The Mackenzie Room: Valentine’s Day 2024
This year for Valentine’s Day, we visited The Mackenzie Room, a rustic x refined restaurant between Gastown and Downtown Eastside. They first opened in 2015 and fall under the Collective Hospitality group of restaurants, which includes another restaurant we like – Say Mercy.
Recommended: Read my review of Say Mercy’s tasting menu, which features Italian x American BBQ dishes.
I booked the reservation quite early in advance back in early December and at that time, they didn’t announce any special menus for Valentine’s Day yet so I was actually planning on getting their regular tasting menu for 2 priced at $178 for the table.
But as February approached, I was happy to see an email from The Mackenzie Room saying they will be offering a special Valentine’s Day menu priced at $115 per person ๐ (regular al le carte menu not be available).
Here is everything we tried!
The vibe
Looking at the exterior, The Mackenzie Room is quite unassuming. We were lucky to find parking right outside and it was pretty cheap – $2 for 2 hours.
Once inside, you are greeted warmly into a cozy and candlelit atmosphere. The style and decor is certainly rustic with a lot of wooden elements (wooden tables, chairs, benches, bar stools), a giant chalk board for a menu, and a simple bar with industrial pipe shelving.
We were seated at a small table for 2. It’s always funny how the girl gets the bench seating and the man gets the chair on the other side ๐. I actually think the wooden chair is a bit more comfortable because it has a cushion/padding on the bum, whereas the wooden bench was hard everywhere, but the chair was also closer to the door so I didn’t want to be cold.
I actually enjoyed the casual atmosphere and the lighting and ambiance still made it romantic.
Food and drinks review
As mentioned, their regular menu was not available so everyone was getting the Valentine’s Day special menu at $115 per person.
Featured cocktail ($24) + Lady wallflower ($20)
The Valentine’s Day featured cocktail for the night was $24 and used Campari, green chartreuse, lime syrup and saline. It is described to be a herbaceous, bitter sweet love potion. The taste of this cocktail was still quite fruity and easy to drink, with just a bit of a kick at the end so it suited Kelvin’s tastes.
I order the Lady Wallflower, which is on their regular cocktail menu. It uses Wallflower gin, crรจme da cassis, lime, egg white, plum and rootbeer bitters. I was pretty happy with the presentation of the cocktail (I’m a sucker for this glass and anything with egg white foam ๐) because of the little hearts – I felt like this suited Valentine’s Day a little more than the featured cocktail. My drink was much more fruity than Kelvin’s.
South flying bird ($22)
Mid-way through our meal, we finished our 2 cocktails and ordered 1 more to share – the South Flying Bird. This cocktail uses Per Magloire Calvados, flor de cana 12, Pierre Ferrand dry curacao, apple and almond orgeat and some lime.
We liked the tropical and fun in this cocktail even though it was a little hard to drink between the big leaves in the middle and the ice cubes. It tasted sweet and sour with a strong apple flavour. We also felt it was stronger than our first 2 cocktails.
Amuse bouche
The first items to come to our table food-wise is the amuse bouche course. This was described to us as a fancy tater tot, which – hey I am a potato girl – only delighted me and excited me ๐คฉ.
The bottom is essentially a tater tot/deep fried potato, with some cheese, chives, and caviar on top. This small one-biter packed quite a punch but was just a tad bit salty for me ๐.
First course: Sea urchin
Our first course is the Sea Urchin. This is actually one of the most popular items on their regular menu as I saw a lot of posts and photos of this dish so I was happy this was part of the Valentine’s Day menu.
It is a block of uni (sea urchin) pate with some hazelnut and onion jam. Served with it are some pears and 4 large chunks of squid ink brioche bread.
We really liked the presentation of this dish and felt it resembled art. It was quite easy to eat – you spread some of the buttery uni pate onto the black bread and eat it with all the components. I liked the balance of the sweet onion jam and pears plus the savouriness from the pate – it is less bitter than regular chicken pate. The squid ink brioche also offered some nice texture.
Regular price for this dish is $24 and it’s called “Chicken of the sea”.
Second course: Endive
The second course is called “Endive” and I was expecting it to be a salad, but I was surprised at how many potatoes were incorporated into this dish. There actually was more potato than endives, I felt.
Again, presentation was really pretty. They had a fancy French cheese (comte) in the middle, with potatoes and fig underneath. Then they have a layer of endives, topped with potato chips.
Hey I love potatoes so I really wasn’t complaining. This dish ended up being a bit heavier than I expected, but I still enjoyed it. Lots of different textures at play and they still brought it together with sweetness from the figs.
Regular price for this dish is $24.
Mid-course: Hamachi crudo
The mid-course was a hamachi crudo (4 pieces) in a blood orange sauce and radish. This was a nice little in-between item because it was more sour than the other dishes (I felt the 2 potato dishes were a bit salty), but I did find it to be just a bit too sour ๐ฃ.
Regular price for this dish is $30, although I imagine the portion would be bigger.
Third course: Sole pithivier
Moving into the main courses, we first have a sole pithivier. I just tried pithivier for the first time at L’Abattoir for Dine Out Vancouver and I quite enjoyed it so I was looking forward to some more puff pastry this time around.
Recommended: Read my review of L’Abattoir’s $65 per person Dine Out Vancouver menu.
The pithivier was more enclosed and it was filled with sole – it resembled more like a fish pie. Next to it we have 2 coquettes made with potatoes and leeks and decorated with 2 thin slices of cauliflower. The sauce, which reeked of buttery goodness, also included truffle.
We both really liked this dish and felt that even though it looked kind of small, it tasted quite rich due to the sauce. I also felt the pairings just went really well together (potato and leek) and truffle mushroom sauce. Simple combinations that work!
Fourth course: Quail + Foie gras ($25)
Our last main course is quail. For some reason, I kept thinking this would be quail eggs because Kelvin is always going on about how much he loves quail eggs, so I was being dumb and surprised when I saw red meat ๐ .
Anyways, the quail legs were topped with red currants and sat on top of a bed of root vegetables (cabbage and mushrooms). They made it kind of like a potato pave but with veggies – cool! The sauce I don’t remember what they said it was, but it made the dish taste kind of Asian to us (kind of like a plum sauce) so we were surprised at that flavour profile ๐ณ.
We added foie gras to this dish for an extra $25 and it was very fatty and good, paired well with the quail meat and the red sauce. It was also a big enough portion to share between 2 people.
Sable breton
For desert, we are presented with a very pretty looking chocolate cookie dish. The bottom is a shortbread cookie that is coated in chocolate, with pears, salted caramel, peppercorn and a brown sugar tuile.
We actually weren’t the biggest fans of this dessert – we mostly didn’t like the shortbread cookie at the bottom because it was a bit hard. But it wasn’t a very sweet dessert despite its appearance.
Mignardise: Coconut macarons
To end the night, they gave us 2 pink-red macarons that are actually coconut flavoured. They told us the pastry chef is French trained and used to work at St, Lawrence, one of Vancouver’s few restaurants with a Michelin star.
We both liked these macarons more than the actual pear dessert that was on the menu.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: โญโญโญโญ
In total, we spent around $400 after tax and tip for the Valentine’s Day special menu ($255 for 2 people) + our 3 cocktails ($66 total).
We had a really great time at The Mackenzie Room for Valentine’s Day. Generally, most courses came out pretty quickly, especially in the beginning. We talked about how optimized it is for them to only offer 1 menu for all guests. However, things did slow down and we waited longer to get the quail dish.
Despite this, service was excellent and they always explained the dishes when they arrived. We also received a Valentine’s Day card from the restaurant, which I thought was quite cute.
Food-wise, I would describe The Mackenzie’s Room food as simple farm-to-table style. A lot of the dishes used basic and complimentary pairings (ex. potato and leek, mushroom and truffle, pate and jam) that just work but they elevate the dishes through presentation.
Our favourite dishes of the night was the sea urchin pate (#1 by far!) and then the sole pithivier. I am mostly removing 1 star because there were 2 dishes I felt were too salty and the dessert I didn’t like very much either.
I’m not sure when we will return but if we do, it would be to try their regular tasting menu which I believe has a much more attractive price ($178 for the table = $89 per person).
Thank you for a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
Sincerely, Loewe