The Acorn Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

A friend and I visited during Dine Out 2024 to experience the tasting menu. My friend got stuck in transit and was almost 30 minutes late but they did seat me and take my drink order while I waited. They had to start bringing the food out before she arrived because of the way their kitchen operates. A few different servers came by our table throughout the night and everyone was very warm and professional. The timing of each course (after my friend arrived) was right on. Their dine out menu is $65/pp and mostly vegan, with just a few dairy dishes. A very similar all-vegan menu is available at no cost, as is a gluten-free menu . A few dishes had the option to add cheese for a small fee. Our vegan meal was served over 4 courses and included: Sourdough: Hearty toasted sourdough with a side vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was tasteless to me but the bread was amazing on its own. Squash: Shredded squash salad with hazelnuts, cilantro, and dried fruit, with hoisin sauce on the side to mix in. I loved the savoury-sweet combination with a hint of spice and pops of flavour from the swirls of hoisin. My favourite cold dish of the night. Sunchoke: Another nice sweet and savoury dish with crisp sunchoke in a slightly charred dressing, topped with berries. Shiitake: Tender shiitake mushrooms over a rich squash puree. I loved the flavour of the sauce with the subtle seaweed undertone from the kelp. Beet: Beet carpaccio with sauerkraut and fermented horseradish. I love fermented foods so I was a fan of this. Chicory: Braised endive dressed with elderflower, apple, and hazelnut. I liked the cooked endive but the raw elements of this dish just tasted "raw" and plain. This was my least favourite. Tomato: Cavatelli coloured black using leek ash in fermented tomato sauce. The black colour was inspired by squid ink pasta. The pasta was perfectly al dente. Pasta in tomato sauce is by no means an original idea but this was just a little different in subtle ways, and it was definitely my favourite dish of the night. Peach: For dessert, sorbet with spruce tip shortbread crumble. The piney and salty shortbread complimented the peach very well. Not as experimental as the savoury dishes, but still a delicious ending. You can add a wine pairing for each course for $30, We opted out of this because I didn't want to drink (and just don't like wine enough to add $30 to an already expensive meal). I got the nonalcoholic Lavanda Fizz mocktail instead, which was okay but a little weak on the lavender. lAt this price, I expected everything to be sublime, but I thought a few things were a little unpolished (as noted above, and my friend and I both would have liked one more hot dish in the mix). There were a few dishes that did wow me though, and I really enjoyed the experimental concept with the chance to try some uncommon foods. I don't regret shelling out the money once, but I'm undecided if I'd want to return, and if I did, I'd definitely want to order a la carte rather than do the regular $79 tasting menu, or maybe try brunch...

Every year we come to Acorn as the restaurant of choice for my sister’s Christmas gift. This year it happened to be during Dine Out Vancouver. My sister is vegan and she told our wonderful, friendly server Leah. We also said that the other three were not. Leah said that they could easily accommodate the four of us with a substitution of one of the dishes plus as the dishes were served as two servings shared and there were two with cheese she could have the cheese on the side. She said she liked to leave the menu so diners could follow along with the multi course servings so they knew what they were eating. Everything was lovely. The food was delicious. At one point we noticed the table next to us had a modified version of one of our items but didn’t think much about it. When it came to dessert we were served 4 peach sorbets. On the menu it had stated a meringue with custard. Two of us, one being my sister, the vegan, are allergic to peach and let Leah know. She said she would look for a substitution. We said, as per the menu, we were expecting the meringue for three of us. Leah left the peach desserts and said she would see if there was a substitution for the two with allergies. Another server came with two kiwi sorbets. She had a very stern look on her face. When I asked why the three of us couldn’t have the meringue as per the menu she became extremely rude and abrupt. She said that they were serving a family style meal. That this was stated on the menu. I said I didn’t see this on the menu. On the menu it said they could provide vegan or gluten free options if requested. She told me it was clearly stated on the website. I said I hadn’t read their website. She said, “Well you should as it is well written and informative”. WOW we were all shocked. All of us work in customer service and none of us have EVER been addressed in such a rude manner in particular in circumstances like we were in. Her name is Karolina and even as I write this her attitude still lingers with me. The restaurant’s rules were not clear. Our server Leah while being so sweet and accommodating was not clear as we understood she was just substituting one dish and putting the non vegan cheese on the side that turned out to be add ons on our bill. Anyway long review I know but just want to make others know their policy so they don’t get treated in such a rude way at Acorn. Will I go back. NEVER AGAIN. It has left such a terrible impression and experience after what was supposed to be a lovely memorable occasion. Lastly, I went and read the website. It is well done but I didn’t see anything that described our circumstances even...

We went to The Acorn for our anniversary dinner in June 2023 and had the Chef's tasting menu.

Let's start with the good, the atmosphere was nice and service/staff were fantastic, giving us a free glass of champagne as we were celebrating.

The food is unfortunately what has led to the three star review. Everything was cooked nicely and tasted great for what it was, but where the Acorn seemed to fail was in two key areas.

Despite being charged per person, each dish is served in a single large plate and you have to go through the faff of trying to divvy it up between you into smaller plates. The real insult to injury is if you're part of a larger party, the table next to us had three people but we're also being served the same single plate between them, despite paying 50% more than us, hardly fair on them.

They go through the effort of really stressing how everything is seasonal/local, but the problem with this is ultimately that a lot of the food tasted the same. When we visited beans seemed to be what was available at the time, as the majority of the dishes had the same beans. These particular beans had the unfortunate distinction of being quite bitter, despite the best efforts of the chefs to make them taste better. We were hoping that by visiting a vegetarian-only restaurant that more effort would've been put into making the food more varietal, however the local/in-season concept left us with a more stereotypical version of what people think vegetarian food is.

Other small complaints include the dessert (down to personal preference) and the fact that the menu changes daily and so you can't really make an informed decision before you book. I hope they consider a seasonal/quarterly set menu in the future.

Overall, we still had a nice time and I would visit again but probably wouldn't go for the...