Restaurant review: The Commune Cafe finds a niche filling Commune, niche, filling, Restaurant, Cafe

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Restaurant review: The Commune Cafe finds a niche filling neglected gap in Vancouver's restaurant scene


1002 Seymour St., 604-681-2551.

www.communecafe.ca.

Open: daily for breakfast, lunch, dinner.


VANCOUVER -- If Commune Cafe evokes a familiar feel, it’s understandable. It was designed by Evoke, the design company behind Habit, Cascade and Latitude on Main Street.

This new spot on Seymour Street has the same clean lines and inviting casual flair but it’s airier and brighter. Bright red chairs align like exclamation marks against the neutrals of grey and blond wood. Doodly red wall graphics look like something Keith Haring might have drawn, overdosed on coffee.

The name of the place might trigger visions of brown rice and hippies but this one’s about community and featuring local, sustainable products, says Ali Samei, who opened the café with brother Amir just over a month ago. They wanted to open before the 2010 Olympics but the boutique Level Hotel, which owns the property needed the space for the U.S. teams.

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Commune offers breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner dishes. As Samei points out, it fills the gap between fast food and full service. You order at the counter and your food is hoofed to the table. (Many of the tables, by the way, are indeed communal.)

The menu includes panini, hot sandwiches, salads, Iranian flatbreads (more like pizzas) and some dinner entrées.

My first visit was a completely different experience from a second. The food was so underwhelming I was ready to ignore the place and find another place to write about in this space. Iranian flatbread with wild shrimp and pesto featured overcooked, wizened shrimp and dry pesto. Halibut with gremolata butter and white bean onion confit wasn’t quite as dry but certainly not moist. Chicken and corn soup only featured corn (the chicken must have been in the broth).

But maybe it was their salute to sustainable products or the fact that industry veterans Annette Rawlinson and chef Tina Fineza were the opening consultants; maybe it was the cool digs or the evidence of good taste in the smart little B.C. wine list (Blue Mountain, La Stella, Herder, Joie). I went back and tried more dishes, and it was like a new place.

We started with local bacon and organic sausage soup and a chickpea salad, both featuring quality ingredients. A baked bucatini pasta with roasted tomatoes, Parmesan, mozzarella and Asiago was lovely; and a grilled sandwich of local beef, green peppercorn aioli, stilton, caramelized onions (which makes anything taste better) was a great manwich for my husband.

Desserts are prettily displayed at the counter. I found the chocolate raspberry tart a little stale but enjoyed a raspberry blackberry cupcake with pink icing.

It’s great to have had the likes of Rawlinson and Fineza jump-start this café but perhaps they needed to advise the owners (new to the industry) that they need a chef in the kitchen commanding quality control.

I noted, however, that Commune does have that community thing going on. It was busy and many were sipping a coffee or wine, taking advantage of Wi-Fi. Next to us one night, a young boy had an army of little plastic soldiers spread out on the table, ready for imaginary battle. I had to smile.