The BiBo, a swishy Italian restaurant that only just landed on the West 4th strip, comes courtesy of two sharply dressed imports, Andrea Bini (the Bi) and Lorenzo Bottazzi (the Bo).
Before I dive into critiquing the food (entirely satisfactory), expounding on the design (inoffensively unimaginative), discussing the drink options (woefully limited), or commenting at length on the service, (teetering toward the utterly useless), its probably best that I start at the very beginning back to when Vancouver really sucked at doing Italian food right.
Five years ago our deficit of good Italian restaurants was a common lament. The majority were of the mangiacake variety, meaning they layered black forest ham and pineapple chunks on doughy frisbees and had the gall to call it pizza while pouring a soupy mix of cream and bacon over bowls of overcooked noodles that masqueraded as carbonara.
It may be hard to imagine now, but to dine Italian in Vancouver in 2006 often meant suffering lazy cooking, stereotyped décor and the Big Night soundtrack on repeat.
But things are different today.
La Buca, La Quercia and La Ghianda dominate the West Side; Campagnolo is doing a fine job on Main; Lupo, Sciué, Cibo Trattoria and Uva Wine Bar have the run of downtown; Adesso, Nook and Tavola are ruling the West End; and Nicli Antica Pizzeria plays to a full house nightly in Gastown.
All told, weve landed over a dozen Italian restaurants of varying degrees of straight-up awesomeness in a shockingly short time.
So do we really need another? Of course we do, especially in Kitsilano where Chef Boyardee has been in charge of the Italian options for too long. And The BiBo is a great fit.
Its menu travels all around the Italian peninsula, even down to Sicily, and does so without fundamental fault, as far as I can tell.
Bini and Bottazzi work the modern, vampish, nailpolish-coloured room so methodically that every guest gets either a word or a glad hand (most probably both).
Passion is evident in the quality of their pastas and shines through in their unrefined Puttanesca ($16), pungent ragu ($16) and their pimply calzones ($22). Sadly, however, that same passion reads on the menu like brazen braggadocio, which has a tendency to kill my appetite faster than a peptic ulcer. Im all for enthusiasm, but I draw the line at hubris.
To wit, until Id browsed The BiBos menu, Id never heard of ones Italian heritage accounting even in part for the creation of pure and explosive Italian flavours.
Since it has been repeatedly shown that one need not be raised in Burgundy to prep an exquisite Coq au vin or be schooled in Shanghai to make perfect Xiao Long Bao, I doubt that making one of their very basic pastas (theyre all from the greatest hits pile at The BiBo) would prove especially challenging for a second-year culinary student from Mars.
It should follow, then, that a pizza maker shouldnt need to undergo training in Naples for four years by an extremely experienced and prestigious pizza master in order to make authentic pizza. Really, it should take no more than a week to properly train a Neapolitan pizzaiolo.
Even the intense Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana course in California just takes just six days (and as one of my dining companions quipped, only doctors and pets need four years of training). Still, my soggy-yet-satisfactory pie of gorgonzola and pancetta was delicious, if flawed ($18), as was my friends ordinary and unblistered disc of buffalo mozzarella and basil (obscenely priced at $22).
Are the wood-fired pizzas at The BiBo in the same league as those at Nicli Antica? Yes and no. Theyre in the same league but they arent making the playoffs.
The menu boasts that its straightforward pomodoro sauce that goes with its spaghetti ($15) is crafted with the most expensive and distinguished tomatoes.
Big deal. That means theyre using the same canned San Marzanos from Campania that I regularly buy for $4.59 from my East Van corner store to make exactly the same pasta.
I should have known that such silliness would bleed into the service.
On my last visit, our server took pains to assure us that the olive oil she was dramatically drizzling over our pedestrian bruschetta sampler ($14) was very expensive and from Italy, as if my wife and I had only been dining out for as long as shed been working in restaurants, which couldnt have been longer than a few weeks.
The BiBo should really get over itself.
Their Italian heritage hasnt elevated their entry-level food up to the high strata of Neil Taylors at Cibo (an Englishman!) or JC Poiriers at Campagnolo (a Quebecois!), so it behooves them not to behave as if theyve invented the wheel.
All is not lost, of course. If they pipe down about their extremely prestigious ingredients and start paying half as much attention to their service as they do choosing what to wear, theyll soon have a restaurant worth going to. As Ive written before, great Italian food should be the simplest expression of the fewest and best ingredients. They have that part nailed. The rest is a work in progress.
1835 West 4th, 604-568-6177, thebibo.com
