COQUILLE FINE SEAFOOD
Coquille FINE SEAFOOD
THE ELEGANT FISH HOUSE CLOSES JUST SHORT OF A TWO-YEAR RUN.
It's always disheartening to hear about the closure of yet another prominent Vancouver restaurant. And it's all the more difficult to hear, when you know the restaurant's team put in the heavy lifting to keep up with the demands of maintaining sustainability, a healthy local ecology, and at-risk biodiversity. Coquille Fine Seafood is the most recent addition to that star-crossed list.
Inexplicably, Coquille just couldn't attract the pace it needed to survive. To withstand the hefty cost of operating a restaurant in one of Vancouver's most attractive neighbourhoods—historic Gastown—a restaurant needs consistent bookings. What is it about this location, which sits on the busy Southwest corner of Water and Carrall streets, that can't quite deliver that basic demand? (The building's previous tenant Secret Location, as beautifully designed as it was, remained a ghost town of a restaurant. Even a quartz crystal bar and a now-celebrated chef somehow didn't attract enthusiasts.)
With an interior fashioned by David Hepworth of SITU Design, the remarkable 4,100-square-foot Coquille was highly anticipated by Vancouver's food crowd. The team behind the city's decade-lasting and consistently celebrated L'Abattoir took the reins when 181 Carrall Street became available. With a high-traffic location in the bag, they paired up with renowned design agency Glasfurd & Walker for the establishment's branding: all signs of a good thing to come.
The idea was flawless: put a modern twist on a classic fish house concept and focus on what the Pacific Ocean does best: generate great seafood. With Coquille, they realized they could do two things: offer fine dining in an elegant room, but also leave behind the pretentious nature that killed the room's predecessor. At this seafood hub, you can also order fish and chips and expect casual, friendly service.
During its near-two-year run, whenever I asked around, the reaction to Coquille was less than enthusiastic. Some thought the coral velvet seashell seating was superfluous; others inquired if it was designed by ocean-obsessed Sebastian in The Little Mermaid. But with each time I visited Coquille, I only understood the naysayers less.
For one, Coquille championed events. While Chefs Jack Chen and Lee Cooper opened the kitchen, in the end, Chef Cooper brought in Chef de Cuisine, Chris Janowski, to help him lead some remarkable menus and programs. The monthly, communal "Chef's Catch Dinner" series focused on a different Ocean Wise seafood or shellfish each time. The first of the series was Pacific halibut themed, which took place in September. A month later, Gindara sablefish from Kyuquot Sound fed the group. November saw shellfish take the stage (think: Fanny Bay oysters), and on December 5th, hand-caught Dungeness crab finished off the affordable, $85.00 per seat series (including wine and beverage pairings).
At Coquille, a genuine love of seafood was evident. Sous chefs often participated in the Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Wise Chowder Chowdown competitions, and the kitchen routinely hosted their Thursday “Seafood Sessions” during happy hour. These information nights brought in speakers—such as Alex Tung of Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar who spoke about prehistoric fish—and offered up complimentary happy hour bites. The goal was to invite local fishermen, shellfish farmers, and seafood experts to share their stories, tricks of the trade, and passion for preserving the biodiversity of our oceans.
Coquille’s house white—a creation with the Okanagan Valley’s Lock & Worth Winery.
What first sold me on Coquille was their beverage programme. Wine Director Samantha Ross put an honourable focus on B.C. wines, often bringing in natural, low-intervention bottles and working with organic, biodynamic, or permaculture-based origins. The restaurant even paired up with Lock & Worth from the Naramata Bench in the Okanagan Valley—who specialize in high quality, single vineyard (non-commodity), small production wines—to create a house white.
Bar Manager Robert Clough is also highly respected in the industry and, in my opinion, made the best margaritas in town. Common cocktails like the Corpse Reviver were on his menu, but so too were unique creations such as The Thinkers Tea which consisted of London dry gin, dry vermouth, sage, lemon and egg white. His kyuri cocktail (sake, cucumber, lemon, cardamom and soda) and the El Maestro (made up of jalapeño tequila, ancho reyes verde, honey, passionfruit, lime, and chocolate) are both testament to the talent behind Clough’s concoctions.
Equally as pleasing on the palate were Coquille's desserts. Pastry Chef Hilary Prince, who also slangs treats out of L'Abattoir, was consistently nuanced with her creations. Desserts never left you feeling stuffed or greasy; rather, they satiated the sweet tooth just enough for a pleasant evening stroll through romantically-lit Gastown on the way home.
There isn't word on exactly why Coquille had to shutter, but the reasonable guess is that for such a large space in this prime location, it would certainly be tough to make the rent. In November, it was reported to cost the owners a jaw-dropping $25,000 each month. But while Coquille approaches its final service, it's safe to say that this can only be another beginning for Cooper, Clough, Ross, and Janowski—all who will surely go on to more exciting things.
