WEEKENDER | PNE Fair 2025 x Hastings Park x East Van

Hastings–Sunrise—(August 14 and 20, 2025) For its 115th year, the 2025 PNE Fair is still trying to make everyone happy. This past weekend, East Vancouver's annual late summer tradition on the Pacific National Exhibition's festival fairgrounds in Hastings Park opened up once again for two weeks of hot summer fun for the whole family.

FEAST | Global Flavours x Bar Asra x South Granville

"We want to celebrate the connection between cultures, ingredients, and people."

Tokyo Silk (sake, Calpico, pomegranate, and vodka) + Nigata Paper Plane (bourbon, spritz, grappa, and lemon)

South Granville—(May 9, 2025) Bar Asra, the brand new cocktail bar and restaurant, comes from seasoned Sirka chefs Kanwardeep Ahluwalia and Baldeep Singh (also co-owners) and occupies the original hundred-year-old location of the legendary Vij's and later its sister restaurant Rangoli.

IMBIBE | Good Thief x Rebellious Vietnamese x Riley Park

"It's a venture into the unexplored territories of flavour and design."

Riley Park–Little Mountain—(July 25, 2024) From co-founders/siblings Vincent and Amélie Thuy Nguyễn, the same "older brother and sister" duo behind the award-winning, authentic Vietnamese restaurant slyly named after themselves, Anh and Chi (since 2016), comes their hotly anticipated, recently opened next door culinary side project, the cheekily named Good Thief—a name purposely evoking a modern day Robin Hood.

WEEKENDER | Brewery and the Beast 2024 x False Creek

False Creek—(June 2, 2024) Inauspiciously moved up a month from its usual midsummer date, the 11th annual Brewery and the Beast Vancouver, one of Canada's ultimate all-you-can-eat-and-drink outdoor meat and craft beer festivals, packed another hungry hoard of rainjacket-clad barbecue lovers at Concord Pacific Place on a very wet and rainy weekend.

FEAST | Italiano x Locanda dell'Orso x Opening x Victorian Hotel

Downtown—(May 13, 2024) A new, authentic, family-style Italian restaurant, Locanda dell'Orso (Italian for "Inn of the Bear"), just opened for dinner service. It occupies Autostrada's old iconic downtown location (originally Cinara) underneath the historic Victorian Hotel on West Pender.

VIFF 2023 | The Cook, His Lover, and 'The Taste of Things'

"Happiness is continuing to desire what we already have."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2023—Vietnamese-born French filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng embodies the remarkable romanticism of cooking, dining, and eating with and for someone you love in the sumptuously made The Taste of Things (previously titled The Pot-au-Feu and known as La Passion de Dodin Bouffant in French). This period romance satiates the screen with the simmering passion of gastronomy through its expressive performances and culinary cinematography.

IMBIBE | Crudo Bar x On the Terrace x Acquafarina Restaurant

Downtown—(May 17, 2023) Michelin Guide-recommended Italian fine-dining restaurant Acquafarina recently installed Chef Jefferson Alvarez as its Culinary Director earlier this year, alongside reestablishing his weekly Chef's Lab meals (served on Tuesdays) while making a string of other moves behind the kitchen since then.

FEAST | Mediterranean Fusion x Oo La Cha x Versante x Richmond

Richmond—(June 1, 2022) Just a stone's throw away from YVR Airport and a short walk from my apartment (true story), the swanky, year-old Versante Hotel is secretly brimming with luxurious culinary flavours and indulgent libations from the still relatively newish Mediterranean-inspired seafood fusion restaurant, Oo La Cha, found across the hall from the cavernous Cask Whisky Vault lounge—both located inside the recently established Club Versante complex attached to the hotel.

SCREEN | Soul Food – 'We Feed People' x DOXA 2022

"Make sure that food is an agent of change."

DOXA Documentary Film Festival

We Feed People follows gregarious, Spanish-born celebrity chef José Andrés' mission to provide meals in the wake of natural disasters, starting with the 2010 Haiti earthquake, through his World Central Kitchen non-profit NGO. Director Ron Howard chronicles the famous cook's relentless determination to feed the hungry (as the title would suggest) in devastated areas as fast as possible against the red tape of emergency humanitarian aid.

GRUB | Dipping Ramen x Menya Itto x Opening x Robson

"Menya Itto means 'house of ramen—one lantern'."

Robson—(March 13, 2022) Tokyo's top-rated ramen shop, Menya Itto, quietly opened up a shiny, brand new location—its very first in North America—in the West End part of town last week and is slowly ramping up its world-famous Japanese noodle-based offerings.

FEAST | Plant-based Cuisine x Nightshade x Yaletown

Yaletown—(February 4, 2022) Downtown's trendy new plant-based Nightshade Restaurant offers a plethora of high-end vegan dishes in an appealing atmosphere. Spearheaded by the Sattva Hospitality team and Montreal-based Canadian-Cambodian Executive Chef Chanthy Yen—personal chef to the Prime Minister and his family—the contemporary eatery feels intimately hip and fresh with its contemporary design.

FEAST | Alimentaria Mexicana x Cantina & Mercado x Granville Island

"We're proud to present a truly authentic Mexican taste of place here."

Granville Island—(September 28, 2021) From the team behind Chancho and Nuba restaurants and spearheaded by Mexican-Canadian chef/restaurateur Ernesto Gomez, Alimentaria Mexicana opened its authentic cantina eatery over the summer in the former Edible Canada location to much delight and early acclaim.

GRUB | DownLow Chicken Shack x Opening x UBC

UBC—Commercial Drive's now-famous Downlow Chicken Shack finally opened its second location not long ago—they also serve DownLow Burgers out of The American bar—on campus and just in time for freshman students to enjoy on University Boulevard's stacked restaurant row full of dining options.

IMBIBE | Patio Season x The Boxcar x Tacofino x Strathcona

Strathcona—(July 5, 2021) The Boxcar is already well on its way to having a fine summer thanks to its narrow but awesome carriageway space—sandwiched in between the old Cobalt venue and Pizzeria Farina—leading into a pretty vibrant outdoor backlot patio tucked away off a back alley near the gates to Chinatown on Main Street.

FEAST | Italian Meets Chinese x Miantiao Restaurant x Shangri-La

"Chinese gastronomy uplifted by the elegant simplicity of Italian cuisine."

ostrica freddo (poached and chilled oysters) + Soppratutto (with bourbon, mint amaro, lemon juice, and egg white)

Financial District—(June 22, 2021) Easily one of the year's most highly-anticipated restaurant openings has been the brand new Italian-Chinese fusion concept from Miantiao Restaurant & Bar—so named after the Mandarin word for "noodle"—located upstairs inside the luxurious five-star Shangri-La Hotel Vancouver after taking over the old Market by Jean-Georges dining space.

FEAST | Dine Out 2021 x Maenam x Thai Food x West 4th

Bangkok Beehive (bourbon, honey syrup, pineapple juice) + Siam Sunburn (tequila, passionfruit purée, egg white)

West 4th—(January 28, 2021) The nineteenth annual Dine Out Vancouver Festival is back—a tad later than usual in the new year—with its trademark selection of set menus available across town. Courtesy of Tourism Vancouver, we were treated to a preview at the Thai restaurant stalwart Maenam to sample their three-course prix fixe dinner.

FEAST | New in Town x Street Auntie Apertivo House x Granville

"Fusion is confusion."

Granville—(November 26, 2020) The brand new, casually-named fifteen-seat restaurant Street Auntie Apertivo House, a mouthful to say, just opened in the so-named downtown Entertainment District. Its minimalist fusion-style tapas concept is focused on serving more or less authentic contemporary Chinese street food dishes with its own little culinary refinements.

FEAST | New in Town x Cold Tea Restaurant x Granville

wok beef (beef tenderloin tips with pineapple, bell peppers, onion, and cilantro)

Granville—(July 7, 2020) Downtown Vancouver's newest pan-Asian eatery, Cold Tea Restaurant—named after the secret post-last call tradition of covertly serving beer in a teapot (aka "cold tea") and not to be confused with the similarly named Toronto bar—takes over the storied, old Tsui Hang Village location right in the heart of the titular Entertainment District.

FEAST | Fresh Sheet x Coquille Fine Seafood x Gastown

Gastown—(November 18, 2019) Coquille Fine Seafood has been around for a minute now after initially opening to much anticipation and fanfare thanks to its sterling pedigree inherited from the team behind L'Abattoir and their renowned "slaughterhouse" restaurant just a few blocks away.

FEAST | Québécois Cuisine x St. Lawrence Restaurant x Railtown

Railtown—After being named one of Canada's best new restaurants by various outlets, including enRoute Magazine, last year, I recently finally got around to dining at the much-ballyhooed, award-winning St. Lawrence Restaurant to sample some of their fine French-Canadian cuisine from Chef J.C. Poirier and the team behind Ask for Luigi for myself.