Elephant by Chef Justin Song-Ell Vancouver Omakase [Review]

Elephant is a chef-owned and operated farm-to-table restaurant and wine bar in East Vancouver.

The restaurant seats features just 18 seats and diners are treated to a 5-course “omakase” or leave-it-to-the-chef dinner experience.

The menu highlights lesser-known ingredients and fermentation as a major aspect in the preparation.

In 2022, Elephant was a recommended restaurant in the inaugural MICHELIN guide for Vancouver. See the entry here.

Chef Justin Song-Ell was the solo chef that evening preparing our dishes. If you sit at the bar, you can watch him work. The bartender was our server for the evening since we sat at high top table rather than at the bar.

Here are the dishes we had for the evening:

Cloudy Daikon Soup with Scallion Oil

Persian Cucumber with Anchovy, Fermented Garlic

Salanova lettuce with warm spot prawn head, XO Sauce

Chicory Salad with roasted curry leaf vinaigrette, salted egg, oxidized apple and walnuts

Raw Beef Tartare with Tarragon and Brown Butter

Aged Rice with Taleggio, Turnip and Peanut

Frozen Thai Iced Tea with Calabrian Olive Oil

Grapefruit Spritz

When the dishes were presented to the table, I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of them based on the appearance but I really got into them after trying them out. Great play on flavours, textures and all the courses were unique on their own but still went well together. The cooking is humble but the flavours did come through.

At the time of our visit, the price per person for the omakase was $58 which was reasonable.

Elephant is located at 1879 Powell St, Vancouver, BC.