild ferments, barrel aging, blending, and more. Their summertime cider slushie was a huge hit, and they have even experimented with Rockets candy (describing the resulting tart cider as “strange and unusual yet irresistible”).
Now, the two are taking things to the next level, having just introduced the Windfall Snack Bar, and along with it, “Secret Business”, chef Douglas Lee’s tasting menu, with optional cider pairings. Featuring a sophisticated and fun farm-to-table, small-plate menu, there’s nothing like it in the region.
“Cider is very much a wine, but it generally gets treated as a lesser type of wine,” Nairn says. “It doesn’t get anywhere near the same space on restaurant menus, but it can rival many wine pairings. Cider is perfectly acidic. It can be sweet, it can be dry, it can be off-dry; it can enhance so many dishes.
“I grew up with cider as kind of my backbone drink,” she adds. “What I noticed when I first moved to B.C. was that it didn’t have a vibrant craft-cider industry, which really surprised me, considering we grow apples. We realized cider needed to be closer to people, like breweries. Most cideries are in the country, on a farm. As great as that is, we wanted to become part of a neighborhood’s makeup. We added an urban experience to it. And I have always wanted to highlight cider’s pairability with great food.”
Windfall Cider.
Windfall Cider.
Nairn met Lee a few years ago when they both worked at Caffe La Tana; they hit it off and she admired his unconventional approach to food: he thinks outside the box in terms of aiming for peak fun and flavour. With experience at Joey, Osteria Savio Volpe, Royal Dinette, and Nightingale, among other places, Lee most recently drew widespread praise for his work opening North Vancouver’s Winston. He’s brought his thoughtful sourcing of prime local ingredients to Windfall, where he has taken on the challenge of a teeny workspace; rather than a full kitchen, he has about 55 square feet to come up with dishes such as trout tataki with horseradish, turnip, seaweed, and roe; and 99-hour pork neck with caramelized cider and smoked shallot. “We wanted to do something different on the North Shore,” Nairn says. “It’s an open slate. We’re willing to try new things.”
The menu will change often, Lee having the freedom to be playfully creative while focusing on what’s in season.
“I look at every day as an episode in a cartoon show,” Lee tells Stir. “Especially in this industry, every day something erratic has to happen or you encounter different characters with varying personalities, whether it be guests or co-workers. To add in food creations of my own that change every night and are eccentric alone allow the establishment to be something truly unique.”
Lee makes everything in house, including the insanely addictive flattened garlic bread, no easy feat in his micro “office”. “I make the dough two to three days in advance in a very terrible stand mixer one kilogram at a time, times six, with simple ingredients and pay attention to the sourness of the ferment each day. It also gets stretched and more importantly cooked to order regardless of how busy I am.” Once it’s fully puffed, the bread is submerged in fried garlic oil, then served with “everything bagel creme fraiche (replete with seeds and a few Cheerios to represent bagels. As with the cruciferous vegetable in in the BBQ Cabbage Caesar, all of the veggies on the menu are cut, grilled, and steamed with strawberry vinegar and butter on a plancha, Lee explains, “to ensure their integrity”.
Jeff and Nathaly Nairn.
Examples of cider-food pairings include Windfall’s Joyride Rosé with Lee’s cider-pickled tomatoes and sea bream tartare with pigeon’s egg yolk. “This easy-drinking rosé session cider highlights the bursting brightness of these delicately pickled tomatoes while providing a sparkling acidity to the surprisingly rich tartare,” Nairn says.
Sidra, a full-bodied, tart, light-fermented single varietal in the Spanish style is robust enough to balance the strength of bright young shishito peppers that come with pho spice and melt-in-your-mouth grilled beef tongue, while it offsets the smoky mustard.
Nairn recommends pairing Harvest Moon with Lee’s eggplant with smooth parsley and shattered bread crumbs. The wet-hopped cider’s bright, floral notes complement the flash-grilled young nightshade. Snag a seat that looks to the full-size wall mural bearing a graphite illustration by Armando Veve. Originally commissioned by local creative agency 123West for Windfall’s packaging, it’s a stunning surreal scene centred around an apple tree that includes personal nods (see if you can find the scene depicting Jeff and Nathaly Nairn’s real-life wedding on the SkyTrain, where they met).
Armando Veve, commissioned by Vancouver-based creative agency 123w.ca for Windfall Cider. Photo via LEVINE/LEAVITT
The Windfall Snack Bar is open Wednesday through Sunday from 1 pm till closing. Happy Hour runs from 1 to 5 pm, with the full menu starting at 5 pm. The Secret Business tasting menu features five-plus courses for $45, and you’re completely in the chef’s hands.
More information is at Windfall Cider (101 - 250 East Esplanade, North Vancouver).
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