Updates From the Glowbal Empire

UPDATES FROM THE GLOWBAL EMPIRE

In a busy town, who’s busier than Emad Yacoub, Jack Lamont and their multi-restaurant owning Glowbal Group?

Not many, we’d say. Here’s the latest update:

The Glowbal Group has taken an 8,000 square foot space on Alberni (across the street from their immensely popular Italian Kitchen, and just down the block towards Thurlow), where they intend to have a new restaurant operating by early 2009. This will be a concept similar to Italian Kitchen (swank design, at least one big lounge section) except that the menu focus will be on seafood. The multi level site will be big enough to also house a commissary kitchen and admin spaces for their separate and growing catering business.

How will this new version of seafood restaurant differ from their Coast restaurant in Yaletown?

“Well, for one thing”, says Yacoub, “this one will be open for lunch -- something that is not workable in Yaletown. As shown by the success of Italian Kitchen, a big segment of our clientele is the downtown business crowd and we want to do more to provide for that market.”

As for Yaletown, Glowbal intends to add a high-end sports bar to that scene by late 2009, a venue that a single, unnamed party has already fully booked for the duration of the Olympics ... and that’s all we are permitted to say on that score.

ADDED: Okay, we were asked not to mention the word "moving" but as someone else has let the cat out of that bag, we confirm that Coast will be moved to the new location on Alberni street, and the new sports bar will be moved into Coast's Yaletown location.  The Coast move however, will not take place until after the Summer.

Trattoria Italian Kitchen, a more casual version of Italian Kitchen, is still under construction at the old Chianti space on Kitsilano’s West Fourth Ave, and the only hold up for Gormorrah (a future restaurant/lounge concept), has been in acquiring the ideal parcel of real estate to accommodate it. So far, the front running contender is a space in Gastown.

But the Glowbal expansion doesn’t stop here. The people behind Le Vieux Pin and LaStella wineries in the Okanagan have just broke ground to build a two-story hotel complex in Calgary, and Global has signed a deal to operate a restaurant on the ground floor and provide the food services for the rest of the hotel. The projected opening date for this is 2012.

Back at Coast restaurant, if you have not been in for awhile, you should check it out. Their talented new chef Josh Wolfe has made substantial changes to the menu and is turning out some amazing dishes featuring BC spring salmon, including a beautiful plate of lightly cured slices of salmon belly served with strips of jellyfish, fried shallots, amaranth and red clover sprouts, plus tiny cubes of coconut jelly.

If you are eating at the bar, be sure to try the popular "Lobster Poutine" or the city's best New England style clam chowder. On the regular menu, you'll find a "Liverpool style" Fish and Chips with a terrific tartar sauce and a crab cake tht we can really recommend. Coast is also featuring a South of France menu for this weekend only.

Also on the news line …. The Loden Hotel has experienced another small delay and have pushed back their opening from late April 2008 to late May or early June. From the Loden’s debut announcement in mid 2007, the Kor Hotel Group (video) has scaled back the number of rooms from 200+ to 77, and have cancelled plans to build a swimming pool on the roof. The Voya restaurant however, will go ahead as originally designed with Chef Marc-André Choquette at the helm.

Over at the New Shangri-La Hotel (video), which sounds more glam every time we hear about it, the latest news is that Matthew Opferkuch, the former Food and Beverage Director of the Metropolitan Hotel and the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, has joined the management team.

Be sure to tune your radio at noon today to CFUN 1410 AM and catch the Best of Food and Wine Show with Anthony Gismondi and Kasey Wilson. They will be interviewing Warren Geraghty, West Restaurant’s new star chef from Britain.