UBUNTU CANTEEN
UBUNTU CANTEEN
WHERE COMMUNITY AND SUSTAINABILITY TAKE THE LIMELIGHT
There’s a special place in many Vancouverite’s hearts for anything David Gunawan does. His approach to thoughtful food—whether in high cuisine or through casual café fare—has always been something of an anomaly. With his first restaurant, Farmer’s Apprentice, the now-standard of farm-to-table cooking exploded in popularity. But Gunawan put forth his own philosophy which he tied to the locavore trend: kaiseki-style cooking. This more meditative food movement consists of many plates—with the initial courses being smaller, lighter, and slower in between. Then, as the courses proceed, heavier components are introduced into each dish.
When Gunawan decided to sell Farmer’s Apprentice to long-held friends Mioi Sawada and Satoshi Yonemori (of Grapes & Soda), he headed to Fraserhood with noted Paris-born pastry chef Chams Sbouai and Bradley Moore from Burdock and Co. to open the equally bucolic, yet much more relaxed, Ubuntu Canteen. (Though, the former certainly wasn’t Gordon Ramsay-paced; it was cozy and cherished, yet higher-speed due to unparalleled popularity and more hard-set dinner times.) After a successful first year, with no deliberate pursuit of media attention, the Canteen successfully established itself—with intention—as a neighbourhood hub.
“We work hard to carry this ethos through everything we do at Ubuntu, working towards a sustainable, healthy business model based around community building and engagement,” General Manager Bradley Moore told me. Inside the Canteen—which has three long, wooden community tables, a café style ordering counter, and a handful of cozy booths under the south-facing sun-lit windows—there is a corner reserved for kids. Strollers are not only welcome, but they’re also encouraged. A small basket of wooden toys also sits under the bench. “Integral to our space is an effort towards community building and engagement; [we’re] creating a space for people to gather, discuss and explore,” Moore adds.
Ubuntu, a Nguni Bantu term to describe people who are open and accepting of all humanity, holds true to its objective of building community. The room has served as a space for independent film screenings, author talks (one featuring psychologist Michael Talbot-Kelly) and farm-to-bottle backyard barbecues. In the summer, the team even held a “makers market” featuring local ceramicists, florists, and other artisans who gathered in the alley behind Ubuntu’s bright yellow building, to mingle while sipping cocktails in the sun.
But about that food. Yes, Ubuntu is a place with warm, deeply-grounded, and genuine staff; a place that treats each individual as though they’re a guest of the staff’s own inviting, but it’s also a place that stuns the palate and transcends expectations. I’ve been to Ubuntu for tea, lunch, dinners with friends, and even a birthday party. Every time, the food—simple yet unique—leaves everyone impressed. The most memorable dish I’ve had was one I didn’t get a photograph of because I was enjoying the evening too much for a camera. It was a dish with mussels and orange segments; perfectly salted, sitting in a warm broth so rich in flavour, time seemed to stop.
Ubuntu receives oysters from small sustainable farmers on Vancouver Island and they serve them with house-made garnishes (turning this formerly-oyster-averse into someone who now craves a dozen every time I’m in the neighbourhood). The kitchen also roasts chicken, available in whole, half, or quarter servings. It’s rare to eat this family-dinner staple alongside the oh-so-creamy polenta Ubuntu serves it with, but it’s absolutely recommended. The team sources their chicken from K & M Farms in Abbotsford who raise them “in the most natural growing environment possible” which happens to be in pastures, allowing them to graze on grain, but also to peck at the grass, worms, and whatever other critters chicken are fond of pecking at. The result is a succulent, robust, and juicy texture.
From Monday to Saturday nights, the staff serves up their local canteen fare, which leans toward “Modern Canadian” style cooking, but if you follow the establishment’s Instagram story posts, you’ll catch the rotating menu for their “Sunday Night Suppers” where different cuisines are explored. One night may be solely pizza oriented, while another Sunday attempts a twist on local sushi. Ingredients are still ecologically-minded, but their longtable style dinners allow the chefs to be more autonomous and therefore more playful.
One of the highlights of dining at Ubuntu Canteen is the storytelling that often comes along with your meal. While sipping samples of natural, low-intervention, and sometimes funky wines at the counter, it was there that I learned the back-story to my most recent favourite: a cloudy Coenobium white. The wine is fermented by nuns at their Vitorchiano monastery and organic vineyard 90 minutes north of Rome; volcanic soils underlay the vineyards, leaving a mineral-rich flavour. The Ubuntu team is equally excited about their wine producers as they are about the wines brought in—all of which are either biodynamic, permaculture-based, organic, or unfiltered. Though, they’re not afraid to let you know if skin-contact wine may have a seemingly “off” taste for the uninitiated. Aside from this Italian bottle, most bottles are from local wine-makers who care as much about low-intervention production as Ubuntu does. The food and drink—as intended—are as rooted in our evolutionary history, and as close to nature, as possible.
Propped up against its mission of conscious eating and supporting ancient—often indigenous—agricultural knowledge to secure the future of our environment, part of Ubuntu Canteen’s mandate is offering a bread subscription. With two loaves per week, the intention is to provide a steady profit for farmers and community members. Baked within Ubuntu’s walls, the bread is made using wild yeast and sourced-in organic wheat varietals, rye, red fife, oats, marquis, and bishop flour—mostly grown and milled in Creston, B.C.
Coming up this spring, Moore tells me that his team is working on a collaborative dinner with Main Street’s much-celebrated, rare and fine tea shop, Cultivate Tea; another “Food Talks” series—this time involving Naramata’s Bella Winery and different farmers and chefs—which will look at issues of sustainability, farming, and the food industry in general. And of course, more of their delicious creations with the ingredients their farmers are most excited about growing in the upcoming seasons.
