Review: St. Lawrence Doesn't Disappoint

Pork terrine dish with pickled vegetables

A few weeks before the Michelin announcement in Vancouver, I went to St. Lawrence with a foodie friend visiting from Singapore. I had been there just before the pandemic three years ago and enjoyed it, and thought we should revisit the place, even though it's in a sketchy area of town.

Lovely smoked sockeye salmon

It's a small, compact restaurant, packing diners in, so there isn't much space to spread out with our coats and bags, and like any other popular restaurant, there's a time limit of two hours to eat, which is plenty, as the food comes quickly.

The menu is short and pretty much has something for everyone except if you're vegetarian -- the food is relatively rich, with its French and Quebecois roots thanks to chef-owner Jean-Christophe Poirier who grew up in the province and worked in Montreal restaurants.

When you book a table here, you pay about CAD$106 each up front -- probably to make sure you show up, and for the restaurant to have money in advance to pay for the ingredients. 

We each ordered three courses and shared a few bites from each of our dishes. 

I had the terrine of the day with pork encased in a pastry crust which is a classic dish to start with, but it was totally surpassed by my friend's lightly smoked sockeye salmon with parmenter, dill and creme fraiche. It was light, the salmon flavourful and each bite was an absolute delight.

Venison loin with sausage and squash

For mains I had the venison loin with sausage, squash, black barley and pepper sauce. I enjoyed the venison, so tender and only slightly gamey, the sausage was a bit of a miss as it was tough in texture. 

My friend chose the special of pork loin that every other table seemed to have ordered too, but did not seem particularly distinctive to me, unless you love pork.

After a quick break we had our desserts, mine was the floating island, the soft meringue done just right, sweet, but not cloyingly sweet, topped with almond slivers and the custard sauce below. I savoured every bite. 

Since her trip to Canada, my friend has been sampling many maple syrup products and her dessert was a maple tart that definitely gave you a sugar high, that was only slightly tempered with milk foam and spruce.

Overall we quite enjoyed the meal, wondering if Michelin would deem the restaurant good enough for a star in a few weeks and it did.

She was thrilled to hear the news.

Fantastic soft meringue in custard sauce

St. Lawrence

269 Powell Street

Vancouver

604 620 3800