The Prince and The Hawker

Ever since I started The Prince and The Hawker, I have been looking forward to writing a review about The Mackenzie Room. The restaurant opened in 2015 and has firmly planted itself as my favourite restaurant in my hometown of Vancouver.

The concept is simple: innovative dishes utilising fresh, local ingredients. The cuisine has a distinctly Canadian West Coast DNA. There is a rotating menu of about 6 starters, 4 mains, and 2 desserts. Every couple of weeks one dish on the menu is dropped and replaced with a new dish. All the servers are always clued up on the intimate details of every dish, and present them with an enthusiasm that speaks to the cohesiveness of the restaurant staff.

You can order dishes a la carte, but the real pleasure of a visit to The Mackenzie Room is saying “I want it all!”. You’re then served every dish on the menu scaled up for the number in your party (min. 4). I find the portions are always generous.

The restaurant’s interior decor creates a delightful environment. I always describe it as a sort of interior of a Mumford & Sons music video. It’s rustic and relaxed, and you always feel you’re part of the cool crowd.

I moved away from Vancouver in 2016, but I’ve visited The Mackenzie Room on every single trip back home (with the same group of gastronomically inclined friends). On my most recent visit, I was very glad to see that seven years after opening, The Mackenzie Room still delivers consistently. I think this a testament to Chef Sean Reeve‘s constant innovativeness.

Time to Eat

Visiting The Mackenzie Room this time in a party of 8, there was obviously no choice but to go for the “I Want It All” menu. Our party was a mix of veterans and the uninitiated, and I was so excited to share this wonderful restaurant with those in our party that had never been.

As a side note, the drinks specials also rotate regularly like the food menu. I don’t drink, but my friends always seem to enjoy the selection. In particular, the punch bowl is popular. It’s always a novelty to see the concoctions served in elaborate vessels you’d expect to see at your grandmother’s house.

To start the parade of food, first came the Showstopper Salad. This is a perennial favourite at The Mackenzie Room. I’ve seen it on the menu multiple times, and for good reason. It’s really hard to describe how exciting legumes, ricotta, salsa verde, and pistachios can be. But when combined in the way it’s done here, the flavours really come alive in your mouth. It’s always a great start to the meal and sets the tone for fresh West Coast flavours.

Served at the same time was the Chicken of the Sea. This too was a dish I’d seen before, and I was excited I would get to experience it again. The visual impact of this dish is always stunning. The black puffs scattered around the dish turn out to be ripped up pieces of squid ink brioche. These yummy puffs are used as a base to indulge in the block of sea urchin pate topped with hazelnuts. The pieces of pear dotted around the plate help to cut through the intense savouryness of the pate.

The next two dishes served together were 24 Carrot and Hello Clarice. 24 Carrot featured carrots with a lingonberry glaze. The distinct tart and sweet flavours of lingonberry featured prominently on top of the carrots. These were served on top of labneh (strained yogurt) and dusted with cardamom, rounding off a unique tasting dish.

My partner is Swedish, and lingonberry features heavily in Swedish cuisine. Though lingonberry grows natively in Canada as well, I find it’s underutilised in Canadian menus. Therefore I was very excited to see it here in the 24 Carrot dish.

Hello Clarice was a lamb tartare flavoured with fish sauce, serrano peppers, and lime, topped with some shredded baby gem. It was marketed to us by the server as a sort of Filipino-flavoured lamb tartare. Some of my friends thought the flavours were strong to the point that they did not feel like they were eating lamb nor tartare. As a huge fan of lamb, I closed my eyes while eating this dish and could definitely taste subtle hints of lamb’s distinct gamey taste.

Can we pause a moment here and appreciate the whimsical naming of the dishes? I also loved that the starters were served in duos of one vegetable- and one meat-forward dish. This helped us stay balanced while inhaling the copious amounts of food.

The last two starters served were the 99 Poblanos and the Cukes of Hazard. 99 Poblanos was a plate of escabeche-style chinook salmon laced heavily with shaved fennel and citrus. I would say the final product was more of a ceviche than an escabeche, but it was very tasty nonetheless. The salmon really gave me a bit of that signature West Coast taste that made me miss home immensely.

Cukes of Hazard was a simple cucumber and leek dish marinated in traditional Asian flavours of sesame, chili, soy sauce and garlic. This could have been a very pedestrian dish. However, the cucumber was compressed overnight, which added a layer of texture differentiation that elevated the dish.

By this point, we were all starting to feel we had quite a bit of food. But the menu wasn’t about to show any mercy. Onwards to the mains!

First up were the fish dishes. Prince Char-ming was a beautifully cooked piece of arctic char. The char on the char (haha) was perfect and created a delectable crispy skin. The perfectly roasted root vegetables were a hearty addition along with the pungeunt onion flavour of the soubise.

The Davinci Cod was a delicately poached piece of lingcod. served on top of a fragrant pea succotash. The mussels dotted around the plate and the fumet (a fish stock sauce) added decadence to the dish. Fun fact: lingcod is neither ling nor cod. Lingcod is actually a separate species of fish, but was named so for its visual similarities to ling and cod.

Then it was onwards to the two meat dishes. The staff knew my partner is pescatarian, so they actually proactively prepared a pasta dish to serve him while the rest of the table indulged in the meat dishes. This was without any prompt from us. Now that’s what I call service! My partner really appreciated the thoughtfulness and said the dish tasted great.

Kamo-flage was a sort of modern Peking Duck dish. The duck was extremely flavourful, married with the myriad flavours from the cabbage, daikon, and shiitake. Umeboshi, Japanese pickled plums, added a salty and umami flavour bomb.

Served together was the Chopping Block, a dish of perfectly cooked pork chop served with interesting stuffed morels. The celeriac and swiss chard served alongside added a dimension of bittersweet to the dish that paired nicely with the pork.

As you can imagine, by this time we were extremely stuffed. But we knew we had to press on to the finale of desserts. Compared to the courses served so far, the desserts were more calm in flavour. The Big Baba was a rum-soaked sponge cake topped with chantilly cream and pistachios, and served wtih soaked apple pieces. The rum and apple combination worked well and it felt like a nod to the approaching autumn.

Lastly came God’s Flan, a dense and flat flan served on top of shortbread and topped with compressed rhubarb, and a topping of lime and raspberry. I found the entire dessert quite heavy, but not in an off-putting way. The shortbread with the dense flan necessitated eating this in small bites. I’m a sucker for compressed rhubarb, for some reason. I speak as if it’s a common ingredient, but whenever I see it on a dish, I instantly gravitate towards it. I think it has to do with the way the slightly effervescent taste of cooked rhubarb is tempered by compression.

Final Thoughts

The Mackenzie Room really is my favourite restaurant in Vancouver and this visit certainly has reconfirmed that. I can continually find delights in new dishes that Chef Sean Reeve brings to the rotating menu. He always stays true to fresh West Coast flavours mixed with various influences from around the world, all brought to life by local ingredients and produce. The Mackenzie Room feels very relevant to a city as multicultural as Vancouver.

At CA$76 per person for the “I want it all!” menu, it’s not exactly for the faint of heart. But I’ve brought many friends to try The Mackenzie Room before, and every single one has thoroughly enjoyed themself, even the ones who are not particularly big foodies.

I also wanted to highlight again the conscientiousnous of the staff in preparing an extra pescatarian-friendly pasta dish for my partner to indulge in while the rest of the table enjoyed the meat dishes. At no cost to us, this really showcased the professionalism of The Mackenzie Room, and I like to think it’s representative of the friendliness and hospitality of us Canadians.