Serving a delicious diversity of options
Park West Restaurant offers plenty of variety in Corner Brook
At Park West Restaurant, they have the creative freedom to cook whatever they want.
The new Corner Brook restaurant, owned by Adam Bishop and Lloyd Nash, opened in August. It is located at the former location of Sorrento’s at 18 Park St.
Bishop feels Park West has an “eclectic” menu that borrows from a variety of culinary styles.
There are Newfoundland, French, Italian, Asian dishes and more available on the menu.
“We kind of have free range to do what we want food-wise and creatively, which is quite nice,” Bishop told West Coast Wire.
The plan is for Park West to alter its menu quarterly to match the changing seasons.
Some dishes, Bishop suggests, may be seasonally appropriate.
The menu presently features a variety of semi-New York style pizzas, including margherita, hot honey pepperoni, mortadella, prosciutto, funghi and more. It also features a variety of sea food plates, fish and chips, coconut ginger shortrib, wings, a “Double Smash” burger, tacos and more.
For the time being, dining at Park West is an entirely outdoors affair. Behind the building, they have built a 1,600 square foot patio to accommodate about 80 seated customers, and 150 when it hosts an outdoor concert.
Bishop feels outdoor dining has gone even better than they hoped.
“We decided to open our business 100 per cent exterior, just on the patio, to see if there was a market for that and it turns out there was,” said Bishop. “People have been extremely appreciative that we’ve opened and they’re really enjoying it.”
However, inside, renovations remain underway. Bishop anticipated being open inside by the middle of November.
He also wants live music to be a frequent part of the Park West dining experience.
“We definitely intend to promote as much live music as we can,” he said.
When the indoor work is complete, the restaurant will also feature a bar, with a 12tap system and an extensive cocktail program. Bishop says currently they have a reduced selection of what they will have inside.
THE BACKGROUND
The restaurant can incorporate many kinds of cuisine through the rich and diverse culinary backgrounds of Bishop and the restaurant’s chef de cuisine Conor O’Brien.
Bishop, a Corner Brook native, first moved away from home to Scotland when he was 18 years old. He got his first work at a pub in Edinburgh. He then moved on to working as a server at Bar 38 in London.
During that time, he says, he was dating somebody in the United Kingdom and they travelled to Spain quite often with family. At the time, Bishop was cooking quite a bit - but not professionally. Their fathers recommended they go to culinary school and start a career.
He returned to Canada, where he studied culinary arts at a school in Prince Edward Island.
He followed that by working between Toronto and Montreal, before getting an opportunity to work in the Bahamas. He worked there as a private chef in the yachting industry there for 11 years. During that time, he cooked for many wealthy Americans and British businesspeople as well as PGA golfers Justin Rose and Adam Scott.
“In that period of time I got to travel quite a bit with these clients through places like New York and Miami and over to the U.K.,” he added.
With a business partner, Bishop then opened a large outdoor barbecue operation in the Bahamas. The 800-seat venue was a big event space.
He later moved back to the United Kingdom with his business partner where they planned on starting a chicken operation. But COVID changed things.
“Lockdown shut us down three weeks before opening our doors,” he recalled.
He moved back to Newfoundland with the assumption he’d return to the U.K. and jump back into the business. But being home had a way of keeping him around. He worked at Colemans for a period before serving as food and beverage director for more than a year at Marble Mountain.
Then the idea for Park West came about. Bishop and Nash had conversations about it and when Sorrento’s was put up for sale, they jumped at the opportunity.
O’Brien, meanwhile, is from Oakville, Ont. He studied culinary management at Niagara College and has previously worked in Toronto and at EVOO, a Mediterranean restaurant in St. John’s.
For Bishop, it was important to find somebody capable of pulling off the array of culinary styles they’re hoping to produce.
“Both of us really want to push the envelope for cuisine on the west coast,” said Bishop. “And you can’t do it yourself, so it’s important you have somebody strong and Conor is the perfect fit for that position, and a perfect member of our team.”
Park West is currently open Wednesday to Monday, noon to 9 p.m.