Culina

9914 - 89 Avenue Edmonton Alberta Phone 780.437.5588

Culina Cafe, the brainchild of Edmonton chef Brad Lazerenko, is nestled away on 89 street opposite Route 99 Diner. It's not in a particularly high-traffic location, but you'd better have a reservation if you want a table, even on a Tuesday night.

Any dining experience is as much about ambience and service as it is about food. Culina's decor is far better than the Edmonton average and they've certainly done an excellent job transforming the place from its previous incarnation. Culina is one of the few Edmonton restaurants that manages to achieve the ambiance of some of my favourite funky little cafes in Melbourne.

There are, however, a few details that seem to have been overlooked, like the out-of-place entryway and awful floor tiles left over from the previous tenant.

The paint and texture treatments on all the walls are very clever. The back wall has interesting alternating stripes of pitch black matte and gloss paints in varying widths and the side walls have nifty textural elements. These clever touches should serve as inspiration to all Edmonton restaurants - they are indeed an case study in the concept that you can totally change the look of a restaurant and make it funky and clever and interesting without significant outlay of money.

Given the trendy take on ethnic food that Mr. Lazarenko has chosen as the theme for this restaurant, I can understand why he might have chosen the hostess station in the centre of the room with the Moroccan bazaar feel to it. Unfortunately it just does not fit in with the overall design of the dining room, which is far more streamlined; bordering on Asian or Swedish in influence.

Even with these few design hiccups, the ambiance at Culina is clever and quirky (although I can't say I understand the strange little square blue light in the centre of the room). It is casual and laid back, without being boring. It is definitely a place to feel comfortable. The acoustics are better than most restaurants and the music is at the right volume. The song selections are an eclectic mix of world music-meets electronica - perfect for the decor and the food.

The wine list, by Paul Lagrange, is well thought out and is the first wine list I have seen in Edmonton that actually has excellent Australian wines on it, instead of the rote Rosemounts and Wolf Blass. Bravo to you Mr. Lagrange. It has taken me the better part of a year to find a wine list as well thought out as yours! Of course my bias is towards Australian reds, but I am trying to change that!

The wines on the list are grouped into broad price points ($29, $38, $48 and Reserve) with 8 or so wines available at each price point. The wines in the first three categories are also available by the ounce. Forgive me for thinking that pricing wines by the ounce is really an attempt to confuse customers as to the actual cost of a glass of wine. $1.75 per ounce sounds much more affordable than $9.00 per glass, which is what it works out to! That said, we were happy for such a wide selection by the glass (or ounce) as Cakes and I can never seem to finish a bottle between us these days - we've become such lightweights since leaving Melbourne where wine is drunk as if it were water! Our excitement was extinguished as our server pointed out that only one wine from each category was open and therefore available for purchase in less than full bottles.

As Cakes prefers a mellower wine, he chose the Niebaum-Coppola Rosso Old Vine Zinfandel Blend 2003 ($38 bottle or $1.50 oz.), which is a blend of 49% Zinfandel, 28% Syrah and 23% Cabernet Sauvignon . It was mellow enough even for Cakes and I was tempted to trade glasses with him. Which is saying something as I generally prefer a bigger wine. The Coppola's blackberry, plum and cherry flavors finished in a smooth, sweet vanilla. I chose the Einaudi Dolcetto di Dogliani 2002 ($48 bottle or $1.75 oz.) which had lovely sweet black cherry fruit, with spicy notes in the background. Both are excellent choices, even at the price.

Perusing the starters page of the menu, I knew at once I had to have the roast garlic custard with grilled bread  ($6).  Cakes couldn't get past the special red & yellow tomato bruschetta ($8) which, although good, was not necessarily special.

The starters arrived very quickly, perhaps 2 or 3 minutes after ordering, which was remarkable. During that short interval, I was daydreaming about creamy, white custard with a delicate roast garlic flavour and gently toasted bread. Unfortunately, that was not what arrived on my plate. It wasn't like any custard I've ever had.  It managed to be gloopy, sticky, greasy, heavy and cloying all at the same time. The taste of roasted garlic was very strong, which was perhaps necessary given the overpowering and confusing use of far too much orange oil. This dish was by far the most unnecessarily rich and overpowering thing it could have been. The great tragedy is that it has the potential to be spectacular. If executed well, roasted garlic custard could be a fantastic thing. Done the way it was, it was far too much of everything all at once. It knew what it wanted to be, it just wasn't allowed to be that thing. To top it off, the excessive richness and orange oil made me quite ill all the next day. On the positive side, the tragic execution of the potentially fantastic garlic custard idea inspired me to create for myself what I wished it had been.

The mains were better executed than the starters, and I had a hard time choosing what I would have, as did Cakes. They all sounded lovely. I finally settled on the  Moroccan lamb sausage on spinach leaves with chickpeas, asiago, and roast garlic sauce ($16). I do wish the waitress had pointed out to me that the sauce on my main was simply a diluted version of the roasted garlic custard I had for a starter. As she neglected to do so, I was dismayed to dig in and find that my disappointing starter was haunting me into my main course. That said, the roasted garlic custard was much better as a sauce, as it was much milder. The orange was still confusingly strong and the sauce a touch too rich for the dish. Thankfully, the spinach was lovely, the chickpeas perfect and the sausages tender and juicy, although not particularly Moroccan.

The real star of the meal was the sauteed scallops on coconut rice with sweet black bean sauce and Chinese greens ($20) that Cakes ordered. The scallops were huge and perfectly done. The black bean sauce was just salty and miso-y enough and the Chinese greens (whole baby bok choy) were perfectly steamed. The flavours and textures were all well balanced and thoughfully chosen.

We had to have the rest of our mains boxed up so that we could squeeze in dessert. Cakes swore  he wasn't going to have any at all, so I ordered the vanilla-almond syrup cake with cream cheese sorbet ($5), which was large enough to share. It was divine. The cream cheese sorbet was tangy and light, not at all like the heavy-sweet cheesecake type ice cream I was expecting. It paired  beautifully with the almondy, syrup drenched, cake. Once Cakes spotted the cambazola toasts with dulce de leche ($5), he resiled from his non-dessert-eating position. He was rewarded for his fickleness with two toasted slices of French bread, spread with ducle de leche and topped with slices of blue mould Camembert cheese, broiled until the cheese and caramel melted gooily on top of the toast. He was only able to finish one slice due to its decadent richness, but the look of ecstasy on his face told me he was enjoying every bite. We had the extra slice boxed up and he heated it up for breakfast the next day.

The service at Culina was polite, cheerful and thorough and left nothing to complain about, especially by Edmonton's standards. For a casual dining experience it was excellent. Although, it was priced more in accordance with a fine dining establishment. Our three-course meal for two with a glass or wine each and a bottle or two of San Pelligrino was around $100.

Culina also has some clever regular events like their Sunday "family night" meals, which cost $20 per person ($14 for kids) and are served, family-style from platters at your table. They also serve delicious-sounding takeaway soups that you can pick up on your way home from work with a family-sized 2.25 litre pail selling for $20 . You can choose from the soup of the day, or, if you order 48 hours in advance, you can choose from one of their 7 yummy-sounding ethic varieties such as Spanish Tomato Fish Stew or Vietnamese Peanut Cabbage with Beef and Pork.

Mr. Lazerenko has some fantastic ideas, but I think he can do better in the way he executes them. Culina, and its dishes (at least the ones I tried) can and should be taken to the next level. If that happened, Edmontonians would be hard-pressed to find a better restaurant and Culina would be on the same level as some of the better restaurants in more firmly established foodie cities such as Vancouver, Toronto or even Melbourne. There's no reason why Edmontonians can't enjoy that level of culinary excellence, and Mr. Lazerenko may just be the man to give it to them.

Rating: Food: 5.5 stars, Service: 5.0 stars, Decor: 5.0 stars

Hours: Mon- Fri  9-3, 5-10pm,  Sat 10-3, 5-11pm, Sun 5-9pm

Style: Global food

Payment Accepted: MC,V, Interac

Reservations:a must!

Prices: $100 per couple for three courses plus wine

Ratings Key
1 Star - Horrific in every way
2 Stars - Simply awful
3 Stars - Average on a good day
4 Stars - Better than average, but only just
5 Stars - Pretty good, I’d go back
6 Stars - Yum, give me more!
7 Stars - Exceptional. outstanding. bliss

Comments

[Rob]

I have to say, Culina is the BEST restaurant in edmonton by far. Hands Down. The menu is inspired and changes frequently; and I love the attention placed on local meats and produce. As for the decor, I like the modern / vintage mix and subtle details - it feels real...