Flowers Play The Starring Role in Burdock & Co’s New Tasting Menu

The Goods from Burdock & Co

Vancouver, BC | When gazing at flowers, most people see dazzling colours and shapes. Chef Andrea Carlson zooms in on the potent flavours and surprising characteristics waiting to be unlocked: warm ginger notes in magnolia petals, bright malic acid in fresh staghorn sumac, the protean headiness of elderflower pollen.

Her latest tasting menu treats flowers not as decorative garnish, but as star ingredients, elementally transformed into begonia sorbet, magnolia white kimchi, violet Turkish delight and more. Flower Gazing Under a Berry Moon continues at Vancouver’s Michelin-starred Burdock & Co until early August.

“These flowers tell the story of our urban coastal landscapes,” says Carlson, a Master Gardener (MGABC) who foraged many of them from her home garden in East Vancouver. “They were chosen for flavour, above all, and the alchemy they harbour.”

Each flower calls for its own approach. Some, like tuberous begonia, must be handled lightly to preserve its delicate character. “This flower is a one-liner,” says Carlson. “It doesn’t have any floral notes. It’s all about acidity — very clear, linear, shiny, high-toned and crisp.” That bright oxalic acidity sharpens begonia sorbet and koji-salted broth, served around a pedestal of scallop crudo and brunoised cucumber tartare.

Magnolia petals, from a 50-year-old tree in Carlson’s backyard, are preserved like white kimchi to enhance their gingery warmth. Glazed with more ginger from Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island, they’re paired with charcoal-grilled spotted shrimp and a leek-and-fuki terrine. The dish has a lineage that traces back to Carlson’s time at the legendary Sooke Harbour House: the fuki is a woodland plant with hollow, celery-like ribs, grown from a cutting gifted by founding proprietor Sinclair Philip, who also insisted on calling B.C. spot prawns by their proper name — spotted shrimp.

Elderflower, by contrast, is robust enough to be taken in several directions. Its depth comes from the pollen: “so pervasive and intense,” Carlson says, that it can withstand whole-flower fermentation in butter, turning “super funky,” almost blue-cheesy, while still holding onto its ethereal floral character. She uses the fermented butter to baste grilled cabbage. The funk is balanced with sweet elderflower vinaigrette and rich elderflower sabayon. Confit sea bass, sustainably farmed in Spain, anchors the dish.

Sakura is the most transformative flower of all, its powdery perfume drawn through salt fermentation into a rush of bitter almond that infuses cherry blossom milk custard and cherry-sakura sorbet.

Staghorn sumac brings another surprise, dusting a nori mochi doughnut served alongside Carlson’s signature uni gelato. Fresh sumac, she says, is nothing like the deep-toned dried spice most people know. “In its fresh form, it’s so bright and lively. It’s a real trip.”

In Carlson’s creative hands, so is this jaunt through B.C.’s wild edibles.

Flower Gazing Under A Berry Moon is available Thurs. to Mon. until early August.
À la carte menu at the bar.

Tasting Menu: $175

Wine Pairings: $90 & $135

Zero-proof pairing: $65

Reservations encouraged

Bar walks-in welcome