Name: Il Caminetto
Location: 4242 Village Stroll, Whistler, B.C.
Phone: 604-932-4442
Website: ilcaminetto.ca
Cuisine: Modern Italian
Prices: Appetizers $15.50 to $27.50; pasta, $21.50 to $28.50; mains, $32.50 to $59; low-season pre-fixe, $35 and $55.
Additional information: Open daily, 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., reservations recommended.
Rating system: Fine dining
We slide into a soft suede booth set with fine crystal, thick linen and bright blue salt-and-pepper shakers – the only pop of colour in this shimmery room fitted with beige folds and elegant curves as though made to measure by Giorgio Armani.
The new Il Caminetto doesn’t look anything like the old Il Caminetto di Umberto, which was decorated in a traditional Tuscan style, all sunflower-yellow and burnt-orange with balusters and a grand piano.
Truth be told, this 200-seat restaurant doesn’t exude much outward personality. As neutral as Switzerland, it could be anywhere – Toronto, Chicago, Milan. But the fact that such a swish room has opened here in Whistler, a ski resort built by hippies and now in the midst of massive change, is perhaps a sign of things to come.
Since acquiring Whistler-Blackcomb for US$1-billion two years ago, the Colorado-based Vail Resorts Inc. has made no secret about its plans to attract big spenders. The hills are alive with the sound of construction crews working on the new, fully enclosed Blackcomb Gondola (part of a record $66-million upgrade), which will be capable of whisking 4,000 people an hour all the way up the mountain in dry, cozy comfort.
Meanwhile, down in the Village, where a record number of tickets (731) have been issued this year to people living in their vehicles, the talk of the town is all about a new breed of jet-set visitors – way more wealthy than before – who seem surprised by Whistler’s lack of luxury.
Tom Gillett, sous chef, speaks with Brad Masciotra, Chef de Cuisine in the kitchen at Il Caminetto restaurant in Whistler, B.C. on Oct. 10, 2018.BEN NELMS
“In all my years of working here,” one hotel manager confides, “I have never heard so many guests ask, ‘Where is the Prada store? Where is Gucci?’”
Enter the Toptable Group (Araxi, Blue Water Café, CinCin, West). Since being acquired four years ago by the deep-pocketed Aquilini family, Toptable has already expanded its Whistler properties with The Cellar by Araxi and Bar Oso. Il Caminetto, which opened last winter, is the next level.
The slick redesign, replete with a lifted herringbone ceiling and 25 types of sexy lighting, came courtesy of New York’s multiaward-winning Rockwell Group, which has designed restaurants for Alain Ducasse, Nobu and the Tao Group. The latter, a high-end nightclub chain, must have inspired the throbbing electronica playlist.
A new sommelier, just arrived from Bordeaux’s storied Le Chapon Fin, is earnestly trying to give us a crash course in Nebbiolo. Unfortunately, the music is so loud I can’t hear a word he’s saying.
The acoustics are a fail, but pretty much everything else is gold star. The service is impeccably suave. The wine cellar is deeply stacked with every Italian trophy from Gaja to Sassicaia, yet still accessible with many excellent options in the $60-$80 range. The bar impresses with its vault of 12 tightly executed spins on the Negroni.
And the food? No, it’s not Umberto Menghi style (although there are a couple of his former cooks in the kitchen who will whip up a creamy carbonara on request.) This is modern Italian crafted with great care from the best available ingredients, both imported and local.
For antipasto, there are tender wagyu-beef polpettine meatballs, thinly crusted in a crispy Parmesan-bread coating and served as a snack with thick smears of salsa verde. Incredibly robust minestrone is chock full of vegetables, bursting with earthy pecorino and built on several layers of roasted and fresh tomato sauces. Sop it up with a crusty slice of tangy, house-made sourdough.
Tomato salata, using the last of the local heirlooms, is dotted with intensely flavoured creams – basil, tomato, balsamic. Beef tenderloin carpaccio is richly marbled and stretched over slate into a perfect rectangle, elaborately textured with shimiji mushrooms, egg-yolk gel, arugula and cobwebbed crisps of Parmesan.
Beef tenderloin carpaccio textured with shimiji mushrooms, egg-yolk gel, arugula and Parmesan.BEN NELMS
The pasta is all made in-house with a high-end machine from Italy that uses bronze dyes. And they’ve nailed the technique. Even the extruded pastas, noodles such as rigatoni and linguine, which are really difficult to make fresh on a small scale, are perfectly shaped, dried to a good chew and textured with grip.
The rigatoni is nicely coated with a chunky bolognese made from wagyu, pancetta and milk-fed Gaspor pork. The velvety, San Marzano tomato sauce is orange – not from the addition of cream, but because it incorporates air when blended at high temperatures. You’ll get the same results at home if using a Vitamix.
The mains are even more elaborately plated. Thick hunks of lightly seared red tuna are crowned with a Medusa-like bird nest of crispy squid ink. The buttery milk-fed veal chop is thickly capped with melting fat and charred to a caramelized crisp on the plancha grill. The veal is expensive ($59), but could easily feed three people with extra sides and is worth every juicy, pink bite.
Milk-fed veal chop capped with melting fat and charred to a caramelized crisp on the plancha grill.BEN NELMS
For dessert, skip everything else and go straight to fruity gelato or creamy sorbetto. It’s all made fresh in a state-of-the-art machine without any preservatives or extra fillers.
Money might not buy happiness, but it can stock a restaurant with good machinery, excellent products and great talent. At Il Caminetto, the investment has been well spent.
The only mistake is that the owners didn’t change the name. The new Il Caminetto is nothing like the old Il Caminetto. And in a few years, we’ll probably be saying the same thing about Whistler. They should have started with a clean slate.