Whistler, I think anyone who has been there will agree, is a party town. Après-ski at Araxi or Bearfoot Bistro has a habit of turning into a highly sophisticated, life-changing soirée of unforgettable glamour and excitement. The all-night revel on the streets of the Village has a more rustic charm but is no less energetic in its way. So when our intrepid leader (aka Gold Medal Plates CEO Stephen Leckie) suggested to David Lawrason and me that we should all nip up there for the night last Thursday (sandwiched between the grand GMP events in Edmonton on Wednesday and Vancouver on Friday) I thought I knew what to expect. A mad shindig in the mountains… I was wrong.
Two of Stephen’s Vancouver-based friends, Harry Varshney and his son Praveen, recently acquired a property on one of the miniature lakes at Creekside, just outside Whistler. It’s called Nita Lake lodge and it was built a couple of years ago around the town’s tiny railroad station. In the summer, the train that climbs up into the mountains from Vancouver stops there on its way to Jasper. At this time of year, however, all is peace and serenity. Stare upwards and the steep mountains are swathed in slowly moving mist and cloud. The first snows are already falling up on the glaciers but down by the lake the colours of autumn still glow red and gold and the water is not yet frozen, its surface occasionally disturbed by the season’s remaining trout.
The Varshneys are connected with many enterprises including a number of ayurvedic spas in India. They have turned this lodge into just such a haven, offering all the treatments and therapies associated with those traditions. The 77 deluxe rooms and suites are extraordinarily comfortable with heated stone floors, massive basalt fireplaces, and bath tubs big enough for two. And there’s a first class restaurant called Aura, where chef Tim Cuff holds court.
Looking forward to tasting his work, I came down early for dinner and found myself (I know not how or why) in the bar. One or two other guests were relaxing in deep armchairs but my eye was drawn by an array of bottles nestling in ice – house-made syrups, bitters and infusions prepared by resident mixologist Hailey Pasemko. Like Chef Cuff, she came here from the highly esteemed Wickaninnish Inn outside Tofino on Vancouver Island and has put together a most original cocktail program at the Lodge. Before many minutes had passed I was tasting one of her recent creations, a smooth green drink called the Half Asleep in Frog Pyjamas. Its components are nasturtium leaves and fresh cucumber roughly muddled, Giffard Manzana (a subtle apple liqueur), Juniper Green Organic Gin from England (the bottle bears the Prince of Wales’s mark of approval) and, as a garnish, another single baby nasturtium leaf from the property’s rooftop garden.
The bar, I discovered, is called Cure and indeed Hailey’s cocktails had a remarkably restorative effect. She and the chef have combined forces so that each cocktail comes with its own miniature dish of perfectly matched food. The Frog was served with house-cured gravlax and crème fraîche which brought their own salty, creamy gifts to the party but still let the cool gin aromas of the drink shine through. When we moved on to the Smokey Robinson, a concoction of Jack Daniels, caramelized orange juice, tomato and chipotle, with a brown sugar, smoked salt and horseradish rim, a tiny plate of grilled pineapple and house-cured pork appeared beside it. My favourite drink was the Strange Attraction, a dazzling combination of Stolichnaya vodka, Lichi Li, muddled grapes, fresh grapefruit and rose water that Hailey created to imitate the heady, perfumed aroma of an Alsatian Gewürztraminer. So delicious – and a fine match with morsels of curried crab and sprouted grains.
Dinner was no less delightful. Chef Cuff bakes his own bread and churns his own butter. For an amuse, he poaches octopus and serves it with eggplant purée, parsley oil and a tartly pickled crosne, all served in a Chinese spoon – a single bite that certainly rouses the palate.
In keeping with the philosophy of the spa, vegetables are treated with equal or greater honour than proteins on his menu, and textures are magically lightweight. Here was a cuboid of watermelon, compressed sous-vide with a trace of kafir lime and chili; beside it a tangle of cuttlefish ceviche, a slice of prawn, two slim slivers of raw scallop, Painted Lady apple sliced even more finely, a froth of egg and lime spiked with a dot of angostura and a sprinkling of dried honey powder. An earthy 2005 grand cru Pinot Gris from Steinert in Alsace was a fine accompaniment to such an ethereal dish.
Painted Rock 2009 Chardonnay from the Okanagan was the next wine poured – herbaceous, tangy, all minerals and nectarine but with a decidedly resinous note. We found out why when the next dish arrived. A woman from Pemberton had brought freshly foraged mushrooms to the kitchen door that morning and they became the theme for the meal. First up were pine mushrooms of a quality to make a Japanese gourmet swoon, some grilled and then cut into crunchy, juicy chunks, others shaved paper-thin and raw, lying prone like mushroom ghosts, barely more than an outline as the heat from the plate tempered them. A hank of house-made angel-hair pasta centred the display, with nothing more than a whisper of olive oil, a hint of chive and a few shavings of parmesan as dressing. It was so simple but so very good – a marvelous frame for the mushrooms.
Can salmon feel like satin? The next course proved that it can – when it’s fresh coho belly poached in miso butter. Steamed bok choy and a couple of ethereal gnocchi scented with lemon zest paid homage; chanterelles deep-fried in lentil flour met the fish as equals. This time the wine was a 1999 Cedar Creek Pinot Noir Platinum. Another marriage made in paradise. So far, Nita Lake Lodge was batting a thousand.
Sidney Island out in the gulf is overrun with deer. They run wild and they eat wild which explains the delicate but complex flavour of the almost-raw venison on the next plate. But though the meat was amazing, the mushrooms commanded most of our attention: pieces of lobster mushroom, crunchy enoki and tangy little shimiji. There were other fine things as well – big fresh crosnes, dots of rosehip purée and orange, a smidgin of creamed lemon thyme and shallots, a tube of pasta made with potato flour and filled with spinach and goat cheese, a single salsify crisp – and a wine, of course – Guigal’s 2004 Châteauneuf du Pape – but the dish was still written in the language of the mushroom forests of Pemberton.
Dessert? I remember tiramisu ice cream, chocolate-dipped orange zest, candied nuts, amaretto-infused cherries and in a shot glass something that looked exactly like Baileys but turned out to be Hailey’s – a cream liqueur she prepares with fig-infused rye.
I slept very well that night in my improbably comfortable bed in my firelit room beside the silent lake in the mountains. Next morning, I had an ayurvedic massage (so did Lawrason; Leckie went for a run) and then we all drove down to Vancouver. We felt as if we had been away for a week at an ashram.
Nita Lake Lodge, 2131 Lake Placid Road, Whistler, BC. 1-888-755-6482. www.nitalakelodge.com.