Oyster Guy

???????? how is the new restaurant with only one fat guy. The old chef from the bear foot was chef,for the restaurant in beteen Les deux gros and les Gros, it lasted what a year??? Yes Splitz is famous in Whistler. A local hangout very good chicken burgers steve ← 21 Steps is the old Casa Tapas place in St. Andrews house across from the Savage Beagle. It has a rather ecclectic menu with some interesting items and a really funky little martini bar on the 3rd floor and the kitchen is open until midnight. Which beats the hell out of Subway and Domino's for a late night snack while in town. The old chef (Eric Vernice) ran Jayde and he is presently the chef at Apres. He lasted longer (unfortunately) than The Screaming Oyster in Creekside which lasted only 4 months. It was a shame as I finally had another place in Whistler to go for just oysters. Eric is a very talented chef but the location was very hard for him to work with, not to mention the fact that the snow sucked last year and the war and other things combined to make it tough even for well established restaurants in the Whistler area. Today after a staff meeting, we went to 5280 in the 4 Seasons for breakfast. I will not be going back there and I think that they are looking for a good breakfast cook as well. Or they should be anyways! Myself and 2 other of the chef de partie I work with had the beef tender loin with eggs. The meat was over salted but the potatoes were not seasoned. The meat was rare when I had ordered medium rare and the other guys had runny eggs or overcooked ones. The menu said it was served with wild mushrooms but if button mushrooms from Mooney's are wild, I'll eat the crate they came in. It also said carmelized onions as well but dammed if I or anyone else found them. Another chef ordered the smoked salmon plate and while the white salmon was cured right, there was no smoke in their salmon. It was bland and boring. We waited a good 15 minutes to get 3 drinks and the place was almost empty and the staff outnumbered the guests. Not impressed, my bill came to 50.00 for a breakfast that was more worthy of someplace on the mountains than a 4 star hotel. I would not go there or reccomend that anyone go there either. If you can't do breakfast well, I wouldn't trust them with dinner. My 3 choices for the best 3 in Whistler 1. Bearfoot Bistro (even though you don't like their wine markups, the food is unbeatable.) 2. Quattro 3. Zen Sushi Take care and eat well The Oyster Guy

Here are a couple more for you that are also affordable. 1. Wildwood Pacific Bistro 2. BBK's (in the upper village and this is owned by Chef Bernard) 3. 21 Steps 4. Uli's Flipside 5. Southside Diner in Creekside (which has been newly reno'd) 6. Les Gros Hope this helps. Chris

Yes, The fat man himself, Pascal is back at the helm of Les Gros and it is very nice to have him back in town. He is the only person to make that location work as he has a strong local customer base. I sadly have not eaten there since he re-opened but I hear he has quite a similar menu to the one he had before. That is not a bad thing however as he specialized in good simple French countryside fare. For the money, it is one of the best places to eat in Whistler as you always get really good value(a word not often used in this town) for the money. His sauces are worth the trip alone to the outskirts of Whistler. I hope to go there in the coming weeks and I will give you a better report than this. But it really is worth checking out.

I just wanted to add my thoughts on both these restaurants. On New Year's Eve, I was one of the few fortunate not to have to work and decided to treat myself and made a reservation at Apres for the 1st seating. While the room is nice and cosy, I waited 41 minutes to get bread on the table. Althought the food was very good, the lackluster service took away from both the enjoyment of that and the wine. I was very tempted to leave after only 2 courses but stuck it out hoping that maybe at sometime the waiter might get it together but I was again disappointed. The staff turnover at Apres is such that they should install a revolving door as they had ads in the paper every week advertising almost every position except for the chef and manager. 5280 Bistro at the 4 Seasons While the service was good (and you usually get this type of service at the 4 Seasons or at the very least expect it) the food was uninspired and the wine list was a joke as they only kept one bottle of each it seemed in stock! Once it was sold, they didn't have anymore! I have never seen anything like this in 20 years of the business and I hope I never do. I was very disappointed at the food though as I have eaten at Truffles in Toronto where their executive chef came from and was very pleased there. Maybe all the turmoil and trouble of opening a new restaurant in Whistler combined with a lack of talent in the labour pool in Whistler combined to do this. But I would expect and want better than this from a company such as the 4 Seasons for my dining dollars. I won't return to either place for dining as I was disappointed with both places, for the reasons I have listed. But of course, that is just my opinion! Oyster Guy

Hi Christine, I am glad that you enjoyed the party at the Bearfoot Bistro and we were glad that you got a chance to attend it, even if we did sneak you in past security. (We weren't supposed to do that and we could have been fired for that, so please take care in posting that in this forum as it was the owner who let me know about this web-site) If you do come back next year, it will be great to see you guys again but I hope the Korean chef doesn't get as drunk at the party as this year. Our chef was getting pissed at her walking into the kitchen in her street clothes while we were still serving. But please come back and Hi from the kitchen crew at the Bearfoot. Take care and try to attend my seminar there called "Oysters 101." All the best Oyster Guy