CINCIN RISTORANTE
1154 Robson St. | 604-688-7339 Open: daily for dinner; cincin.net
That blazing fire in the kitchen takes us to an ancient primitive past whether we’re aware of it or not. The grilled, charred or smoked element could be as subtle as the orange juice in a vinaigrette, squeezed from wood-charred oranges, or as obvious as a whole branzino, grilled on a board in the fire.
Argentine celebrity chef Francis Mallman, master of cooking with fire, cooked outdoors on Robson Street with Richardson a few years ago. “You think barbecuing and grilling is as far as you can go, but he used high heat, low heat, smoke, all the corners and calculated the timing,” says Richardson. “You start to realize how sophisticated (cooking with fire) can be.”
Duck with chanterelles, corn, polenta and broccoli fritti ($35) had nice flavour but the meat was chewy, a common downfall with duck. The corn met with fire and I could taste smoke.)
Desserts weren’t transcendent but I learned about dulcey, which topped a pumpkin fondant ($12). Dulcey is a blond chocolate (not white, not milk, not dark) first created when a chef at Valrhona Chocolates left white chocolate in a bain marie for 10 hours. The mistake, a buttery, toasty chocolate, was a serendipitous keeper. It’s pooled warm atop a pumpkin and rum cake with cinnamon gelato sitting in a perfect orb nearby.
Lemon crema ($13.50) seemed formless. It was topped with torn pistachio sponge and candied pistachios, some of which were too brittle to bite.
Award-winning sommelier Shane Taylor has assembled an outstanding list with wines from California, the Pacific Northwest, and B.C. and there’s something for every budget. Where it really shines is a blockbuster collection of Italian wines. A Coravin system allows for a side range of wine by the glass.
That the dining room and patio was packed in the middle of the week after 27 years, says it all.