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Restaurant owners take on joint venture with Relish | ||||||
We've all put our whole lives into it," Matthew Landin declares, with feeling. "You bet we're going to do every freakin' thing we can to make it work." I believe him. In fact, if ever a restaurant deserved to make a go of it in this notoriously business-tough city, it's Relish, a joint venture between Landin and partners Leigh and Todd Angman, Ben Letts and Ron Pope, that opened Aug. 7, a few steps below sidewalk level at the corner of Hornby and Nelson. This late-20s/early-30s crew-friends from their earliest days of clearing tables and chopping celery at Earl's and the Keg-isn't afraid of a little grown-up hard work. "We put in 18-hour days for two months before we opened," Letts says. "For a while there, we didn't know what day it was, or even what month it was." It paid off. Relish is a fine-looking place: outside, a generously proportioned patio, safely away from traffic's worst fumes; inside, cosy and well-spaced ultrasuede booths. Not surprisingly, the menu's got the same crowd-pleasing bent as an Earl's or a Keg-crab cakes, Caesar salad, burgers, pastas, pizzas, steaks and salmon-with a few globe-trotting spins to make it its own. (Brunch fans: you can have your omelettes and waffles every day until 4 p.m.) It's not part of a big restaurant chain, though, and that makes all the difference. With Pope heading the kitchen, details are handled with almost fine-dining skill; the Moroccan-rubbed lamb chops, for example (the priciest main on the menu at $26), are whittled down to succulent, pink, fat-free perfection, and the peanut butter crème brûlee is a study in expert, micro-thin caramelization. With Matt and the boys so thoroughly invested in the success of Relish, their customers are treated with nothing short of kid-glove devotion. "It's a friendly rivalry between Ron and the kitchen and the staff out front," Landin claims, and so far it's an even tie. You might think that men so keen on the entreprenurial side of life would be a bit like Donald Trump's relentlessly competitive, not-so-likeable apprentices. But they're actually a lot like your favourite brother: smart and sweet, with a gentle sense of humour and a whole lot of earnest charm, and their staff is thankfully devoid of the chirpy "Hi-I'm-Amber-and-I'll-be-your-server-tonight" phoney-balonyness that can come when the owners are far away at head office. Prices at Relish are just as sweet. The steaks are cheap at $16-$26, the beers reasonable, the mixed drinks dangerously affordable ($4 for a Caesar, margarita or Relish colada, $5.50 for a fancy martini). And if you like a really nice bottle of wine but start hyperventilating at the usual 100-plus per cent markup that puts a decent Australian Shiraz beyond your grasp, you'll like wine nut Jason Sohor's philosophy of trimming the price of premium bottles down to a manageable size. A Leasingham Bin 61 that might set you back close to $60 elsewhere is $45 here. I'll drink to that-and to the success of Matt and the lads at Relish. Relish: The Restaurant and Lounge is located at 888 Nelson, 604-669-1962. |
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