Thanksgiving 2022: Vancouver chefs cook up everything from holiday-stuffing croissants to smoked, deep-fried turkey
Then there are local culinary artists’ takes on pumpkin pies, tarts, cheesecake, bars, and more
Beaucoup Bakery and Cafe.
WITH THE EXTENDED summer Vancouver is experiencing, it may be hard for people to get into the mindset that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Local chefs, however, have been busy prepping sweet and savoury dishes for those who are ready to shift their focus form beachy evenings to celebratory feasts. Here’s a glance at a few of the autumnal offerings Vancouver culinary creatives are cooking up.
Home-style with a twist
For folks looking to toast the season at home, chef Sebastian Cortez of Sebastian & Co Fine Meats has an idea: turducken breast roast. It has all the elements of the chicken-inside-a-duck-inside-a turkey showstopper while being more manageable and not needing three dozen people to eat it. Cortez also suggests serving the scaled-down main with butternut squash risotto and roasted Brussels sprouts.
Organic Ocean.
Goldilocks Bake Shop’s Thanksgiving Feasts ($65) centre on embotido, a hearty Philippine pork meatloaf. Options for sides include pancit palabok special with lechon carajay (a classic Filipino rice noodle with shrimp-based annatto sauce, diced pork and tofu and garnished with green onions, egg, tinapa [smoked fish] and ground chicharron [pork rinds] topped with three-times-cooked pork belly) and pritong lumpia (vegetarian spring rolls). Dessert is either pan de leche (Hawaiian-style rolls) or a pull-apart loaf with whipped cream cheese)
Potluck Hawker Eatery is going with whole coconut-milk fried chicken for its Thanksgiving Meal Set, complete salted egg yolk polenta, candied yams, longanisa XO milk-bread stuffing, and more ($188 for four). And chef Julian Bond shares his recipe for salmon Wellington, made with macro kelp and smoked B.C. line- and hook-caught wild salmon, at Organic Ocean.
Traditional, ish
Dine-in, full-meal deals can be found at hotel restaurants such as The Victor (with a four-course prix-fixe or a la carte menu, including options like red kuri squash velouté with crème fraiche, roasted Rossdown Farms free-range turkey, Canadian prime rib of beef with Yorkshire pudding, and butternut squash cannelloni with caramelized kabocha; and C Prime, where a Thanksgiving dinner plate with confit roulade turkey leg, herb-roasted turkey breast, sourdough stuffing, fried Brussels sprouts, creamy mashed potatoes, and turkey jus is on offer for $34. (Warm bread pudding with vanilla crème anglaise and pecan crumble is $12.) H Tasting Lounge at The Westin Bayshore is bringing back its popular Thanksgiving Turkey Takeout; the meal for six to eight people with natural turkey form the Fraser Valley includes dried-apricot and cranberry stuffing, house made cranberry sauce with orange essence and pan gravy, creamy buttermilk Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables seasoned with allspice and cracked pepper, Brussels sprouts with caramelized shallot and fresh herbs, freshly baked sourdough rolls with sweet butter, and traditionally spiced just-baked pumpkin pie with Chantilly cream on the side ($375 for six to eight people).
ARC at the Fairmont Waterfront.
Bacchus at the Wedgewood Hotel & Spa has live piano music as an accompaniment to its three-course table d’hôte Thanksgiving dinner or a la carte menu. Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar, meanwhile, has developed a cult following for its corn bread, which comes with sage-roasted turkey in a Thanksgiving package to go with spice butternut-squash soup with apple cider and maple cream and pumpkin tart complete with vanilla chantilly and spiced ice cream ($275 for four people, $425 for eight). Fairmont Waterfront presents ARC’s Bottomless Brunch, this weekend’s being the Thanksgiving edition. All of its usual coveted dishes will be available (think apple waffles and fried chicken) alongside slow-roasted turkey skillet ($65 per person, $39 for children six to 12, kids five and under free). The other local Fairmont hotels each have various Thanksgiving offers on, too.
Beaucoup Bakery and Cafe.
Nothing traditional here
Beaucoup Bakery and Cafe has an entire Thanksgiving collection, and we’re not just talking pumpkin tarts (with spiced pumpkin custard, candied ginger, candied pumpkin seeds, candied orange peel, and brûléed meringue) and apple-pie croissants (roasted spiced apples, almond frangipane, and streusel on Beaucoup’s signature butter pastry). This year, chef Betty Hung (who co-owns the bakery with brother, Jacky Hung) is breaking new ground with its holiday stuffing croissant. At once sweet and savoury, the fluffy, buttery crescent-shaped pastry has smoked ham, house-made herbed sausage stuffing, and bacon and comes with a side of cranberry maple syrup ($7.95).
Rosie’s BBQ & Smokehouse will host its second annual holiday Turkey Tailgate at Strange Fellows Brewing on Thanksgiving Sunday. Smoked and then deep-fried turkey will be available in take-home meal kits with heat-and-eat Southern sides like collard greens, smoked green beans, mac ’n’ cheese, stuffing, mashed potatoes, a locally made pumpkin pie and four-pack of Strange Fellows beer ($295 for eight people).
Oh Sweet Day! Bake Shop.
Bjornbar Bakery.
Beyond #PSL
Pumpkin is popping up everywhere and not just in spiced lattes, with pastry chef Steven Hodge crafting individual cheesecakes ($8) among other desserts at Temper Chocolate and Pastry. Oh Sweet Day! Bake Shop just off Commercial Drive, meanwhile, stands firm in its conviction that is has the best cheesecake in Vancouver; find pumpkin and other flavours in regular, vegan, and gluten-free versions (from $42). Cardero’s has pumpkin cheesecake with Chantilly crème and caramel sauce on its a la carte menu; The Sandbar on Granville Island is serving pumpkin pot de crème with allspice and Chantilly whip ($12); and the Teahouse in Stanley Park is slicing up chai-spiced pumpkin pie with maple meringue, chai sugar, and caramel ($12). The Modern Pantry in North Vancouver and West Vancouver boosts its premium pumpkin pie with bourbon ($20/$30), makes a mean pumpkin cheesecake bar meant for sharing ($6.50). (Stop by the Dundarave location for wine and charcuterie when you pick up.) At Uprising Breads Bakery in East Vancouver, 45 years of celebrating thanksgiving through baked goods can’t be wrong: find pumpkin pies, tarts, cheesecakes, bread, and muffins. Finally, Bjornbar Bakery, with locations in North Van and Burquitlam, is going all out; here's the pumpkin-related menu: Pumpkin Pie Bar, Pumpkin Nanaimo Bar, Apple Cheesecake Bar, Pumpkin Cheesecake Bar, Pumpkin B-Bomb, Pumpkin spice double bake, Pumpkin loaf, Pumpkin spice meringue, Pumpkin Pecan Biscotti, Pumpkin Fritter, Pumpkin head marshmallow, and Pumpkin Spice Ganookie (ganache plus cookie). Take that, Starbucks.
Uprising Breads Bakery.
The Modern Pantry.
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