Araxi Restaurant Celebrates its 25th Anniversary

Days of Disco: A party at Araxi Restaurant in the '80s. That's waiter Jorge Alvarez (centre), and Araxi (Mrs. Jack Evrensel) doesn't look a day older, but who's the dude in the Saturday Night Fever suit?



Aging with grace and complexity…Araxi digs into its Cellar

By Tim Pawsey


Restaurant longevity. It’s not as easy as you think. In fact, you can count the rooms that have remained seriously in our culinary conscience throughout such a time span on the fingers of one hand.

Picture this: when Araxi, the restaurant, opened in 1981, Whistler still felt like a village (not to mention that it WAS only a village). Owner Jack Evrensel ( Top Table Group) was barely out of bell bottoms, and ‘sustainable’ had more to do with paying the rent than sourcing ingredients.

Fast forward to 2006, as Araxi celebrates its quarter century with a bang—a Cornucopia ‘Big Guns’ dinner replete with flagship rarities from Champagne, Burgundy, Rhone, Colio, Napa, Walla Walla and Niagara.

To talk about the plans for the celebration taking place this weekend, we tracked down Araxi restaurant director, Steve Edwards -- a keen boarder, who returned to Whistler last August after working three years at CinCin, Araxi’s sister restaurant in Vancouver. Edwards, says that for him it was the right time—although he has no illusions about the challenges of running a restaurant in a seasonal resort town.

“The fluctuations in business here are incredible,