Oyster Week: The Best Thing I Ate This Week Was Five Sails’ Oyster Tartlet

If there’s something that my Netflix most-watched category has taught me, it’s that as a food culture, we’re obsessed with trying to make food look like other things. Ramen bowls, rubber ducks, handbags? Let’s make them a cake.

These days, I’m reflexively (increasingly less ironically) asking “is it cake?” about pretty much any item of food that gets put in front of me.

And while the baser side of me leans into the pedestrian cachet of it all, Five Sails’ Chef Alex Kim does it in a way that isn’t just making a novelty of creating something to look like something else. It’s because he’s a wizard at getting the very best out of every ingredient and showcasing it in a way that rewires the brain, whether that’s corn or zucchini or eggplant. 

By now, foodies in the city have heard that earlier this year, Chef Alex took home gold at Ottawa’s Canadian Culinary Championships for his hand-crafted, hand-painted oyster tartlet—that is, the oyster that sits in an edible shell flavoured with sea lettuce.

To hear about it is one thing, but to experience it—well, it’s transformative. 

READ MORE: The Best Happy Hour Oyster Deals in Vancouver

Now, I’m more than used to slurping up oysters and tossing the shells. As far as these mollusks go, I’m a purist. Baked, pan-fried or deep-fried? Nope. Raw and slurped up in a single gulp is the only way to have it. 

This particular one, however, demands a bite. And it’s a heavenly one. 

The oyster itself is the genuine article—it’s melt-in-your-mouth, creamy and topped with a tomato basil salad and fermented heirloom tomato gel with sun gold tomatoes sourced from UBC farms that acts as a mignonette. The creamy nature of the Deep Bay kusshi oyster juxtaposed with the immersive experience of having the delicate shell crack and crumble in one bite, well, it’s so beautiful, I could cry.

Somehow, Chef Alex Kim has transformed my favourite food in its purest form into a literal work of art. Colour me converted.

So is it any surprise that the award-winning chef is helming the restaurant that is currently holding the Gold Award of Excellence from the Distinguished Restaurants of North America (DiRōNA) for a second year in a row? 

Not really, given that the waterfront locale overlooks the Burrard Inlet with a view of the sea and sky; the white glove service is impeccable and the cocktail and wine program is both thoughtful and legendary.

The corn old fashioned, for example, is somehow sweet, smokey and spirit-forward. Mind-bendingly, a lamb dish here is paired with a glass of 2014 Brunello di Montalcino Reserva Altesino and a cup of pu-erh tea from the Yunan province, aged since 1993. 

But I digress. 

The incredible sea-to-skyline pales in comparison to the tasting menu—which is the main attraction here. Sure, a gorgeous view of the inlet certainly doesn’t harm the experience, but I could be eating this menu in a prison cell and have the same reaction. 

Side note: when I meet my maker, I will definitely be requesting this tasting menu as my last meal.

So, while the oyster tartlet is the novelty that might make you come in for the tasting menu, the item doesn’t stand alone. It’s curated beautifully into a five-course meal (but there are some “hidden” dishes that Chef Alex likes to surprise his guests with—along with a personal visit to his tables) that includes an amuse bouche of a B.C. dungeness crab and Chilliwack corn custard with a generous layer of shoyu on top, reminiscent of a chawan mushi, and a side of corn bread with creme fraîche (the latter is Kim’s Chef de Cuisine Juan Ruiz’s mother’s recipe).

Following the oyster tartlet is a “sardine” made of eggplant—sous vide and chargrilled to mimic the texture and look of the fish (honestly, this feat deserves an entirely separate article)—complete with sea asparagus and baba ghanoush topped with balsamic pearls made to look like caviar.

Then, a halibut from Haida Gwaii; a lamb dish with local shishito peppers; and ending with yet another pièce de résistance—a “peach” wrapped in a Kasama white chocolate glaze and handpainted to look like, well, a peach.

So, while the final course is a contender for the “yes” category of the question: “is it cake?” once its delicately crafted exterior breaks away to reveal a layer of vanilla chantilly wrapping a pit of Okanagan peach compote—the answer to the oyster tartlet is, no, it’s not cake, but it is a creatively reimagined version of an ingredient that belongs on the plate, executed with surgical precision.

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