Apparently Alexandra Gill of the Globe and Mail hasn’t given up on West 4th’s eateries entirely. After a soap opera episode at Fuel, Gill has ventured West to the newest contender on Kitsilano’s bistro pipeline – La Quercia. And she wasn’t shown the door.
And now along comes La Quercia, a 32-seat restaurant on the western outskirts of Kitsilano that has rooted itself in one of the most obscure regions in all of Italy.
The kitchen isn’t entirely stuck in the snow-capped peaks of the Dolomites (I didn’t see any sauerkraut on the menu). But the cuisine is predominantly Northern Italian, doesn’t veer much further south than the pesto-bean-potato pastas of Liguria, and is thus more regionally authentic, I would argue, than any of its peers.
What gives?
The praise goes to owners Lucais Syme and Adam Pegg. The hard-core regional enthusiasts are both alumni of the Parkside group of restaurants (Parkside, La Buca and Pied-Ã -Terre).
But Mr. Pegg, one of the first Canadians to complete Italcook’s Slow Food – Master Italian Cooking program at the Higher Institute of Gastronomy in Jesi, Italy, boasts the specialized training in Italy’s strictly delineated culinary traditions.
Last modified: June 20, 2020
