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1 of 8 2 of 8 Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter.When chefs Alex Kim and François-Emmanuel Nicol came together at Five Sails for a two-night “four-hands” collaboration dinner, the result was a tasting menu that felt as much like a dialogue as a meal.Kim, the restaurant’s culinary director and 2025 Canadian Culinary Champion, has been enjoying a surge of attention following his runner-up finish on Top Chef Canada. Nicol, meanwhile, leads Quebec City’s acclaimed Tanière3, widely regarded as one of the country’s most ambitious kitchens.The day after the dinner, the Straight caught up with both chefs to revisit several of the standout dishes and the ideas behind them.Over eight courses, the menu explored what happens when the Pacific Northwest’s coastal bounty meets Quebec’s deeply terroir-driven cuisine.Some moments were delicate and precise. Others were bold, unexpected, even a little mind-bending.All of them were memorable. PACIFIC BLUEFIN TUNA Pamela Duayan A tuna dish that bridged two coastsOne of the evening’s most striking courses began with a simple idea: bring together ingredients that represent both chefs’ regions.For Kim, that meant Pacific bluefin tuna. For Nicol, foie gras from Quebec.Rather than pairing the fish with a traditional foie gras preparation, Kim transformed it into a kale and foie gras vinaigrette that delivered richness without overwhelming the tuna.“I wanted something that shows Pacific Northwest meets Quebec,” Kim explained. “Bluefin tuna is one of the most prestigious fish from our ocean, and we get foie gras from Quebec. But you have to balance the richness.”The solution was clever. Kale stems—usually discarded—were peeled and pickled for brightness, while crispy kale chips added texture. Golden Imperial caviar crowned the tuna, bringing bursts of salinity and umami.The dish was luxurious yet remarkably balanced. LOBSTER Pamela Duayan Lobster with precision—and collaborationIf the tuna course was elegant and restrained, Nicol’s lobster dish leaned into depth and intensity.Using Nova Scotia lobster, the chef insisted on cooking each part separately to achieve the ideal texture.“The tail is just two minutes,” Nicol said. “The claw—six minutes if it’s big, five if it’s small. That way you have the perfect texture.”The lobster was paired with a deeply reduced bisque infused with ginger and lemongrass, ingredients influenced by Asian vegetables grown by a farmer Nicol works with in Quebec.An unexpected collaboration also made its way into the dish. Kim had been fermenting gochujang in his kitchen, and Nicol decided to incorporate some of it into the bisque.“That’s the true collaboration,” Kim said.The result was a sauce with remarkable depth—rich, spicy, and fragrant—anchoring perfectly cooked lobster. KOMBU-CURED SCALLOP SABLEFISH TERRINE William Johnson A championship dish returnsPerhaps the most anticipated course of the evening was Kim’s kombu-cured scallop and sablefish terrine, a refined evolution of the seafood dish that helped him win gold at the Canadian Culinary Championship.The dish took months of preparation before the competition.“It took me about five or six months to prepare for the original competition,” Kim said. “There’s lots of meaning in this dish.”Built around Haida Gwaii sablefish and scallops, the terrine showcased Pacific Ocean flavours with remarkable care. Fermented Okanagan apple added brightness through a buttery emulsion seasoned with white shoyu (soy sauce), creating a pairing that felt unexpected, but was completely delicious. NIXTAMAL SUNCHOKE-STUFFED VENISON Pamela Duayan Venison and a surprising techniqueNicol’s venison course delivered the meal’s richest savoury moment.The meat came from a farm near Quebec City, where the restaurant receives whole animals to ensure nothing goes to waste. In this dish, rump and loin were combined with a mushroom-seasoned farce (savoury stuffing) and wrapped in a thin muslin of shoulder meat.“We created this dish to use everything,” Nicol explained. “It’s the most sustainable way to work with a farm.”But the most intriguing element wasn’t the venison—it was the sunchoke.Instead of cooking the vegetable conventionally, Nicol used nixtamalization, a technique more commonly associated with corn used for tortillas. Cooking the sunchokes in alkaline water allowed them to retain their structure while developing deeper flavour.The result was a vegetable that remained firm yet tender, enriched with brown butter and layered with intense savoury notes. CANDY CAP MUSHROOM CRÈME BRÛLÉE Pamela Duayan A dessert that stopped the roomThe course that sparked the most conversation was the candy cap mushroom crème brûlée topped with Kaluga caviar.At first glance, the pairing sounds improbable. In practice, it worked beautifully.The idea began during a whiskey tasting Nicol attended, where caviar was paired with a smoky whiskey.“I thought—whiskey with caviar? But it worked,” he recalled.Candy cap mushrooms, known for their maple-like aroma, introduced caramel notes that tied the dish together. The brûléed sugar shell cracked beneath a spoon, while the caviar added bursts of salinity and creaminess.“For me it’s the crack of the sugar and the pop of the caviar,” Nicol said.“Salt, sweet, and fat always work together,” Kim added. BROWN BUTTER SORBET Pamela Duayan A final note of brown butter and bananaThe evening ended with Kim’s brown butter sorbet paired with fermented banana and milk foam chips.The dessert leaned into dairy and caramelized flavours, while a cocktail featuring brown butter and maple-infused rum echoed the same notes.“Banana and brown butter were the predominant flavours,” Kim said. Pamela Duayan Throughout the evening, the dishes were elevated further by thoughtful wine pairings from Five Sails sommelier Antoine Santini, whose selections moved seamlessly from bright, mineral-driven whites to deeper, structured pours that matched the menu’s increasing intensity.The result was a dining experience that felt carefully orchestrated from start to finish; a quiet but important reminder that a night like this—a top three meal-ever, for this food writer—is rarely the work of just two chefs alone. Join the discussion Facebook comments not loading? Please check your browser settings to ensure that it is not blocking Facebook from running on straight.com