VIDEO | Dolly Watts is a study in determination and tenacity. To watch her video, choose your connection speed:
The New York Times raved.
The restaurant critic for the world's most influential newspaper loved the warm, casual and relaxed feeling of the Liliget Feast House, at the foot of Davie in Vancouver's West End.
The Times writer described the menu as "traditional North West Coast Native cuisine with a contemporary edge," sampling the wood-grilled salmon, alder-smoked oysters, roasted duck, venison, steamed fern shoots and toasted seaweed with rice. He also wrote about the lighting, cedar tables and beams, all of it evoking an Aboriginal longhouse.
Over the years, many other newspapers have reviewed the restaurant. Without exception, they have given the place two thumbs up,
But, for Liliget manager Dolly Watts, success didn't come easy. In fact, if she hadn't been so stubborn, it might not have come at all.
Wrong.
And if you want to know just how wrong, talk to Dolly, a study in determination and tenacity.
Dolly, 67, started her restaurant and catering business eight years ago with no government financing. Today, almost two-thirds of her customers are tourists, she says, primarily from Germany, Japan or the United States. Last year, the restaurant and its catering service earned about $350,000.
She employs only Aboriginal staff and cooks the food on which she was raised: alder-grilled salmon and meat, cedar platters heaped with seafood, venison and buffalo, with wild berries for dessert.
The setting is superb, designed originally by Canada's leading architect, Arthur Erickson.
Liliget's tranquil dining room, complete with wooden paths and loose pebbles, contains an impressive collection of Aboriginal art. The cedar tables and benches offer seating in a highly unconventional way; guests, who include the famous and near-famous, flip the floor-level tables up to sit, with their legs lowered in a hollow.
"We grill most everything over fire," Dolly says proudly. "We use alder wood so that everything we cook tastes so much like the food we used to eat in our villages." Authentic Northwest Coast dishes include halibut, salmon and caribou cooked over an alderwood grill.
Watts also co-founded the Aboriginal Business Club, which provides a forum for sharing successful business strategies and ideas with others in the Aboriginal community. A fighter, she quickly learned that to survive in business, she would need the support of friends and family. But she knows how to work hard. Prior to entering the restaurant business, she earned a Masters in Anthropology at the University of B.C.
Running a restaurant meant another kind of learning. Dolly had to hire chefs, keep the books, order the food and pay the bills. And on occasion, she had to take care of "one of the hardest parts of my business" — laying off an employee who wasn't working out.
Her three children, all of whom graduated from post-secondary schools, played a critical role in Dolly's success.One does the books, one helps with marketing. And, during hectic times, all have come down to the restaurant to help out.
The recipient of numerous culinary and business honours, including a Lifetime Aboriginal Achievement Award in 2001, Watts has developed a loyal clientele. She also does a brisk business in catering these days, which adds up to about one-third of her revenue.
Dolly seems poised to benefit from a growing Aboriginal tourism industry that some experts predict could turn a billion dollars in Canada over the next decade.
Here in B.C., there is a growing interest on the part of "cultural tourists" from countries such as Germany, Holland and the U.S. Increasingly, visitors are keen to experience an authentic aspect of Aboriginal culture.
Many find their way to Liliget Feast House for an experience that is genuine and delicious. To accommodate the visitors, the restaurant keeps longer hours during summer.
Not content to rest on her laurels, Dolly would like to expand the longhouse restaurant concept and move uptown to a new convention center proposed for a site near Canada Place. But, since it won't be finished for another eight years, she's going to have to wait.
Liliget Feast House is located at 1724 Davie Street in Vancouver or, on the Internet: www.liliget.com
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