Orto cooks up the best pasta in North Van
Raye family’s culinary adventures take a delectable turn toward Italian
The Rayes can fill several chapters of local restaurant lore. It began with La Regalade in West Vancouver in the 1990s, where Alain Raye got to the heart of French bistro food with wife Brigitte adding sparkle with her front-of-house skills; for a short while, son Steeve also ran La Regalade Cote Mer deep in West Vancouver.
In recent years, chapter headings have included: Marriage dissolution. Brigitte and son Kevin open La Cigale in Kits. Steeve and father open Cafe La Regalade in Kits. Cafe La Regalade closes. La Regalade closes. La Cigale is sold. Brigitte and Alain join Ca Va, a French bistro, in West Vancouver and bring it to life. Phew!
In the latest instalment, Alain and Brigitte depart Ca Va; Alain takes much-needed vacation; Kevin has been cooking at the high-end Langara Fishing Lodge in Haida Gwaii; and Steeve opens Orto Artisan Pasta in North Vancouver with mom Brigitte handling the front end with her usual aplomb.
And that’s where we pick up. Orto means garden in Italian and there you have it — it’s a foray into Italy, a breakaway from the Rayes’ French roots.
Orto opened on July 1, assuming the spot vacated by Ethical Kitchen across from Indigo Book sand North Van’s rebuttal to Vancouver’s Ask for Luigi, the pasta lovers magnet. Orto has charmed the heck out of me.
It shares space with Vadim Mugerman’s Bad Dog Bread and his wonderful rustic breads, which Raye incorporates into his menu. (Bad Dog offers breakfast toasts until 11 a.m., then shifts into bread bakery mode when Orto opens for lunch.) Next door, the former Ethical Kitchen operator makes kombucha to sell wholesale (you can have some at Orto). It’s a cosy collaboration.
Raye had worked in other restaurants after Cafe La Regalade but left the restaurant industry, which can suck the life out of cooks and chefs. Then his mother showed him the charming property with a large garden outside the door and a patio for al fresco meals.
“I told myself the only way I’d do it again is to do it for myself. I just didn’t want to do it because I had to. Then this opportunity came up,” he says.
Raye hesitates to call the food Italian. “I’ve never worked in an Italian restaurant, so I don’t know if I know Italian food. I only know what’s delicious.”
But no question; it’s Italian — and it’s the best pasta in North Vancouver.
All his pastas are handmade, including the spaghetti, conchiglie, trottole (named after a spinning top), and buccatini. Raye cooks seasonally and moves with the seasons, using “simple flavours of the moment.” Along with the pastas, there’s a lively and changing selection of appetizers and Bad Dog bread sandwiches (the meatball sandwich is a big seller). Appies cost an average $6; pastas are $15 to $19.
I caught a few of those flavours of the moment, most notably, squash blossoms in pastella (batter), delicately fried like tempura and served with a basil mayo dip. The blossoms were picked fresh from the garden.
Crostini with rib-eye on bean purée had a spoonful of grainy mustard, and the beef was like carpaccio. Polenta fritella (fritter) were cubes of polenta with a bit of jiggle and a souffle-like interior, served with Romesco sauce and carrot top gremolata.
I make a beeline for anything with poached eggs, and saw the tagliolini carbonara with a poached egg. Score! It was a substantial meal, with lots of bacon which was too good to set aside. Since my visit, Raye has removed the poached egg from the dish. I’d sooner have less bacon and a return of the egg.
Buccatini with prawns and pesto was a lighter, summery dish: beautiful prawns and skilfully made noodles with lovely fresh herbs from the garden. Just a little more pesto tossed in and it would have been perfection. Raye does a good job with the pastas, all fresh with a nice chew.
For dessert, I closed my eyes while savouring lemon crema, a pannacotta-like dish, strewn with fruit and served with a couple of chocolate shortbread cookies.
The garden patio is in full summer fecundity, and tricks you into thinking you’d been abducted and taken to the countryside. A good kind of abduction.
There’s a liquor licence pending, and it can’t be soon enough. I’ll be there in a shot for an afternoon glass of wine and a more serious look at the cheese and charcuterie list, and to indulge myself with some burrata.