The Farmers Apprentice is located in Fairview and they serve a farm to table style cuisine that uses the best ingredients that our local farmers have to offer.
As per weekend tradition, brunch is a must! Farmers Apprentice has been on my ‘eating list’ for a while. They were named best new restaurant of 2014 by En Route Magazine, Restaurant of the Year by Vancouver Magazine, and so many more.
It just seemed like it opened and instantly won all these awards. Either way, I wanted to check it out for myself.
The interior is rustic and has about 40 seats, but they are quite busy. The atmosphere is casual that you feel like you fit right in.
Their kitchen is pretty open, so you can see what they are all doing. I love it since you know they have nothing to hide. They just want to make delicious food. The best view of the kitchen is from the bar seats. I love bar seats since you can see all the staff in action.
All the dishes for brunch are meant to be shared and it arrives in the order they prepare them.
Cappuccino was our drink of choice to start off our day. It came in these clear mugs, so we can see the contents inside.
Smorrebord (all 3 – $16 or $6 each) is an open-faced sprouted rye bread sandwich. When we dined here, they had 3 kinds:
- filet beans, fromage frais, soft boiled egg and roasted onion
- beef tartare, mustard emulsion, and pickled shallots
- cod rillette, creme fraiche, pickled beets and dill
It’s a great item to share among friends. What I liked most about this item is the bread! I just love the texture of all the seeds in it. All 3 flavours were great, as you can really taste the ingredients that go into each one. But, I felt like the beef tartare was under seasoned or needed a bit more mustard taste to make the beef taste shine through.
Berkshire and tamsworth pork biscuit sandwich with fried egg ($14) this was highly recommended by our server. She says it apparently changes lives when people sink their teeth into this. Definitely brunch worthy. The egg was fried perfectly with a soft yolky centre. The biscuit was damn good too.
Octopus, sieglinde potatoes, pickled radish, charmoula, and poached egg ($15) was just delightful. The octopus was tender and flavourful. The sauce balanced well with all the other ingredients.
When I was eating this dish, you can’t help but adore each bite of each ingredient. The octopus was really good!
The egg was poached soft and made my heart sing. That’s my favourite type of egg to fit a perfect brunch meal. I get angry at other restaurants when they don’t know how to poach eggs.
Confit Chicken, potato has, summer squash, and poached eggs ($13) had a similar presentation to the octopus. Great taste and it felt super clean and healthy.
Overall, you can really classify this restaurant as farm to table with hipster west coast flare if there was such a thing? I enjoyed the meal and you can feel the passion that the chef has for this restaurant and this type of cuisine. Plus, BC grows some amazing vegetables and produce great proteins. I’m sure if you asked the staff about where they source their ingredients, you’ll enjoy the stories.
This restaurant won’t appeal to everyone but it’s great to try at least once. It’s feels healthy, clean and delicious. Usually brunch is associated with being greasy and protein heavy, but it’s a nice change coming here.
We Rate Farmers Apprentice: 
Address:
1535 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver
Website:
http://www.farmersapprentice.ca/
