Another Richmond restaurant has sadly gone dark, and this one took a genuinely original idea down with it.
Broli Kitchen, the Asian-Italian fusion spot tucked inside Blundell Centre, has shut down after about five years.
A Noms Mag community member (xqsme_vancouver) tipped us off after finding the space closed, and the restaurant’s Google listing now shows it as permanently closed as of May 29.
For a small mall unit, Broli Kitchen was doing something you do not see anywhere else in the city.
It opened in 2021 with a menu that ran seafood, pasta and pizza through a distinctly Asian lens, the kind of crossover that usually only works on paper.
Asian-Italian fusion barely exists as a category, so getting the concept off the ground in a quiet Richmond mall was its own small feat.
The person behind it was chef Zhuang Li.
According to a report by Richmond News on Broli Kitchen, Chef Li spent a decade as a sous chef at the Sheraton Wall Centre in downtown Vancouver, and also cooked at Provence Marinaside in Yaletown.
Those years in French and Italian kitchens, layered over his Chinese heritage, are where the Broli Kitchen idea came from.
It was a fine-dining resume pointed at pizza and pasta, and that contrast was the whole appeal.
The pork belly pizza was the order people kept coming back for.
The durian pizza was the true curveball, the kind of order that exists to be talked about.
A truffle chilli prawn rounded out a lineup that leaned all the way into the fusion premise.
It gave people in Richmond a reason to seek out Blundell rather than default to the nearest pasta chain.
Keeping a concept like that alive in a strip mall is hard, where rent, foot traffic, and word of mouth all have to line up at the same time.
There is no word yet on whether chef Li plans to resurface with another concept, or on what moves into the Blundell Centre unit next.
Broli Kitchen joins other recently closed Richmond food spots including Hazukido Cafe Plus, Datang Hot Pot, and Hight Dragon.
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Address: 8180 No 2 Rd #186, Richmond, BC V7C 5J9