Robbie Kane is at the nexus of a waffle empire. In the six years since opening Café Medina at the corner of Beatty and Dunsmuir, his restaurant has kept the city flush with Liege waffles — lightly yeasted, pleasingly chewy and shot through with crunchy pearl sugar — and delicately caffeinated with lavender lattes.
But as he tells me over the phone, “The only inevitable thing in life is change.” And so in July, Café Medina said goodbye to its original digs and set up shop at 780 Richards St., in what Kane calls the “Library District.”
Presently, the Library District is mostly pizza joints and suspect sushi spots hoping to capture hangry international students or stadium-goers in search of quick calories. But with Telus Gardens casting a shadow from across the street, Kane is betting that the Library District will find its groove.
As if Café Medina isn’t groovy enough. Designed by Kane’s brother Brian, the new room is bigger and more in line with the café’s name, which connotes radiant or enlightened city. Think high ceilings, lots of light and a faded fresco over the bar. And despite the new space, it still comes with the old lineups.
But this is one lineup worth braving, and it’s testament to Café Medina’s reputation as one of the city’s best brunches. When Kane started in 2008, “there was a serious gap in the brunch market,” he says. “Other than greasy spoons and The Elbow Room. There was Paul’s Omelettery but [brunch] wasn’t the cultural experience that it was in other cities.”
The original Café Medina didn’t have a proper kitchen for the first eight months, so Kane and then-business partner Nico Schuermans opted for Liege waffles and coffee. Eleanor Waterfall Chow (then the pastry chef at Chambar, now half of Cadeaux Bakery) came up with the idea of the dipping sauces: the now-classic milk chocolate lavender, mixed berry compote and an insanely thick Greek yogurt.
Once the kitchen was up and running, it wasn’t long before people were also queueing for savoury dishes, many of which have made the jump to the new Café Medina.
Executive chef Jonathan Chovancek has added to the menu. One of the highlights is the humble yet brilliant harissa pain plat: a thin pita stuffed with spiced meat, served with tomato salsa, spiced baba ganoush and topped with an egg. It’s like a flat burger best consumed with knife and fork.
And while there’s a steady flow of lavender lattes streaming from the espresso bar to eager customers, the house-made sodas (courtesy of Chovancek’s other half, Uva’s Lauren Mote) are worth checking out. The fizzy coffee tonic has a pleasingly savoury edge to it, and the rosehip and jaffa orange crush is wildly complex with just a touch of sweetness.
And, of course, there are the waffles. They’re slightly smaller and a tad more caramelized than at the old space, but every bit as addictive. A new bourbon-peach butterscotch sauce is available, but if you really want to splurge, borrow from the sides menu and get mascarpone with black-pepper honey. You’ll need to order several waffles to achieve the right balance of waffle to garnish, but this is, shall we say, a first-world problem.
The charm of the original Café Medina was more than the menu or the service. The room itself had personality — and while the new space is different, it has just as much character. “It feels so comfortable,” says Kane. “I’m grateful to be providing people with sustenance and I’m so grateful they’re willing to come and wait and enjoy.”
