Araxi Restaurant + Oyster Bar: Upscale seafood in Whistler

Araxi is a fine-dining restaurant situated in Whistler village. They specialize in locally sourced Pacific Northwest plates, wine and cocktails.

My boyfriend and I had an amazing dining experience last year during Cornucopia, Whistler’s food and wine festival. They had a special 5-course anniversary menu for $37 per person. After this, we definitely wanted to come back and try Araxi again.

Related: Read my review of Araxi’s anniversary menu during Cornucopia 2018.

Interior

Last year, we were seated in their bar area due to our impromptu reservations. This time, we are seated in the dining area. This area has red leather chairs and white tablecloths, a fancier Italian-style with arched windows and brick-like walls and flooring.

Food

They give you free bread. Their butter sits in a pool of olive oil, which makes it even tastier.

Beef tartare ($20)

This beef tartare is made with AAA angus beef, diced and seasoned with sweet soy and ginger cucumber and radish, some yuzu and puff rice chips. We paid extra (+$18) to have truffle on the side.

This is a very refreshing and citrusy beef tartare. I liked the rice puff chip but wish they’d give us more than 2 without asking.

The truffle was not as strong as I expected it to be. We added the truffle onto this dish because none of our mains were very compatible with truffle, but I think it would have tasted better with a pasta or beef steak.

Grilled octopus ($22)

This grilled octopus is a small plate and it is charred with gochujang (Korean red pepper paste) and miso glaze, daikon radish, grilled shishito peppers.

The octopus is grilled to a nice chewy texture. I also really liked the flavours in the radish. The pepper was really spicy though and overall this is a spicy dish.

Two Tier Seafood Tower ($89)

We order the seafood tower, which contains:

• 10 Oysters on the half shell
• 6 Chilled prawns
• Albacore tuna tataki 
• BC seafood ceviche
• Jellyfish salad
• Spicy tuna roll
• Wild smoked salmon 

Oysters

The 10 oysters were all different types and sizes – some small and sweet, some large and creamy. All of them were delicious along with the fruit sauce accompaniment and lemon. The oysters taste fresh and are shucked clean.

Chilled prawns

The chilled prawns are large and refreshing – a classic pairing with the cocktail sauce.

Albacore tuna tataki

The slices of tuna tataki are thick and generous. The fish eggs they sprinkle on top actually have a jelly consistency, so it’s not the usual fish eggs we are used to where they explode into sea flavour. Paired with the light soy sauce, it is delicious.

Seafood ceviche

We are impressed by their seafood ceviche because it tastes very unique. This is due to the puff rice they add on top – gives it a great crunch and flavour against the acidity of the vinaigrette and fruit. They use a lot of different seafood in the ceviche – mussels, clams, scallops. The chips are homemade and great shape for scooping up the ceviche.

Jellyfish salad

I see this little salad as a mix of the Chinese jellyfish (which I used to refer to as “elastic bands”) and the Japanese spinach salad. Cold and light. My boyfriend thinks the jellyfish is a little too fishy for him, but I do not.

Spicy tuna roll

This is probably the only disappointing thing in our seafood tower. Maybe we are sushi snobs. but we find the spicy tuna roll to not be special and actually looks a little out of place. It resembles and tastes more like a Korean kimbab than a sushi.

We do applaud a “western” (i.e. white) restaurant for pulling off a decent sushi roll.

Wild smoked salmon

Our server describes this to be “salmon sashimi”, which is totally incorrect. It is smoked salmon served cold with more fish eggs garnished on top. The salmon is fresh and soft, but we find a few of the fish eggs to be incredibly hard and different from the other fish eggs on the tuna tataki.

Yarrow meadows duck breast ($42)

This duck breast large place has an orange and soya glaze, dashi marinated eggplant with ginger baby bok choy, lotus chips, pea greens, sesame and soy vinaigrette. The dish smells very Asian and appetizing.

The duck meat was cooked perfectly and I really liked the dashi and glaze in the dish because it wasn’t too rich or heavy. Overall, a very well-balanced duck entree.

Red deer venison loin ($45)

The venison is black pepper crusted, served with red kuri squash and beet ravioli with northern arm farm roasted beets, squash puree and red wine jus.

I don’t eat a lot of deer because I don’t like the gaminess of the meat, but this one doesn’t taste too gamey. Since this wasn’t my entree, I don’t have too much to say but the meat is cooked tenderly.

Rack of lamb ($45)

Again, this was not my entree so I don’t have too many comments but the presentation for this dish was magnificent. Looked very appetizing and large portions!

Ocean wise prawn + carrot risotto ($38.50)

We can never pass up a good risotto (is it the Asians in us who love rice?). As you can see in the picture, the risotto looks just lovely. Lots of fresh colours and a hefty portion.

The prawns are cooked well and soaked in the sauce. For the risotto, they use arborio rice, parmigiano-reggiano, pickled carrots and baby carrot sofrito, finished with a sauce comprised of white wine, mascarpone and chives.

Dessert (complimentary)

We are given a complimentary dessert. The item on the left is a white chocolate something and it tastes like the softest cookie I have ever eaten in my life. The item on the right is an apple jelly candy.

Final thoughts

Our total bill came to around $150 after tax and tip for 2 people. It might be important to note that we were kind of hungover during our dinner at Araxi, so maybe we would have enjoyed the fresh seafood more on another day. Still, I believe the seafood tower was a good choice. We felt as if Araxi had really put a lot of thought into what goes into this tower, what pairs well with what, etc.

Our server was the same server actually from last year (fun and great guy). We did find it hard at times to get staff’s attention, which I usually don’t mind too much but our reservation was 9:30 pm (not a high busy time) so that fell a little short on my expectations.

We still love Araxi and will come back the next time we are in Whistler village.

Sincerely, Loewe