Cecilia’s dinner hour food and drink land in Vancouver’s top tier

I arrived at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night. We started with cocktails. The Garden District ($16) — Freeland gin, strawberry Campari, lemon juice and crushed pink peppercorns — arrived in a highball glass with a long cylinder of ice. The Sgt. Pepper ($16) —Libélula tequila, Bèrto aperitivo, Amargo De Chile, black pepper, lemon and orange juice, sprinkled with chili flakes and topped with a twist of lemon peel — arrived in a tall, flared sling glass. They were both excellent and exactly the high-quality cocktails I’ve come to expect from Preston Groves, Northwest Hospitality’s beverage director.

The food matched the quality of the drinks. The menu is filled with timeless dishes skillfully executed and updated. We started with the Spanish Octopus with red wine tomato sauce, roasted potatoes and charred lemon ($24), and the artichoke salad ($16). The tender grilled tendrils of octopus came with a tangle of bitter kale contrasted with creamy potatoes, all bathed in an earthy red wine tomato sauce. The artichoke salad also offered an array of flavors and textures: clean, meaty long hearts of artichoke mixed with salty bits of feta mingled with sheets of prosciutto then dressed with a lemon Parmesan vinaigrette that lent a touch of citrus and umami.

Picking just two main courses was difficult, but we settled on a ribeye ($52) and the Chef’s Jambalaya ($28). The 16-ounce ribeye was an excellent cut — just the right thickness with a charred exterior and a red but not bloody interior. I tend to avoid steak when I dine out. It’s typically the least interesting dish on the menu, but this dish was far from dull. The steak was topped with a lob of bone-marrow butter and served with roasted fingerling potatoes and tender broccolini tossed with a blue cheese fondue sauce. The Chef’s Jambalaya had salmon and halibut that evening, in addition to its regular ingredients of prawns, andouille sausage, saffron rice and spicy Cajun sauce topped with a chiffonade of scallions. It was so delicious that, even though I was pacing myself in order to try the desserts, I couldn’t stop eating.

For dessert I had an espresso martini ($14), passion-fruit pot de crème ($12) and a skillet cookie with vanilla ice cream ($10). The dessert cocktail with Titos, Mud Puddle Bitter Chocolate Vodka, coffee liqueur and cold brew with a demerara rim had just the right touch of sweetness to make it dessert-friendly without being overly cloying. The passion-fruit pot de crème with toasted coconut and whipped cream was light, fruity and refreshing. The skillet cookie is baked to order but didn’t seem to take long to arrive at our table. It was delicious.

Overall, this was an excellent meal that puts Cecilia at the top of my list of the best restaurants in Vancouver. The food and drinks are top tier, but it’s the warm casual elegance of the entire experience that makes this a place that I want to regularly spend time.