Wildebeest restaurant opens in Vancouver's Gastown

Last night (August 22), Wildebeest restaurant opened at 120 West Hastings Street. Vegetarians can stop reading now: the restaurant, co-owned by Abigail’s Party’s James Iranzad and the Diamond’s Josh Pape, is a nose-to-tail kind of place, focusing on cooking the whole beast.

Executive chef David Gunawan is at the helm, who was at West restaurant in 2010 before moving to Belgium in 2011 to cook at Michelin-starred In De Wulf. According to a news release, Gunawan works with local farmers and personally chooses the diets “for each and every animal on the menu”. The chicken, pork, lamb, and veal come from the Fraser Valley’s Six Masters Farm, and the pork from Chilliwack's Fiore Farms. The restaurant sources from produce from Six Masters as well as Vancouver’s SOLEfood farm and Cawston’s Klippers Organics .

The two-storey restaurant is in a refurbished 19th-century building.

Starters include crispy pork skin, an aged ham plate, and seawater-infused hazelnuts. Mains include lamb tartare with pickled wild onions, roasted organic beef tongue with mushroom marmalade, and roasted sweetbreads. For the less adventurous, there are dishes such as dry-aged Angus beef ribeye and olive oil-poached halibut.

The restaurant also houses a basement wine bar with 12 wines on tap, including JoieFarm's Noble Blend, from the By the Glass system. Pape is behind the cocktail program, and there will be live piano music.

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