Western Living Magazine
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The Essential Guide to the 2023 BCL Summer Spirit Release
Recipe: Spot Prawn and Cherry Gazpacho
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Local Summer Getaway Guide 2023: 6 Great Ways to Explore B.C., Alberta and Washington
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Designers of the Year 2023: Meet the All-Star Industrial Design Judges
Deadline Extended! Enter Western Living’s 2023 Designers of the Year Awards
Designers of the Year 2023: These Are Your All-Star Interior Design Judges
The pair behind Dachi, Elephant and Hanai are always spotlighting the success of their collaborators (but they deserve some major credit, too).
The great ones make it look easy. Drop by Dachi on any given night and you’ll probably see Miki Ellis or Stephen Whiteside milling about, effortlessly attending to everyone’s needs—and, for a second, you’ll think I could do that in the same way that watching Steph Curry draining three-pointers at a pre-game practice makes basketball seem simple, too. Ditto at Elephant, where, notwithstanding the fact that chef Justin Lee is creating one of the most ambitious tasting menus in Vancouver for an insanely low tariff, there’s no sense of artiste tension pervading the easygoing space. And don’t even get us started on the brand-new Hanai, where Chef Tess Bevernage’s spirit of Aloha brings the fun factor to 11.
The sense of ease is amped up even further by the tendency of the self-deprecating duo to spotlight their collaborators as the reason for their restaurants’ successes… yet, despite that ample quick praise, at a certain juncture you realize that they are the common denominator. But behind all that self-erasure beat the hearts of two industry vets who’ve opened huge rooms and managed big budgets—always based on the same recipe of serious elbow grease (“I’ve gotten really good at electrical,” confides Ellis), even more serious passion, and an overwhelming faith in letting good people do great work.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I made these brownies every day. It was a ridiculous home recipe that was not scaled up for the volume, so I would make several batches daily, and they were so expensive and time-consuming it made no sense! But the daily routine of it was somewhat grounding amid the chaos of the times.
Spirited Away, with the pigs gorging on everything.
To visit Darren and Nana in Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan!
Love an opera cake!
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