STURGEON MOON || A Seven-Course Menu Built on British Columbia's Fleeting Summer Bounty
Sweet corn split at the cob, tomatoes warm from the vine, stone fruit at its juiciest: this is the narrow harvest window Andrea Carlson has captured in Burdock & Co's new seven-course tasting menu in Vancouver.
Named Submerging Stones under a Sturgeon Moon, the menu at the Michelin-starred restaurant runs through October 12 and costs $175 per person, timed to a stretch of the calendar when British Columbia's farms are producing more than any kitchen could use in a single season.
"We are at peak produce," says Carlson, the restaurant's executive chef and owner. "There is an incredible abundance of products to choose from, and this menu includes a little bit of everything." That abundance is the menu's entire argument: rather than choosing a handful of ingredients to showcase, Carlson builds seven courses, each making a case for a different corner of the late-summer pantry.
Rosehip Glazed Scallop.
The opener sets the tone. Rosehip-glazed scallops arrive with fresh fennel and a medley of tomatoes, set over a gelée of tomato dashi made from salt-cured scallop mantles, with tomato confit alongside. A gold-dusted tomato tuile finishes the plate, made from the skins and seeds left behind once the tomato water has been drawn off for the dashi, turning what most kitchens discard into the dish's most striking element.
Elsewhere on the menu, a corn "risotto" reworks the classic without a single grain of rice. Hard-seared corn niblets fold into a purée built from corn stock rendered from the cobs themselves; Carlson calls it the menu's "warm hug." A lacto-fermented crab apple broth, spiked with fruity Sugar Rush Peach chilli, keeps the dish from tipping into pure sweetness, adding acidity and a slow-building heat.
Charred Corn Risotto.
The middle of the menu widens the range further. A lamb saddle arrives with caramelized plum, a poppy seed clafoutis, green dill seed, plum compote, and a garlic scape jus, a course that leans savoury and structured against the produce-forward dishes around it. Acadian caviar and a spotted shrimp cream crown a seared pork collar, a pairing that pulls Atlantic Canada into a menu otherwise rooted in the province's own coastline. And a uni gelato, plated with a crisp base and toasted nuts, threads the sea back through the meal before the finale arrives.
Lamb Saddle. Caramelized plum & poppy seed clafoutis, green dill seed & plum compote, garlic scape jus.
Acadian Caviar and Spotted Shrimp Cream on Pork Collar.
Uni Gelato.
That finale is strawberry, and it is where Carlson's instinct for revision shows most clearly. Last year's princess cake returns, tightened and refocused on the fruit, paired with a disc of strawberry jus and a fermented strawberry sauce. Gooseboshi, gooseberries preserved with shiso in a riff on umeboshi, cuts through the richness of the marzipan and cream.
The menu's title nods to a ritual from Carlson's cookbook, in which worries written on paper and tied to a stone are said to be carried away by sturgeon beneath a full Sturgeon Moon. This year's Sturgeon Moon peaks tonight, August 28, a coincidence that gives the menu's name a literal deadline as much as a poetic one. Carlson built seven courses to hold a season that will not stay still; diners have until October 12 to catch it before it moves on again.
Photography by Hakan Burcuoglu
