Araxi: Cornucopia 2018

November 8-18, 2018 is Whistler’s Cornucopia, a food & wine festival with special events and chef features. We stumbled upon the Cornucopia by chance and had no idea this was happening, but luckily for us we got to experience some special menus at a great price, and one of them was Araxi Restaurant & Oyster Bar.

Araxi is a fine-dining restaurant situated in Whistler village. They offered a special menu to celebrate 37 years in whistler – a 5 course prix-fixe meal for $37 per person!

Granted, we were only able to make a reservation for 9pm and in their casual dining area, not the fancy dining area, but we made our reservations on the day of.

First course

The first course was a squash soup with some fancy butter and nuts on a spoon that I had to put inside the bowl myself in order to enhance the flavours. The soup was had a clean taste and was very hearty.

Second course

The second course was tortellini with a “herb salad” (lol at my photo). I wasn’t expecting just one tortellini and at this point I was hoping that the other courses wouldn’t be this tiny as well. I haven’t eaten many tortellinis before but it tasted like a dumpling.

Third course

For the third course, we chose different dishes. I had the foie gras parfait for an additional $8 and Kelvin got the oysters in 4 ways – cucumber, some fruit and two other ways that I don’t remember.

The foie gras parfait was heavy, as with most foie gras. I tried my best to slather on as much foie gras onto my bread as possible. The bread felt more like a very buttery biscuit – soft and crispy at the same time (also heavy).

I had 2 of the oysters – the fruit one and the cucumber one. Both were very refreshing and cool. I preferred the cucumber one more as I could actually taste the freshness of the oysters. The fruit one was kind of strange.

Fourth course

The next course was the main course and again we ordered two separate items: the arctic char and tenderloin steak, which had an additional $10 cost.

The arctic char was soft and the fish meat fell off the bone almost instantly when my fork touched it. Kelvin’s steak was delicious and easy to cut, which I appreciated. Both were savoury dishes and the perfect portion size – so far neither of us were feeling too stuffed or hungry.

Fifth course

The last course was dessert and this time we both ordered the same one, an apple and pear cake. The cake was my favourite part and depending on what you added to your bite, it would taste different. The ice cream and crumble on the right side made it taste like an apple pie or crumble. Meanwhile the pears and soft cake on the left hand made it taste like a fluffy Japanese cake – not too sweet. The sliced apple chip was a neat touch.

Final thoughts

Our total came to just under $100 for 2 people, including the 2 dishes that had additional costs. Overall, the meal was very worth it for $37 a person even if you don’t choose any of the add-on dishes. The portion sizes were perfect and the meal in general was well thought-out, every dish balanced off of each other and we didn’t feel as if the whole course was too salty or too sweet.

Of course, 9 pm is a pretty late dinner so ideally we would’ve eaten at a more normal dinner time and also in the area of the restaurant with nicer seating, but this was due to our last-minute realization of the Cornucopia. Aside from the long wait to our reservation, we both thoroughly enjoyed our experience at Araxi!

Sincerely, Loewe