Chef Abbie Gluvic: the Voice of Murmur
Sometimes the best hidden gems are in fact (you guessed it) hidden. Since opening their doors on July 28th, 2025, Murmur has offered quiet testament to the value of curiosity, and refusing to allow little ongoing construction to deter from the pursuit of good food. Until recently, the intimate, 16 seat space has been shrouded behind a wall of scaffolding on Broadway between Main and Kingsway. Most passersby were likely too concerned with maintaining a cautious eye for falling debris to catch a glimpse of the chalkboard out front describing one of the most compelling tasting menus in the city.
Inside, the walls are painted with intentionally visible brushstrokes, a fitting reminder that owner James Romanchuk undertook the renovation independently a mere three months before their soft opening. The floorboards are crooked, the chairs are mismatched, and the gallery wall is adorned with a scattering of photos and paintings - all of which combine to say: get comfortable, and let us cook for you.
The shift in their visual presence has been echoed by the evolution of their culinary identity. Murmur began as a casual, early morning cafe concept brewed up by Romanchuk following his departure from a career in animation and software development. However, he was met with resistance from the building’s ownership due to the close proximity of other cafes, and quickly shifted focus towards a lunch menu.
That’s where Chef Abbie Gluvic comes in.
The pair put their heads together, built a stunning lunch program, and started focusing on Sunday roasts: casual, familial, and warming in every sense. But the journey didn’t end there. As the duo continued to discover Murmur’s identity, parsing through their own passions and feeling out what worked and what didn’t, the concept gradually morphed into what it is today: an earnest showcase of the Pacific Northwest's finest foraged and locally sourced ingredients, with tasting menus that speak to locality while drawing influence from Chef Abbie's Vietnamese and James Romanchuk's Filipino heritages.
While Chef Abbie’s dishes have been adored by those who have been lucky enough to dine in one of the restaurant’s 16 seats, she has been candid about the vulnerability that comes with designing menus that come from such a personal place. Gluvic recalls the uncertainty she faced before introducing the Cedar Panna Cotta to the menu. “A lot of people haven’t had cedar in a dish,” she remarks. The self doubt subsided quickly alongside guests’ praise for the dessert’s unique expression of one of BC’s most abundant yet underutilised foraged goods.
This reverence for locality is second nature for Gluvic, who grew up in the forests of BC foraging for native herbs and flowers alongside two naturopath parents. Chef Abbie fondly recalls her father guiding her towards the healing tannins of salal leaves and other seasonally foraged ingredients. These lessons have followed Abbie into the kitchen, and have brought her back to the forest time and time again.
A lifetime of botanical knowhow continues to inform her palate, inspiring dishes like a black garlic and mushroom pasta with locally sourced oyster mushrooms.
Until recently, Chef Abbie was running dinner service as a solo operation - a project that encouraged her full creative agency while affording the space to come out of her shell as a young chef. During her studies at VCC’s culinary arts program, Gluvic worked at the prestigious Published on Main under Chef Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson, a fellow forager who encouraged Chef Abbie’s passion for bringing BC’s ecology into the kitchen. From there, she joined the team at Savio Volpe, gaining valuable experience in a high capacity and high pressure kitchen. Likewise, Culinary Director Phil Scarfone offered mentorship and a shared passion for locally foraged botanicals that further solidified Gluvic’s dedication to the bounty of the forest floor.
When asked what her guiding philosophy is behind tasting menus at Murmur, Chef Abbie quickly supplied the answer:
“To try new things. I’m trying to teach myself that it’s okay to experiment… It's nothing too serious. If I like it and people like it, that’s all I want. There’s no right way to do things. Cooking what I know, and also what I don’t know. Try new things, being scared, and being okay to be scared”.
Every iteration of Murmur has been valuable in equal measure. Looking back, Gluvic recalls being driven forward by a simple, encompassing purpose: “cooking food that we enjoy eating”.
At risk of erring on the side of poetics, I can’t help but think that the scaffolding that enshrouded Murmur and Things for nearly a year after their inception was something of a cocoon. Behind those boards and bars, Romanchuk and Gluvic quietly learned the language that Murmur wanted them to speak: not a whisper, but an ongoing dialogue between locality, seasonality, and a unyielding willingness to challenge the familiar.
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