A Vancouver Rooftop Dinner With Real Buzz

Recipes by Chef Harris Sakalis
Words by Kristi Alexandra

I’ve caught myself on more than one occasion calling a restaurant or dining experience that I found particularly lively and enjoyable “buzzy.” In this instance, the experience most certainly calls for the word—but this time as a double entendre. Because, despite the very select crowd size, the Rooftop Garden Dinner Series at Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront has a distinct and literal buzz, thanks to the beehives lining the patio.

Seating just a few dozen per dinner, the four-times-per-summer event by Fairmont Waterfront’s Arc Restaurant and Bar is an intimate long-table, multicourse dining experience curated by the hotel’s executive chef, Harris Sakalis. Each dinner event in the series pairs the different courses with wines from a single B.C. winery, plotting out an evening that shows off the depth of that producer’s library.

Emerging from a packed elevator on a sweltering late-July evening (Fairmont Waterfront clearly does brisk business in the summer), I step onto the rooftop patio to find myself surrounded by a pleasing hum, emanating from the hundreds of sleepy bees who live here in a lush rooftop apiary, tended by Julia Common, the hotel’s resident beekeeper.

She pulls up a frame of honeycomb from a hive bustling with bees making honey, and points to the middle.

“That’s the queen,” she says, and, unmistakably, it is. With a metallic, bright blue bottom that’s decidedly better fed than that of the other bees—all of whom arrange themselves to face her—the queen is a sight to behold.

These bees are just a handful compared to the several hundred more that are all at work making the honey that, among other things, appears in the syrup in Fairmont Waterfront’s house-made Apiary cocktail, which is promptly handed to me by Arc Restaurant’s assistant general manager, Angus Porter, who strikes a flame to ignite the glass (which is filled with Waterfront Gin). The gin is made by Wayward Distillery in Courtenay, B.C. (which uses honey in the entirety of their spirits catalogue).

Okay, now “buzz” is starting to take on yet another all-new meaning.

Thirty-odd diners and I are led around the rooftop garden to admire the handiwork of Common’s pollinators. Beds of fennel, dinosaur kale, lavender—all of these play into our forthcoming meal, which begins with hand-picked vegetables served on a rustic wooden board. Radishes, crisp, sweet and gem-like, explode under my teeth with a snap.

Soft artisan chocolate bread rolls arrive with honey butter made from the rooftop’s golden harvest, alongside a sweet, vanilla salt-and-pepper butter. Decadence, clearly, is the order of the evening.

This evening’s chosen B.C. winery is Burrowing Owl, and the opening bites are paired with their rosé, described as a palate cleanser—and, with that, we’re off to the races. Or, perhaps more accurately, we’re off to a slow, sensory stroll through golden hour.

First up is the salmon crudo, made with fennel harvested from the garden rooftop that very morning. A bursting bright grapefruit makes for a refreshing bite, served with a 2024 pinot gris.

The hearty 2012 merlot from the Oliver-based winery is then paired with a rich bison tartare topped with pickled wild garlic (also grown on-site) and rounded out by shavings of aged gouda that play beautifully off the beef’s fattiness.

The evening’s showstopper is a dry-aged duck breast with rainbow chard and a glossy blackberry jus. Alongside it is a “psychedelic” beet pavé—layered red, golden and candy-cane beets that look like edible stained glass. As conversations get more lubricated, we stop again for another palate cleanser—this time, a lime sorbet with a wheatgrass-lemon verbena foam. The zippy and light sorbet is a sweet wake-up—much like an espresso shot might be in winter—before I wind back to land on another chocolatey note (remember that soft chocolate bread at the top of the meal?). Dessert is a decadent chocolate ganache tart with hazelnut namelaka and lavender caramel sauce, accompanied by a final surprise departure from Burrowing Owl—a 2022 Wild Goose Late Harvest Gewürztraminer that drinks like a dessert wine: floral, but rich and syrupy.

On leaving, I feel I’ve been sufficiently wined-and-dined (and, well, buzzed), as if I’ve been eating among royalty. And—if the queen bee is still somewhere to be found on this rooftop garden—then I kind of have.

READ MORE:

• How to Set a Wildly Beautiful Outdoor Table
• The Wine List: 3 Garden-Inspired Summer Pairings
• Recipe: Dry-Aged Duck Breast with Beet Pavé, Rainbow Chard and Blackberry Jus