Dining on caviar might bring to mind the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but a Vancouver restaurant is aiming to make the delicacy a little more accessible.

Ancora Waterfront Dining and Patio is holding its fourth-annual Caviar Festival, featuring different types of caviar from around the world. It runs until November 27.

Executive chef Ricardo Valverde brings six à-la-carte items to the restaurant’s regular menu of Peruvian-meets-Japanese Nikkei cuisine. Ranging in price from $10 to $19, they include:

- Pastel de choclo, with Peruvian corn bread, avocado mousse, and red tobiko

- Soft-shell crab taco, featuring yellow tobiko with mango salsa and rocoto aioli

- Hokkaido scallop with herring caviar and smoked-potato foam

- Sea urchin taglierini featuring trout caviar with uni beurre blanc and chives

Then there are dishes where Valverde plays with ingredients in tribute to the luxurious food.

A cauliflower “panna cotta”, for instance, comes on toasted brioche toast with “mountain caviar” ($12).

Mountain caviar is another name for tonburi, an edible seed sometimes called land caviar or field caviar.

“Tonburi is the dried seed of the summer cypress Kochia scoparia, a speciality of Akita prefecture in Japan,” Valverde tells the Straight. “After harvesting the cypress for its seeds, they are boiled and soaked in cold water for about a day. The outer skin is removed by rubbing it by hand. The globules are one to two millimetres in diameter, glossy with a black-green colour. It has a similar texture to caviar.”

The Peruvian waffle ($10), meanwhile, comes with pineapple, rice-pudding mousse, and “chicha morada 'caviar'”, which is Valverde’s interpretation of a caviar-themed dessert.

“Chicha morada is a Peruvian beverage made from purple corn, pineapple rind, apples, cinnamon, and clove,” he says. “We created the drink and turned the liquid into pearls that resemble caviar.”

Optional wine pairings are available, ranging from Oliver B.C.’s Culmina Family Estate 2017 Unicus Grüner Veltliner ($11) to Marie Demets Traditional Brut Champagne, a sparkler from France that spends two years aging in the bottle. ($19).

Located on the False Creek seawall, Ancora Waterfront Dining and Patio has a second location in the works in West Vancouver, which is expected to open later this fall. Stay tuned for more details.