ARC Restaurant and Bar: Bottomless brunch in Vancouver
ARC Restaurant and Bar is a restaurant located inside The Farimont Waterfront and is right across Canada Place in downtown Vancouver. They boast a bottomless brunch priced at $65 per person on the weekends with a 2 hour seating limit.
Is it worth it? I came here for my friend’s birthday as a table of 6 adults and we literally ordered everything off the menu.
Interior
The interior of ARC is modern and stylish. The building kind of arcs around the street so you get a lot of natural light and floor to ceiling windows.
We are seated at a bar height table close to the entrance, where you can kind of see the lobby of the hotel. I am not a fan of bar seating so the seats weren’t the most comfortable in terms of back support, and it is hard for me (a short person) to get on and off these stools. Aside from that, the table was spacious and could fit all the little plates of dishes.
Food and drinks
Coffee and tea are included in your $65 price tag, but if you want fancier drinks or alcoholic beverages, those are not included.
We ordered a bottle of mimosa for $60 to share between 5 girls (they serve a glass for $19).
As for the food, we started off by ordering a single order of every item on their bottomless brunch menu. Afterwards, we ordered the dishes we liked more as a second round.
Buttermilk biscuits
One of the first dishes to arrive are the buttermilk biscuits served with honey butter. The biscuits are big and have a wonderful texture – a good combination of denseness and richness. This might be tactical to serve the carbs/bread first, but I was a fan of these biscuits – very yummy!
Granola parfait
This item just… * sighs *. It is something I would never ever order at an all-you-can-eat-anything, but for the sake of trying everything off the menu, we ordered it and it is exactly what I expected: a boring yogurt with granola in it. I guess one thing to note about this (if you like yogurt parfaits) is that it is mascarpone yogurt, so that’s kinda cool. On top it is served with peach, coconut, puffed amaranth and berries.
Anyways, definitely not a must order unless you are very healthy and like yogurt.
Liege waffle
Next we have another carb dish – the waffle. On the menu it says it is served with poached pear and a chai tea sauce anglais. I’m not sure if the poached pear is supposed to be in the sauce but it is just a waffle on a plate served with 2 different sauces – one more fruity and the other one more creamy.
The waffle itself is quite good though, but would have loved to eaten it with something whether that be a fried egg or cream and fruit.
Avocado toast and Harvest grain bowl
Here we have more vegetarian friendly dishes – the avocado toast and the harvest grain bowl.
The avocado toast has a poached egg on top, which you can substitute for scrambled tofu as a vegan option, placed on top of grilled sourdough bread. A pretty decent avocado toast despite its simplicity.
The harvest grain bowl is a medley of veggies, including farro, roasted roots, squash, herbs, and a poached egg (which again, you can sub with tofu). Mostly it caontains random veggies like corn (it’s corn!), broccolini, cauliflower and brussel sprouts.
Jerk fried chicken
I was looking forward to the jerk chicken because it’s the closest thing to chicken and waffles on the menu. Jerk chicken is originally a Jamaican dish so I was interested to see how it would incorporate in this brunch item. It is served on a funnel cake with habanero maple syrup, making it a sweet dish with some nice crunch. I quite liked it but it tasted quite sweet/rich so it was much better to share even though it’s already such a small portion.
Salmon benedict and Traditional benedict
The egg bennies come individually on a plate so it really isn’t a pretty plate in general because it feels like it’s missing something lol. The salmon one uses cold smoked salmon, hollandaise, and chives. Similarly, the traditional eggs benny has kasseler ham instead of salmon.
Both egg bennies taste good and the eggs are cooked right so that it is runny inside.
Beef short rib poutine
The beef short rib poutine is another item for the meat lovers. This dish has sea salted fries, cheese curds and gravy. Portion size for this is lightly larger than some of the other dishes (like the eggs benny for example).
The short rib is actually quite tender so I was impressed by that. Would have loved it if it wasn’t poutine but some kind of hash underneath instead to make it more breakfast-like.
Braised pork cheeks
Another meat-based dish, the braised pork cheeks are served on top of manchego polenta, onion escabeche and some cilantro. The polenta is quite creamy and light, so that was nice even though I personally think polenta itself doesn’t offer a lot of flavour by itself. The braised pork cheeks again, very tender like the beef short ribs.
Everything in this dish is quite soft so it almost feels like a weird analogy to eating congee.
Croque madame
Here we have a signature breakfast item – the croque madame. It is essentially a breakfast sandwich, served with ham, gruyere cheese, mornay sauce, and a sunny side up egg. Presentation for this croque madame is quite good as it is simple but also very cute in how the egg and bread are perfectly the same shape and size.
A little hard to share this but the structural integrity of this kept up.
Meat and potatoes
Seems like all the meat dishes come at the end even if you order everything at the same time lol. Anyways, this dish is quite hearty and features crispy potatoes, caramelized onions, ham, bacon, and pork sausage. Easy to share, lots of different cuts of meats.
Migas breakfast taco
Well amigos this breakfast taco is just a little sad in my opinion lol. Inside this flour tortilla are scrambled eggs, crispy tortilla strips, jack cheese, onion, tomato, cilantro, served with a side of salsa roja. I’m not sure exactly what about it makes this taco sad, maybe that it’s just open and flat and it’s just scrambled eggs inside. Maybe it’s that breakfast tacos aren’t my thing. Either way, I think you can pass on this item. I place it in the same ranking as that granola parfait.
Ooey gooey skillet
Last to arrive is the skillet, which they did on purpose to make sure it’s nice and warm when it arrives. This skillet is filled with mini croissants, apple, cinnamon, and caramel.
First of all, it smells amazing. Second of all, it tastes amazing! The croissants are flaky and the apples and cinnamon make it sweet and flavourful. Love the dallops of cream as well. This skillet is a must order!
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: โญโญโญ
We were really full from the bottomless brunch at ARC. We tried everything off of the menu but the things we ordered twice were: waffles, avocado toast, salmon eggs benny, braised pork cheeks, jerk fried chicken, and the skillet.
At $65 per person, it is quite an expensive brunch and brunch in Vancouver is already freaking expensive at over $20 per head. I think even if you order all the meat dishes multiple times, it’s not really worth it to be honest. What the $65 price tag offers is variety (lots of different dishes you can try), not quantity or “worth it” ingredients. For example, there’s no crab eggs benny or anything with seafood in it. I think it’s more so you get to try this fancy brunch in a pretty environment.
Also, this is definitely not worth it if you are vegetarian. Although many dishes are vegetarian friendly and there are also lots of vegan substitutions, I just don’t think $65 justifies a vegetarian bottomless brunch when you can’t enjoy any of the meat-based items.
Breakfast items are cheap (eggs, bread, potatoes) so the markup on brunch has always been pretty crazy in my opinion but I’m a basic bitch so I love going for brunch anyways. Basically, I think the bottomless brunch at ARC is fun to try one time or something to do for a special occasion, but it wouldn’t be a return visit.
Sincerely, Loewe