A price that doesn't pair with the offerings

Alder Room

With a per-person price tag for prime-time seating that ranges from $210-$230 for snacks, an eight-course tasting menu, petit fours and accompanying drink pairings, Alder Room rings in as one of the most expensive places for a person to enjoy a meal in Western Canada.

We can all agree that with great prices comes great responsibility. And Alder Room just does not live up to what it expects diners to pay.

There was a moment while eating at Alder when I watched a gentleman across from me chomp on a leaf from a tree – used as a garnish for the innovative translucent shards of caramelized cabbage leaves cooked in wild ginger and wild-hop oil, one of our predinner snacks – that I noted a bit of a disconnect between what chef/owner Ben Staley was trying to do in his interactions with the food of the region and what people actually experience.

This room is fairly dim, and with 13 people scattered about on Scandinavian design furniture at the front of the restaurant, some chattering quietly while others moderately focused on the explanations Mr. Staley was giving for each little snack, one could get sidetracked.

Leaves aside, other compact bites included the soft-boiled quail eggs lightly seaweed-brined and covered in vegetable ash, "barely cooked, but cooked aggressively over flame" baby potatoes (oxymoron the chef's in description, but tender and fulfilling upon first bite) and pleasantly salty duck-and-ramp "slim jims." Friends and fellow diners eagerly grabbed crisp, pickled yellow beans, and the most mouth-filled nods of approval came by way of the fried sunchoke skins, piped full with burnt cream. Wash it down with a glass of natural Australian chardonnay and let's call this a good enough start.

One of the main cornerstones of Alder Room is how long it took to prepare the dishes you are about to enjoy. Not the raw scallops, though. They are served resting in buttermilk and dill oil with grilled and chilled cucumbers, shaved kohlrabi and celery-leaf vinegar. The dish boasts a nice freshness and complimentary textures from the tender scallop chunks to the wisps of kohlrabi. The green apple, parsley and celery-leaf juice pairing is also fairly remarkable.

Next is an interesting take on roasted beets, purposely overcooked and chopped up with pickled blueberries, freeze-dried elderflower and finished with a pour of cream infused with coriander root. This particular house-made juice pairing, a pungent sour cherry and Labrador tea kombucha with wild mint is not nearly as complementary.

After that is a line-up of mediocre dishes such as the mushy squash in a beurre blanc sauce of sorts with candied walnuts and a roasted koji oil, or the garlic kombu-brined, yet severely under-seasoned, thin slice of 36-hour pork belly with minced green tomatoes and freeze-dried onion flowers.

The savoury courses find their peak in the roasted duck, served with a sprinkling of dried berries and an umami-laden duck jus, rich and viscous.

A restaurant that aims to make a name for itself by way of a tasting menu, not unlike Vancouver's Mak N Ming or Alo in Toronto, and yet serves two courses of ice cream for dessert is one that is crying out for the sweet, deft hand of a pastry chef. Both of the aforementioned have one on staff. As indisputably pleasant as the first ice cream variation was – caramelized sunchoke with crunchy, puffed wild rice and a sweet sunchoke tuile flecked on top – receiving a second ice cream course of salty Jersey milk ice cream with a spoonful of maple syrup that the chef tapped himself from a tree just outside of Edmonton (naturally), was a little disappointing, regardless of its flavour.

"We cooked these strawberries for three days in simple syrup," was the chef's concise account to accompany the petit fours. The trio of sweets included small, slightly over-baked canelés and some apposite salted caramels.

Three days?

The slab of sweet, see-through and deflated strawberry was a passable chew, but nothing more. The reason for dedicating so much time for so little gratification shall forever remain a mystery to me.

A dinner of this calibre should leave a person beyond content, and still regaling friends about a profound experience weeks later. Sadly, I find myself trying to jog my memory of a meal that happened just last month.

I don't doubt that Alder Room genuinely loves the ingredients it uses – and in some cases, grows – as much as it professes over and over during dinner service. But if you can't make some of those humble ingredients shine, then it is all for naught.