BASALT WINE + SALUMERIA

Chicken Liver and Bacon Mousse

Ask Chef Bill Grimshaw to describe Basalt’s restaurant style and he gleefully chuckles, “We’re all over the flavour map; we love local, seasonal, Indian and Asian flavours, and sometimes Italian or French too. My Sous Chef Venita Wong and I design menus together, and it’s all just about the food that we like to eat that everyone else seems to enjoy too.” Although Basalt is best known as a wine bar and salumeria, it also has a full-service menu that refreshes with the seasons approximately seven times a year, depending on what’s available from local farms. “We do preserve as much as we possibly can,” Grimshaw says. “It’s really all about the size of our kitchen, though; we’re quite small. Veneta came back from the Okanagan this summer with 25 pounds of Italian plums, which we pickled, and they just featured on our fall menu in a sauce on a coconut-braised pork spring roll.” Although the Basalt menu changes often, there’s one dish that’s been a feature since they opened in 2015: their velvety chicken-liverand-bacon mousse. “I’m the first person to say, ‘It’s time to go and do something better,’ but this one always stays, so we change up the presentation. You’ll get a sunshine taste with Okanagan cherries pickled with fall-flavoured spices such as cloves, cinnamon and allspice in a gastrique with a black pepper raisin cracker. The mousse lives on!” 604-962-9011 | basaltwhistler.com