How much truffle is too much truffle?
No such thing, darling.
The culinary aria of sorts at a first-of-its-kind-in-Canada event held this week in Vancouver. Dubbed a “multi-sensory dinner,” it was where the tang of the Pacific air met the musk of the earthy treasures — a truffle-gasm built for the eyes, the ears and mouth.
Eight courses. 100 people. A suggested donation of $25,000 per twosome. A you-had-to-be-there night made all the more alluring courtesy of three-Michelin-star chef Umberto Bombana — often dubbed “the king of truffles” — who’d been recruited to conceive the “experience” held inside the Fairmont Pacific Rim.
“Less tariffs! More truffles!” quipped one jolly gentleman at my table when the conversation, at one point, turned to the icky state of Canadian-American relations at the moment. Indeed.
The objective of the soirée, held to benefit the Arthritis Society Canada (headquartered in Toronto)? “To do something that had not been done before,” shared event chair Cecilia Tse. And to do it with style, via the generous sponsorship of Serein Properties’ Betsy Wen, who underwrote the event, plus the trippy handiwork of Normal Studio (creators of the “Beyond Van Gogh” experience, among others).
As guests from across B.C., Alberta and Ontario, and even those from as far away as California and Hong Kong, sifted through the blur of food-and-wine-pairings, it was a kaleidoscope: from the white cauldron blaze of Antarctica to Giverny-like meadows to a Trek-y space hop.
As colours shifted, and the zigzagged — our table tops constantly transforming, as did vast wall panelling — servers came shouldering dishes such as the Confit Alabone Carpaccio with sweet pepper and semidried tomato and Oscietra caviar (masterful) and a Cavatelli with Shellfish Ragout and Sea Urchin (a signature of chef Umberto). Truffle here, truffle there, sometimes as a trio in a single dish (raw, cooked and its skin used to make a sauce) and often even in unexpected places (like the roasted pear that was a sleeper hit, whipped with mascarpone cream and, well, yes, truffle!).
The star of the evening: a type of fungi that’s been an object of enchantment since ancient Rome, during the Renaissance and for many a royal court. Catherine de’ Medici sought them out, for instance, and King Francis I of France was particularly fond, truffles frequently featured at his banquets. Considered a luxury item and even believed to possess aphrodisiac properties, the Greeks, too rhapsodized about them, the philosopher Plutarch telling the story that truffles came into existence after Zeus launched one of his storied thunderbolts, its heat creating the ideal conditions near an oak tree.
Difficult to cultivate, and highly mercurial when it comes to soil composition, temperature and rainfall, they do typically grow along the roots of trees such as oak, hazelnut and beech. The most sought-after today are the black Périgord truffle from France and the white Alba from Italy — and the plan at this dinner in Canada was, initially, to feature both. Until nature intervened.
“White truffle was really a challenge last year,” Bombana told me. “The rainfall.” And, well, tremors from climate change that have reportedly seen the haul of white truffles in Italy drop by 30 per cent in recent decades, all the while pushing prices that make it more valuable than gold.
“Seasons,” he shrugged in that European way. This, from a chef who started using truffle as a boy, inspired by his grandmother, who once cooked for an aristocratic family in his town of Bergamo. Whose star rose immeasurably when he moved to Hong Kong to open Toscana, an iconic fine dining locale, and from which an empire of other restaurants flowed.
Making this particular dinner fairly noteworthy, too? A cause that sometimes gets short shrift in the competitive landscape of charitable galas. Or, as Trish Barbato, the president and CEO of Arthritis Society Canada, puts it: “I think one of the things about arthritis is that it has a lot of myths associated with it … people think it’s just an older person’s disease that is inevitable … And none of that is true. People get arthritis from all ages, including children. They can be diagnosed from anywhere from 12 to 18 months.”
Indeed, arthritis hits one in four women in Canada, and one in six men, and the proceeds from the “multi-sensory star chef soirée” will help to fund research, as well as special programs like a camp in B.C. for children who live with the chronic disease.
As is so often the case with society benefits — especially inaugural ones — there was plenty of heavy-lifting and dots-connecting involved, and the event couldn’t have happened without the social muscle of Leslie Diamond. One of the grande dames on the Vancouver philanthropic scene, whose family has long supported health-care issues in particular, her signing on as a “honorary champion” for the dinner gave it an instant halo. And brought in other influentials. “She made it happen,” an in-the-know source told me.
Mission accomplished? You bet. This week’s multi-sensory dinner would wind up bringing in a haul of $1.35 million. A night of umami and swirl. And one that Zeus himself would have dug.
