Opening 2005

Vancouver is rapidly becoming the most cosmopolitan city on the Pacific Rim.  As yet, it has only a few restaurants that cater to the needs of its affluent and well-traveled visitors and professional educated residents that meet the needs of both knowledgeable diners, who want to know where their food comes from and how it is cooked. In particular, no one is offering a modern Canadian dining experience at the highest level of quality and service that meets ethical, environmental and palate needs that modern diners want to experience.  Our goal is to dominate this market niche.

Metro will be a 194 seat restaurant. The cuisine, Metropolitan Canadian[1], will reflect both Brian Fowke's upbringing and his training.  Service, directed by Tim Keller, will be exemplary and will fulfill even the smallest wishes and desires of our guests.

Metro will be warm, refined, stylish and savvy.  Innovation on all fronts will be a constant.

Our initial approach will lay the foundation on which we can grow in the future.  By building on a firm footing and creating a proven and stable track record, constant growth is anticipated within five years, with outside catering, cookbook publishing and the success of future restaurants being the long-term objective.

Metro's greatest competitive advantage is its core team of dedicated and enthusiastic management who possess food, beverage, marketing and sales experience. Burrard Holding Company (operators of Metro), its chefs and food and beverage management team have researched the market and our venture thoroughly and are confident of its success.

Envisioning Story

Constantly challenging ourselves to be innovative, using only the freshest local Pacific Northwest products in season. Cooking with integrity, without waste and with a vision that looks both back to our roots and forward to the needs of maintaining our farms, fields, forests and oceans.

Metro will challenge the integrity of fine dining.

Metro will create a niche in the Vancouver restaurant market.

Metro will draw its guests to a lively, artistic, eclectic location in downtown Vancouver.  Guests will immediately feel as if they have not only found a table at one of the most talked about restaurants in the city, but that they are to be a participant for an evening in a particularly vibrant Vancouver streetscape.  Granville Street - The centre of Vancouver nightlife.  Cinemas, theatres and live entertainment will be close by to enjoy before or after our guest’s Metro experience.  Their car will be entrusted to our personnel or their taxi greeted at the curb to begin the experience.

 The best restaurant is the one where they know me! James Beard

As they are swept into a warm room of modern yet classic earth-tone colors and décor, coats and umbrellas disappear!  Introductions are made.  Old friendships are rekindled.  With no effort or conscious thought, they find themselves comfortably in the bar or at their table creating or continuing their personal relationships with the owners and their team.  Clues as to the evening's particular celebration and expectations begin to emerge.  This is the moment where the most personalized restaurant in the city sets itself apart.

Metro's service is not a mechanical process of handing out menus and taking orders.  Our entire focus at any given moment is to ascertain each guest's true desires or to take them along a path where one discovers something entirely new.  A small plate of something arrives in front of the guests, some perfect radishes picked that day and served with sea salt, a single pristine oyster or a glass of a local wine yet to be discovered, not because it was asked for but because we feel the need to share what makes us passionate.

The orchestration of the evening will be in such a flow state that they will not likely realize until much later that their servers were there when they needed to be and not hovering when they didn't.  They won't notice that the interaction level has been personalized according to the guest.  Familiarity or lack thereof will always be appropriate for the situation.

 Live in each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit
and resign yourself to the influences of each. Henry David Thoreau

Our guests will come to know and trust that we are cooking in-season.  Surprise will always be a key element.  Shock never will be.  They will savour British Columbia asparagus, the world’s best strawberries, in the springtime Morels and fiddlehead ferns.   Queen Charlotte salmon and halibut will make their appearance on our menus in summer when they are fished.  Our province's stunning orchard fruits, berries and organic vegetables will be celebrated.  As summer draws to a close, cranberries, squash, fruit from Gulf Island orchards and Fraser Valley duck and partridge will be featured at Metro.  Our guests will seek comfort in winter with British Columbia venison, leeks, cabbage, sweet potatoes and dried fruits. 

From the abundant fields and forests of BC and Alberta, elk, bison and wild boar will share menu space with organic chicken, quail from Oregon, and squab from Washington. We will bring in whole sides of BC and Alberta beef, and understanding that abundance is not always a given, we will make progressive use of all the cuts, not just "prime" such as tenderloins and sirloins.   Guests will be comforted by something familiar, excited about how we cooked it and want to come back to try something new.

All will be prepared in close collaboration with local and international selections from an award winning wine list.  This, after all, is the way it always should have been and still is in countries with strong culinary histories. 

Our combination of personalized attention and inspiring cuisine will take our guests along a continuum to Metro to awaken each of the senses:

Metro guests will continue to feel pampered well after they have left us.  Concierge services normally associated with hotels will be offered.  Be it a simple hailing of a taxi, a suggestion of the best place to go for a walk on a fall day or a recommendation of a local theatre production, the resources of our assembled team run deep.  And when we welcome them back to Metro they will find a rare combination of consistency and constant innovation to keep their passion, and ours, alive.

We have envisioned, for this restaurant, a business operating profitably on its own set of values.  The mission is a simple one. The peak of contemporary food, beverages and service in our market.  This genre of restaurant is a natural outflow from our guiding principles of relentless innovation, an interdependent work environment, uncompromising integrity, employee growth and shareholder value. Chefs will want to work at Metro. Their creative ideas will be heard, valued, acted upon. They will be pushed to be their best and they will thrill in the results. They will be a team, part of the restaurant. They will come out to see the guests, they will value the front of house staff, front of house staff will value them. It will be a place to learn, a place to grow professionally and a place to laugh and guests will see and feel that joy. It will be one of the many reasons they come back.

Purpose

                                                    Cooking for the world, with food from our own backyard…

Constantly challenging ourselves to be innovative, using only the freshest local Pacific Northwest products in season. Cooking with integrity, without waste and with a vision that looks both back to our roots and forward to the needs of maintaining our farms, fields, forests and oceans

Mission

• To present, at a profit, a cuisine and level of service recognized internationally as one of the finest in Canada and the Pacific Northwest.
• To create a warm, relaxed and refined ambience which enlivens the senses.
• For all involved to progress and grow professionally and personally.
• To perform the above in a manner that is knowledgeable, friendly, discreet, innovative, colourful, stylish, sexy, savvy and world class.

Principles

• Our greatest asset is our people.
• Interdependence is a higher value than independence.
• We practice uncompromising honesty and integrity.
• We think and act with a sense of proactivity and urgency.
• We are relentlessly innovative and resourceful in meeting our guest’s needs.
• We respond well to change and realize that it prompts learning.
• We measure our success through guest satisfaction, employee growth and shareholder value.
• The environment will not be at the mercy of Metro
• Our team is an entrepreneurial organization with a minimum of bureaucracy and a never-ending focus on productivity.

Restaurants in the 21^st century will be all about people’s inexorable desire to seek values, reawaken the body and rekindle the soul. Metro will meet those desires.