Harbor sunset glows
A promise waits patiently
Past the turning years
More than a decade ago, H and I spent our 10th anniversary in Vancouver.
Like many couples celebrating an anniversary on a bit of a budget, we spent a certain amount of time looking at things we couldn’t quite justify.
The Pan Pacific Club Floor.
A few Michelin-starred restaurants.
The sort of places where you say:
“We’ll come back for our 20th and do Vancouver right.”
Then you go have a perfectly lovely dinner somewhere else and continue on with life.
As it turns out, life had other plans.
This week I found myself back in Vancouver, staying on the Pan Pacific Club Floor and holding a reservation at Five Sails.
Not because I had carefully planned some symbolic pilgrimage.
Simply because it felt like it was time.
The evening began with champagne and one of H’s and my favorite strategies for chef’s tasting menus + wine.
Half pours.
Experience all the wines.
Avoid drinking the entire vineyard.
The menu was called From Sea to Shore, a culinary journey through the ecosystems of British Columbia. Each course moved a little farther inland, telling the story of the province through food and wine.
We began in the coastal waters with oysters, shrimp, seaweed, citrus, and Champagne.
A scallop course followed that was so absurdly good that I briefly considered whether it would be socially acceptable to lick the bowl.
The answer, for the record, is Yes.
When I confessed this to Antoine—the sommelier—he laughed and told me a story from his days working in a Michelin-starred restaurant in France.
One evening he brought a dish back to the kitchen and sheepishly pointed out that a guest had very obviously used a finger to capture every last trace of sauce.
Rather than being offended, the chef was delighted.
As Antoine explained it, the chef’s view was simple: as babies, we experience food with complete enthusiasm and without self-consciousness. If a dish is so good that it inspires that level of involvement in a grown adult, there is no greater compliment.
I felt considerably better after hearing that.
The wines shifted with the landscape. Champagne gave way to cider. Aged Chardonnay appeared alongside shellfish bisque and asparagus. Sake. Whites. Reds.
Every pairing seemed designed not simply to accompany the food, but to tell the same story in a different language.
Then something unexpected happened.
Martina appeared beside my table and asked if I would like to see a secret.
This is generally not a question I am inclined to refuse.
So I followed her.
Past the dining room.
Down a dark quiet hallway.
And into the bright, bustling kitchen.
I turned a corner and found myself standing in the middle of a world-class restaurant in full motion.
Chefs moved with extraordinary focus.
Orders appeared and disappeared.
Plates materialized.
Finished dishes returned to the pass and were discussed with the same seriousness as those heading out to the dining room.
Why was something left behind?
Was the guest finished?
Did they enjoy it?
What could be learned?
Conversations were brief and purposeful.
Everything somehow looked both impossibly busy and completely under control.
Then I was presented with a forest floor made of bones.
At least that is the only description I can honestly offer.
Branches.
Twigs.
Chicken feet.
Cracked bones.
Mossy-looking things.
It looked less like a restaurant presentation and more like something discovered during an archaeological excavation.
Perched on top was a delicate liver pâté with rhubarb. A glass of Amaro Nonino sat patiently nearby.
The explanation, fortunately, was more coherent than my initial assessment.
The menu was moving from sea to land, and this forest floor marked the transition.
It was magnificent.
It was also slightly alarming.
Back at the table, the journey continued through Fraser Valley chicken, spring lamb, beef cheeks, an amazing morel on a skewer, berries, honey, spruce tips, and . . . The details blur together now.
The feeling does not.
At some point I began asking questions.
This is generally where things become dangerous.
Remember Antoine the sommelier?
Antoine from Avignon.
Rather than politely answering my questions briefly and escaping, he made the tactical error of appearing to enjoy them.
What followed was an extended discussion involving wine, old bottles, food pairings, aging potential, cellar management, and eventually a giant Portuguese port bottle that appeared capable of serving a medium-sized village.
Truly.
How he even poured from it suggested muscles lurked beneath the impeccable suit jacket. The thing had to hold at least a couple of gallons when full.
When I asked what size it was, we worked our way through magnums, jeroboams, methuselahs, and various other bottle sizes before Antoine finally shrugged and said:
“Well, it’s from Portugal, so who knows what they call it.”
This remains one of my favorite wine explanations ever received.
At another point, after hearing my lament that I had accumulated a cellar full of wine and only one person left to drink it, Antoine disappeared and returned carrying a lovely old bottle, topped by a Coravin.
What followed was less a demonstration than an intervention.
A few minutes later I was tasting an excellent Bordeaux while learning how one might responsibly own far more wine than one can reasonably consume . . . and still consume it.
This may have been the most effective sales presentation in history.
The service throughout the evening was extraordinary.
Martina somehow managed to make a full dining room feel as though she had all the time in the world.
Summer, whose true passion is dance, appeared throughout the evening helping the service team. At one point she handed me her Instagram information in case I happened to be able to make it to her performance on the 5th. (You know, when I will be in Nanaimo for my raison d’etre…)
Eventually the meal came to an end.
Or so I thought.
Instead, I was presented with flowers.
When I made the reservation, I had mentioned that this dinner was connected to an anniversary trip from long ago.
The staff had remembered.
The flowers themselves were beautiful.
What mattered was that they remembered.
For a few moments I simply sat there looking at the bouquet, the harbor, and the fading light outside the windows.
Martina and Summer came over to say goodbye.
There may have been hugs.
There may also have been a small amount of crying.
The historical record remains unclear.
It would be easy to say the evening felt like a celebration.
But that isn’t quite right.
It felt like keeping a promise.
Not the promise of a future anniversary.
Or the future we assumed we would have.
Just a quiet promise that some things remain worth doing.
Some places remain worth revisiting.
Some memories remain worth carrying forward.
And sometimes, many years later, you discover that a promise made by two people can still be kept by one.
Before the bouquet, I handed over my credit card and just said:
“I don’t want to know.”
A few minutes later I remembered that I still needed to calculate a tip.
Apparently this concern was unnecessary.
The gratuity had already been included.
Somewhere, I like to think, H was sitting in a comfortable chair with a Negroni, looking out over the harbor and saying:
“Mmmm.”
And honestly?
I think he would have approved.