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Is Vancouver Failing Its Restaurants?
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COVER: TANYA GOEHRING
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VA N M AG .C O M
S E P T E M B E R /O C TO B E R 2 0 2 1 // VO LU M E 5 4 // N U M B E R 5
A stunning nigiri platter from our Best Sushi (Takeout) winner. It’s almost too pretty to eat. Almost.
FE ATURES
39
The 32nd* Annual Restaurant Awards Unprecedented times call for unprecedented categories. Our takeoutheavy awards celebrate the eats that got us through, and the best new spots that opened despite it all.
39
21
COVER: TANYA GOEHRING
24
30
City
Culture
21 What It’s Like To A peek behind the scenes at the work of an on-set intimacy coordinator.
75 The Ticket All the best events in the city, including Indigenous dance, live theatre and the most well-curated dental office art collection you’ve ever seen.
75
24 City Informer If a Vancouver chef really invented the California roll, why the American name? 30 Days of Future Past Following councillor Colleen Hardwick’s controversial path through city hall. And she’s not slowing down.
80
80 On the Rise Casca Designs takes a step in the right direction with 3D-printed shoes. 82 Love Letter An ode to logs on the beach.
82
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EDITOR’S BOX
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VANCOUVER MAGAZINE is published six times a year by Canada Wide Media Limited, Suite 230, 4321 Still Creek Drive, Burnaby, B.C. V5C 6S7. Phone 604-2997311; fax 604-299-9188. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission. Not responsible for unsolicited editorial material. Privacy Policy: On occasion, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened organizations whose product or service might interest you. If you prefer that we not share your name and address (postal and/ or email), you can easily remove your name from our mailing lists by reaching us at any of the listed contact points. You can review our complete Privacy Policy at Vanmag.com. Indexed in the Canadian Magazine Index by Micromedia Ltd. and also in the Canadian Periodical Index. International standard serial no. ISSN 0380-9552. Canadian publications mail product sales agreement #40068973. Printed in Canada by Transcontinental Printing G.P. (LGM Graphics), 737 Moray St., Winnipeg, Man. R3J 3S9. All reproduction requests must be made to: COPIBEC (paper reproductions) 800-717-2022, or CEDROM-SNi (electronic reproductions) 800-563-5665. Distributed by Coast to Coast Ltd.
BC 14 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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ED NOTE
For the last 18 months or so, our food editor, Neal McLennan, has been hosting an Instagram Live on Thursdays at noon called the Thursday Takeout. He chats with folks from across the hospitality industry—restaurant owners, chefs, front-of-house managers, bartenders, sommeliers—and the conversations have shone a very personal light on what the pandemic has meant for an industry that is the backbone of every great neighbourhood. One of those interviews struck a particular chord with a lot of our viewers, and that was with Shiva Reddy, general manager of the soon-to-be-open Collective Goods. She’d talked about how difficult the economic side of the pandemic had been, for sure, but the most poignant part of the conversation relayed how tough it had been on industry professionals like her who were naturally hospitable—who wanted to offer guests a wonderful night out in their restaurant, only to find themselves having to provide an experience that’s anything but. To have to enforce the latest provincial health rules, to keep their distance, to ensure groups were small and staying at their tables and, above all, to hope they didn’t get sick themselves, or pass the illness on to a loved one—everything that has been so essential to getting us all safely through the pandemic, but that’s the antithesis of what the industry wants to be. And while the pandemic has been absolutely vicious on restaurants, COVID merely fanned the flames on what’s been a tough business for decades. This issue, along with our pandemic-pivoted 32nd annual Restaurant Awards (you’ll note a very takeout-oriented set of celebrations this year), Neal digs into what it would and should take to boost an industry we as a city may have been taking for granted (“We Are Failing the Restaurant Industry,” page 64). As I write this, cases are rising, but the vaccine passport has just been announced, and I have great hopes that local restaurants can stay open and do what they love to do: create a welcoming and safe space that feeds both body and spirit. A heartfelt congratulations to all of our Restaurant Awards winners, and immense gratitude to the industry for everything you’ve done to get us through these last 18 months. May we all pay you back tenfold in the months to come.
Coming Up Next Issue The Neighbourhood Gift Guide Assistant editor Alyssa Hirose is taking it to the streets, and exploring her favourite neighbourhoods in the city to find the very best gifts, the top experiences and the best places to take a break during the holiday shopping madness.
The Strata Is Broken As the collapse of the Surfside condos in Florida so tragically illustrated, the strata system—where everyday owners make huge decisions on their collective asset—needs an overhaul. We’ll look at where the system is vulnerable, and what needs to change, ASAP.
On the Web Underrated Gems Associate editor Nathan Caddell highlights the spots around the city that haven’t yet received the attention they so very much deserve.
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PORTRAIT: EVA AN KHERA J; ST YLING BY LUISA RINO, MAKEUP BY MEL ANIE NEUFELD; CLOTHING COURTESY HOLT RENFREW, HOLTRENFREW.COM
Taking Care of Business
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PORTRAIT: EVA AN KHERA J; ST YLING BY LUISA RINO, MAKEUP BY MEL ANIE NEUFELD; CLOTHING COURTESY HOLT RENFREW, HOLTRENFREW.COM
Thai Green Curry with Prawns coconut green curry, jasmine rice, bok choy, spinach peppers, bean sprout, thai basil cilantro, crispy rice.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF AMANDA LIZ CUT TING
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VA N M AG .C O M/C I T Y
I N T I M AT E B U S I N E S S / T H E CA L I F O R N I CAT I O N O F S U S H I
City
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMANDA LIZ CUT TING
Practice Safe Set Amanda Liz Cutting on the set of Mastram, India’s most-viewed web series, with actors Anshuman Jha and Isha Chhabra.
What It’s Like to Be an Intimacy Coordinator Amanda Liz Cutting of Principal Intimacy Professionals helps actors through their most vulnerable scenes. as told to
Alyssa Hirose
an intimacy coordinator is an actor’s advocate and a gobetween. My job is to help increase clear communication between the performers and the production—and to make sure that there is consent in scenes of vulnerability, including scenes with emotional intimacy, simulated sex, sexual violence or childbirth. Actors are often worried about getting hired for their next job, so they don’t want to seem difficult on set. And that can manifest in many ways: it might prevent them from asking a question of clarity, or actually advocating for themselves and saying something like “I don’t feel safe showing this side of my buttocks” or “I don’t feel comfortable in this type of simulated sexual position.” I started as an actor, and I’ve been an agent and worked in casting and directing. When I was an agent, often my clients would be cast in vulnerable scenes where they were looking for more support. So I started working as an actor’s advocate, making sure that the performers were safe and being respected on set. After completing
VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 21
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City W H AT I T ’ S L I K E T O the Intimacy Director International (IDI) training program, I became IDI’s first certified intimacy coordinator in Western Canada. I was also the first intimacy coordinator to work in Bollywood, and I’m currently helping set industry standards there. As an intimacy coordinator, I’ll have one-on-one meetings
give them the support they need. Crew members are just doing their jobs, and are so desensitized to the go-go-go atmosphere—for example, they won’t give the performer an opportunity to put on a bathrobe before they run in and make a lighting change. I remind production that these are people we are dealing with,
I remind production that these are people we are dealing with, human beings, and we cannot treat them like machines.
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with the performers, so they feel safer to tell me the truth without worrying about whether their job is at risk. From there, we work with the director to understand the vision. Some actors want to set consent boundaries, and some don’t want to have to improvise anything. In the same way that we would choreograph a stunt or a dance, we walk through and have every single beat of the scene clearly defined. Sometimes, the director will give a note, like “It’s not zinging” or “It needs to be hotter,” and I help clarify that to the performers: “If you bring your breath up into your chest, it will read this way to camera”—that sort of thing. We can use essential oils to help bring people in and out of character, if they need that, and also work with wardrobe to make sure we have the right modesty garments. In this industry, we ask actors to be vulnerable, to be exposed, and we don’t often
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human beings, and we cannot treat them like machines. It is an absolutely essential job, and I often wonder if the reason we have such high alcohol, drug use and suicide in the arts industry is because we ask performers to go to these depths of vulnerability, we film it over and over and then we pack them up and send them home to deal with the emotional bleed-off. An intimacy coordinator will touch base with the performers afterward, help derole them, and bring awareness to where they might be feeling residual emotions in their body. When I’m there, there are noticeable differences in the set dynamics as well as in the actual performances of the actors. They know there is someone there whose whole job is to make sure that they are comfortable and confident. They can really delve deeper into the performance, and ultimately, that makes for better art.
22 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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CIT Y INFORMER
Did a Vancouver Sushi Chef Really Invent the California Roll? by
Stacey McLachlan Byron Eggenschwiler
illustration by
Why do I introduce myself at every party as the inventor of Gogurt, the portable, snackable yogurt tubes ideal for cool teens on the go and kids who hate spoons? Because there’s pretty much no way to prove when or how a ubiquitous menu item was created. (Also I crave attention, as you probably know if you’ve read this column before.) Which is why it remains unclear if Vancouver chef Hidekazu Tojo—of the acclaimed and enduring Tojo’s— actually did create the California roll in 1974. Not that I’m calling Chef Tojo a liar at all, no no no, I would never disrespect the honour of a man with such a distinguished reputation and the city’s sharpest knife collection! Nothing of the sort! There are just a lot of other people out there who also think they invented the California roll. But as we know from all the times I’ve booked a karaoke room and thought, “I’ll just sit back and
Tojo has gone so far as to try to copyright the roll. If that tenacity isn’t cold hard proof, I don’t know what is. let other people sing tonight,” what we believe and what is true are two different things. Chalk it up to parallel reasoning: great minds think alike. Did you know that another guy invented the steam engine, too, but he was up in the mountains and by the time he came down to the Big City to tell people, everyone was like, “Sorry dude, Greg has been steaming engines for, like, months now; where have you been,
it’s actually kind of overdone and I’m more into collecting vintage covered wagons now?!” (I am not paraphrasing.) Tojo shares the title of California (Roll) King with two duelling L.A. sushi chefs who both claim that the idea was theirs. On the one hand, Ichiro Mashita has Encyclopedia Britannica in his corner, but on the other hand, there’s Noritoshi Kanai, whose name indicates that he
24 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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City I N F O R M E R
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was born to roll (nori means seaweed, of course) sooooo... Tojo, though, is the only one who has gone so far as to try to copyright the roll. If that tenacity isn’t cold hard proof, I don’t know what is. What all these chefs seem to have in common is that they wisely saw cooked seafood and hidden seaweed as an opportunity to convince picky-ass white people to try sushi. In Tojo’s case, it was on one fateful evening in ’74 (I am picturing “The Way We Were” blasting on the radio and Tojo with beautiful, Fawcett-esque feathered hair, and I encourage you to do the same) that he flipped over seaweed-pressed rice to wrap up Dungeness crab, avocado, egg crepe and spinach to offer maki-phobic customers a gateway bite. He called it the “Inside Out” roll, and it was a hit. Perhaps too much of a hit: copycat rolls started popping up over the next few years. The Japanese media saw this unorthodox item taking off on the West Coast of North America, and dubbed it with its famous ’Fornia moniker. Even if Tojo didn’t invent the Cali roll, he’s got other smash hits to act as a foundation for his incredible legacy as the greatest sushi chef in the city— and probably even in Canada. The B.C. roll: ever heard of it? Yeah, that’s a Tojo joint. Ditto the rainbow roll and spider roll. So if he and I rolled (get it?!) into a party at the same time, and both of us claimed to be the inventor of Gogurt, the portable, snackable yogurt tubes ideal for cool teens on the go and kids who hate spoons? Well... I know who I would believe. Got a question for City Informer? stacey.mclachlan@vanmag.com
26 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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Days of Future Past by
Nathan Caddell
portrait by
Carlo Ricci
incredible guy”) and showing off Gemini awards won by her partner, actor Garry Chalk. We reach the balcony, which possesses one of the better views in the city, and she looks north across the water with her trademark steely determination. Up here, she’ll talk about her deep distrust of city hall staff, her historic record of abstentions and her steadfast belief that the city is headed in the wrong direction. Mostly, though, she talks about the past and the future. Her family looms large in both visions—her former alderman father, and her daughters and grandchildren (there’s a second on the way), respectively. Is she really the only one on council who actually knows what’s going on, the only person qualified to lead the city into an affordable, utopian future? Or is she desperately clinging to a Vancouver she used to know, one as
30 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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IMAGE CREDIT
CONTRARY TO THE BELIEFS of some of her critics, Colleen Hardwick doesn’t technically have a backyard. Despite Hardwick being labelled an anti-development NIMBY, her house on the edge of Kits Point instead has a side yard just off of a basement suite. That’s where I find her chatting with her eldest daughter, who lives in the suite with her partner and toddler. After letting the young family know of an upcoming get-together, Hardwick moves briskly up the front stairs, her blond hair whipping back and forth as she checks on plants and rattles off facts and figures about things that happened decades ago. At almost 63 years old, her small frame is showing few signs of slowing down. She leads me through her home— which she calls a “teardown”—stopping to wax poetic about old movie posters (“David Bowie was such an
IMAGE CREDIT
Vancouver councillor Colleen Hardwick has blazed an unprecedented, deeply polarizing trail at City Hall. As the former movie producer and tech entrepreneur ponders a run for mayor, does the Vancouver she longs for still exist?
IMAGE CREDIT
IMAGE CREDIT
HALL OF SHAME Councillor Colleen Hardwick thinks Vancouver is headed in the wrong direction.
VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1 31
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gone as the rail cars that once ran up and down her old neighbourhood?
“First Lady Mayor”
Hardwick was 10 years old when her father, Walter Hardwick, his brother David and a group of associates created the municipal political party TEAM (The Electors Action Movement) around the Hardwicks’ living room in Kerrisdale. The party was formed as an alternative to the thenruling NPA, and it didn’t take long for TEAM to gather momentum. The elder Hardwick, a UBC geography professor, got elected to council first in 1968 and then again in ’70 and ’72. Among Walter’s political accomplishments were his advocacy against a freeway going through the city, and
Spencer, a partner at the Vancouver law firm Fasken Martineau Dumoulin and a childhood friend of Hardwick’s brother, Doug. “She was a fairly serious person—there was a very determined side to her. She wasn’t considered a jokester or anything like that.” Hardwick used that determination to graduate a year early from Magee Secondary. The line that closes her high school yearbook writeup? “To become Vancouver’s First Lady Mayor.”
that it aimed to build 72,000 new units in the next 10 years. Hardwick worries that the increase in new builds will lead to promoting rezoning in excess of pace-of-change, which, she argues, inflates land values further. “If it was a business like a startup, where you’re trying to blue sky your financials, it makes a lot of sense,” she says. “In 2009, Vision regularized developer contributions as revenue in the capital budget... We’re setting targets that are more than double the A Vancouver She Remembers population projections. And so staff It’s fair to say that, as Hardwick sits on are always trying to make the targets and with that comes money.” council today, it’s not quite what she But Hardwick’s population point is imagined in the days of her youth. flawed, says Stuart Smith of VancouThe trouble started less than a month after the 2018 municipal elec- ver housing advocacy group Abundant Housing. “I think that argument tion, in which she proposed a motion
She was very bold and ready to go her own way. She wanted me to learn exactly how everything was done from the ground up and work on how we could break it and fix it and make it better.” to rescind a recently approved bylaw from the Vision Vancouver-controlled council that allowed duplexes to be built across most of the city. Hardwick contends that re-zoning is one of the reasons the city has become so unaffordable, as land is assessed on its highest and best use. So single-family homes get assessed as if they were multi-family units and empty plots of downtown get assessed for their development potential. She’s also shown grave opposition to most development in Vancouver, voting no or abstaining on a vast majority of proposals, with an insistence that, under the current rate of population increase, staff targets for housing are more than double what the city actually needs. To her point, the Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy calls for 32,000 new units in the city from 2017 to 2027, whereas the 2020 Housing Vancouver strategy stated
is popular among people who don’t want any change; it reinforces their point of view,” Smith says. “But it’s fundamentally mistaken. You can’t have population growth if you don’t build housing. So the only growth we see is people who are rich enough to overcome the barrier or are willing to subject themselves in ever-more crowded conditions in the housing that exists.” Hardwick also contends that there is no need for further zoning in the city, making the point that “if you take a map of the city and put a Plexiglas box over it to match the zoning... there are huge swaths that can be developed without doing another rezoning.” Asked where those areas are, Hardwick says she can’t exactly say, because the city hasn’t given her the data she’s requested on what can be built in existing zoned capacity. If you ask her opponents, they’ll say that it’s in areas
COURTESY COLLEEN HARDWICK
his party’s redevelopment of False Creek and Granville Island. Crucially, Hardwick chaired a committee that set up leaseholds for the 1,800 homes on the south end of False Creek instead of selling them off to developers. Colleen recalls that era with fondness. “I remember going down to Granville Island in gumboots and my mom being worried that we were going to step on rusty nails,” she says. “I was putting up lawn signs and working the phone banks. It was the excitement of my life.” That wasn’t the only job Hardwick had in her youth. She “mucked out stalls in exchange for riding lessons” in Southlands, babysat and took over her younger brother’s Province paper route when he didn’t want to collect payment at the door anymore. Hardwick didn’t have a problem with that. “Colleen was one of these older kids people looked up to,” says Keith
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COURTESY COLLEEN HARDWICK
ABOUT TOWN (Clockwise from top) Colleen Hardwick marches in a 1970 protest with her father for the preservation of Gastown; Hardwick and David Bowie on set; Hardwick and her daughter at the Liberal Party leadership convention in 1984.
that are already overdeveloped. “My sense is that she’s yearning for a Vancouver that she remembers when she was younger. But I don’t think we get good results when we try to limit housing,” says Smith. “The artificial line has been drawn. South of 16th and west of Arbutus-ish is only houses, and that’s the cause of a lot of our problems. The actual height everyone focuses on, how many storeys, to me, all of that is a sideshow. The real distinction is geographical segregation: where are people who can’t afford houses allowed to live?”
Tough and Effective
The Hardwick family moved to
Victoria shortly after Colleen graduated from high school, as Walter had accepted the role of deputy education minister with the provincial government. After going back and forth between UBC and UVic in pursuit of a geography degree, Colleen was set to follow in her father’s footsteps toward a career in urban planning. Then, as she says, “the circus came to town.” The Glitter Dome was a TV movie produced by HBO and starring James Garner, Margot Kidder and John Lithgow. It was shot in the Hardwicks’ home, and an impressionable Colleen fell in love. “I was really amazed by the industry, and watching how people came together so quickly to produce
a product,” she says. “In production, whether you’re building buildings or movies or building code for a tech company, the planning principles are the same. The variables are different.” Hardwick became a location manager and then a production manager before founding her own company, New City Productions. It worked as both a production services entity and its own house, and Hardwick saw success selling American networks on Canadian stories, such as with 1997’s The Perfect Mother, based on the murder of a Coquitlam woman. “I think her reputation was being sort of tough and effective,” says Chris Ferguson, who worked as a production
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BACK TO BUSINESS
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assistant with New City and is now president of Vancouver production studio Oddfellows Entertainment. “She was very bold and ready to go her own way. She wanted me to learn exactly how everything was done from the ground up and work on how we could break it and fix it and make it better.” To that end, Hardwick’s goal was to take the industry to the proverbial “next level,” in which New City and other B.C. production companies would be developing their own content, and doing the financing, marketing and sales. “I tried to create an investment fund for the film indus-
Abstaining counts as a yes vote, so the action is more about voicing displeasure with what she deems a flawed city-wide planning process and a belief that city staff aren’t providing councillors with the information they need to evaluate decisions. “How do I put this diplomatically?” asks Green Party councillor Adriane Carr with a laugh. “She’s a bit harsh on staff. Actually, that’s being too nice. She’s harsh on staff. I don’t appreciate that. Our staff work exceedingly hard.” Hardwick hasn’t exactly had rosy relationships with past senior staff members, like chief planner Gil Kel-
Housing Vancouver targets to match with the actual demography of the city. We actually do have the data, we just haven’t done the analysis in a concrete way to base our plans on real need.” Another point that Hardwick often reiterates is the “Americanization of city hall” that she believes started with Vision, in which the city manager and staff are tied to the political well-being of the mayor and the party in power. That’s an argument echoed by Andy Yan, director of the city program at SFU. “She’s tough, she asks tough questions, she questions those in authority that aren’t used to that,” Yan
She’s tough, she asks tough questions, she questions those in authority that aren’t used to that. I think she’s brought forward a certain level of truth and pursued a set of decisions that are not necessarily popular. But what if they’re right?” try that would allow B.C. films to have similar backings to what technology companies have.” After discussions with the province, including then-premier Gordon Campbell and minister of finance Carole Taylor, “we were all ready to go,” recalls Hardwick. “Then Ontario upped their tax credits—whenever that happens, the B.C. industry goes crazy, the sky is falling.” At the same time, the Tysoe Report came out, outlining labour issues in the industry and prompting the Globe & Mail to run a piece in 2004 titled “Hollywood north at risk.” It was enough to convince Hardwick to move on. “For me, the whole hope of building a B.C.–based industry was not going to happen, certainly not at that time.”
“What If They’re Right?”
By late July of this year, Hardwick had racked up 250 abstentions from council decisions in two and a half years at Vancouver City Hall—150 more than the next closest councillor.
ley, or city manager Sadhu Johnston, who opposed her successful motion to open an auditor general’s office. Hardwick recalls a particular instance in which she asked a senior staff member how he knew there’d be enough projects to satisfy development projections. “He said, ‘Well we have a pipeline of projects.’ So I said, ‘Really? Show me the pipeline!’ He said he wasn’t allowed to.” Neither of those two men could be reached for interviews, and a request with current director of planning Theresa O’Donnell was declined. Carr allows that Hardwick is a “consummate person on civic issues” and believes one of her key strengths is her “dogged determination in relying on data to create change.” So does she have a point about not having enough information to make decisions? “I think she’s belabouring the wrong point,” says Carr. “On the issue of our Housing Vancouver plan, with this data, I put forward an amendment a year and a half ago, and it was simply to have staff rejig the
says. “I think she’s brought forward a certain level of truth and pursued a set of decisions that are not necessarily popular. But what if they’re right?”
The Flame That Burns the Brightest
In 2005, Walter Hardwick died after a struggle with early-onset dementia. “He retired in 1997 because they had mandatory retirement at the age of 65,” recalls his daughter. “And it was almost like someone flipped a switch. The flame that burns the brightest, burns the fastest. He was always the smartest guy in the room. And then, all of a sudden, he started asking the same questions over and over.” Colleen spoke last at Walter’s funeral, following a who’s who of influential Vancouverites, like former premier Mike Harcourt, famed medical researcher Pat McGeer and renowned architect Bing Thom. “I talked about the future,” says Hardwick. “And a bunch of his old colleagues came up to me after and said, ‘Now it’s your turn, you’ve gotta
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do this.’” TEAM had fallen apart in the ’80s, so the only real option was running for the NPA: “It was a challenging construct, since we grew up thinking the NPA were the evil empire.” Over the summer, she worked to prepare for the NPA nomination in September. She was successful, but only had seven weeks to prepare for the election. Ultimately, she fell three spots short of the 10-person council. Instead of going back into producing, Hardwick developed the idea for Movie Set, a tech startup that would track movies in production and give fans insight into what was happening behind the scenes. “Film companies could integrate and bring their production online, and then spin a certain amount of content onto the fan side,” she says. Movie Set won Hardwick an award for new media innovation at Toronto’s McLuhan Festival of the Future. “A lot of the stuff she was working on really didn’t get adopted until now, when COVID forced it,” says Ferguson. “If she was pioneering it now, people would be all about it. Just a little too far ahead of her time.” Hardwick managed to raise $5 million in Series A funding in the first half of 2008. Of course, the second half of that year wasn’t so kind. “The lead investor was out of New York,” says Hardwick. “I went out there—it was a ghost town, no money anywhere.” She was able to “wind it down clean,” getting everyone but the VCs their money back. “You always start with the little guy and work your way up. I learned that in the movie biz.” After flirting with the idea of being a developer (yes, seriously), Hardwick founded Place Speak, a location-based community consulting platform that received the support of the National Research Council of Canada.
Centre of Discussion
In 2018, Hardwick again ran for the NPA, but things were different this time. For starters, there was no policy boot camp like Hardwick had been
through in 2005. So, she took the campaign into her own hands. “I looked up everybody I’ve known since kindergarten,” she says. “Because they know me, know my history, know what I know.” She raised some $15,000 and looped in volunteers and friends from the movie and tech industries, and from university. She came in fifth overall and was the second-highest NPA vote-getter, behind incumbent Melissa De Genova. But when she started meeting with her fellow party members, she realized they “were not on the same page, policy-wise.” Now, she often finds herself voting with COPE councillor Jean Swanson against projects like the Broadway subway. And so Hardwick—who is, along with four of the original five NPA councillors, now sitting as an independent—has blazed her own trail, one that makes her perceived placement on the political spectrum shift depending on who you talk to. “She’s definitely right of centre,” says Carr, noting both Hardwick’s reverence for the taxpayer and her opinion that that the city is voting on things above its scope, which explains her votes against and abstentions on Indigenous reconciliation and climate change matters. “She’s thinking about cities as they were 50 years ago. They were largely about very basic public services in terms of infrastructure, roads, water, pipes, that kind of stuff.” Tim Louis, a former councillor who represented the left-wing COPE, calls her “more progressive” than her former NPA brethren. Notably, she voted with the mayor and against her NPA teammates on Stewart’s proposal to increase the empty homes tax. “Colleen is a centrist,” says Shannon Turner, who Hardwick met in university and counts as one of her closest friends. “She’s not a spin doctor, she’s never been good at positioning herself in the public eye. She’s pragmatic, has long sight and is dedicated to planning models that reflect the voice of the community. Change is afoot in the
city, and it’s very necessary.” On Twitter, which Hardwick calls a “cesspool,” there’s no shortage of bile spewed in her direction every time she abstains or votes no on a motion. On other social networks, it’s a different story. Her LinkedIn and Facebook profiles are updated frequently and her posts are mostly celebrated. To the people liking and sharing those posts, the change that was requested in the last election with the ousting of Vision Vancouver hasn’t come. And Hardwick’s insistence on a “balanced” housing system that listens to the city’s neighbourhoods (she’s used Place Speak to consult 50 different residential boroughs and the community groups within them) is appealing to certain voters. “The livable city is what Vancouver has been known for, going back to my dad’s day,” she says. “That was a city in balance. A city people could afford to live in, for starters.” Hardwick still hasn’t decided whether she’ll run for mayor in 2022 in what’s becoming a bit of a crowded (albeit male-dominated) field. Stewart will run again, while former BC Liberal advisor Mark Marissen, NPA park board commissioner John Coupar and former NPA mayoral candidate Ken Sim jockey for support from the centre-right. “I’m going to build a team if I do this; I’m not going to do it alone. I know that there are other people out there who share my concerns,” says Hardwick. “I think it’s time that we focus on Vancouver and its residents. I’m a planner, I plan for the future, that’s where my head’s at—to plan in a way that’s going to enable my grandchildren to live in this city.” It’s a safe bet that, even as she heads into her mid-60s, Hardwick isn’t going anywhere. She’ll keep fighting for her vision, one that older residents of the city will start to recognize. Maybe it works. Or maybe, like the sand on the beach below her balcony, it’s swept up with the city she used to know.
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TANYA GOEHRING
SkipTheDishes – A Valued Partner
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C OV E R STORY
Restaurant Awards 2021
HERE IT IS: our most
TANYA GOEHRING
Bowled Over The wonder that is the Superbaba bowl was a huge hit with our judges in this takeout-heavy year.
unorthodox Restaurant Awards in three decades. But while much is different, we also want to celebrate what’s the same. The big heart of the industry, its ability to push forward through tough times and the pure joy of eating out with friends and family. We raise a glass to all of you.
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★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Holy Sheet Chef/owner Greg Dilabio of Oca Pastificio is a maestro with fresh pasta. Read more about Oca’s Goldmedal win on page 50.
I
Many of the restaurants we had hoped to fete were forced to close, our Restaurant Awards issue was put on indefinite hold, and B.C. and the world started the long process of first understanding and then fighting COVID-19. It was, on all accounts, a slog, and few industries suffered more ups and downs and downs—and more downs—than the restaurant sector. At the magazine, we did ultimately regroup and, through much heavy lifting, we put the 31st edition of the awards out last September, and held a virtual event. But even then, it seemed almost an exercise in nostalgia: a throwback to a time that may have been quite recent but also felt a million miles away. Which brings us to the more optimistic outlook we’re enjoying right now. For the first time in 16 months, the industry seems genuinely hopeful that a corner has
been turned and that normalcy (or, better, a new and improved normalcy like we kick around on page 42) is imminent. But for us—who are the stewards of this great tradition of celebrating the city’s restaurants— the question remained: What to do about our Restaurant Awards? It hardly seemed fair to judge the industry even in the most positive light when many of the candidates had spent the year barely keeping their head above water. But, on the other hand, to let another full year go by with no celebration also seemed unfair when so many deserved recognition for the sacrifices they undertook at every turn.
So, we hit on what follows here. We’re calling it the “32nd* Annual Restaurant Awards.” There’s only one category that has been carried over from previous years: Best New (because we thought it unfair for spots that had the courage to open during the past 16 months to have to wait another year to be lauded). For the rest of the categories, we tried to follow the trends that arose during the pandemic: they’re all takeout related, and they echo the way we were eating this past year. A big thanks to our many Restaurant Awards judges, who volunteered their time to help us make this year’s awards a reality.
TANYA GOEHRING
t was February 2020 and the judging for our 31st Annual Restaurant Awards had just concluded. Our amazing panel of judges had spent the previous 12 months scouring the city for restaurants that excited and enthralled them, revisiting the classics and re-revisiting the new rooms that were creating a buzz. And then... whomp.
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TANYA GOEHRING
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TANYA GOEHRING
Scratch-Made Greatness Chef/owner Greg Dilabio (left) and front of house manager/ owner Antoine Dumont nabbed the Gold for the focused perfection that is Oca Pastificio.
IMAGE CREDIT
★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Best New Restaurant
1 Oca Pastificio 1260 Commercial Dr., ocapastificio.com 2 Published on Main 3593 Main St., publishedonmain.com 3 Say Mercy! 4298 Fraser St., saymercy.ca honourable mention
Potluck Hawker Eatery
3424 Cambie St., potluckyvr.ca Bar Gobo
TANYA GOEHRING
IMAGE CREDIT
237 Union St., bargobo.com
PERHAPS NOTHING SPEAKS MORE to the resilience of the industry than the number of new rooms that opened during the pandemic. It takes a certain type of dreamer/lunatic to look straight into the eye of a hurricane and say, “Let’s go sailing.” (Although, to be fair, when your banker demands you go sailing, it may be more about financial obligation than straight-up courage.) And even limiting the candidates to spots that opened in late 2019 and 2020—the scope of this year’s awards (the 2021 rooms will be on next year’s slate)—still left us with the
most competitive race we’ve had in years. And after all of the votes were tallied, it was the spectacularly low-key Oca Pastificio that emerged with the Gold. The place screams focus, but it never feels studied: there’s chef/owner Greg Dilabio, dialled in at the front of the open kitchen and steadfastly hand-making the sublime pastas that form the bulk of the small chalkboard menu. There’s his business partner, Antoine Dumont, making every one in the small room forget about the wait (this is no-reservation territory) and transporting you to what feels like that
perfect trattoria you happened upon during your trip to Italy years ago. The entire effect is that of comforting brilliance at a shockingly low price point. Our Silver winner is also defined by brilliance, in this case that on frequent display by head chef Gus StieffenhoferBrandson and his uber-capable kitchen. Published on Main was one of the most ambitious openings we’d seen in years when it opened its doors on a stretch of Main Street more used to craft beers than a Michelin-star-worthy tasting menu. The room was gathering some serious word of mouth for its high-wire cooking and unflinching devotion to the best ingredients when the pandemic hit. But while others retreated, StieffenhoferBrandson stayed the course for month after gruelling month. Everything coming from the kitchen continued to be exacting, with the team never accepting less than perfection with every dish as the world strived to return to normal. Taking the Bronze is Sean Reeve and company’s crazy mash-up of Italy and Southern U.S. that is Fraser Street’s Say Mercy! The novel concept required a constant balancing of richness and acidity, seriousness with fun, and Reeve’s kitchen executed night in, night out. All the while, the team simultaneously spearheaded the Staff Meal initiative that saw a small cadre of restaurants helping front-line workers with food, and crafted affordable takeout for the rest of us.
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★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Via Tevere
Well, evidently the best pizzeria in town is also able to best translate their perfectly crusted pies to takeout. Via Tevere has won Gold in this category for the last two years, and here they are again, on top. It helps that its style of warm minimalism—never too many toppings, never too wacky—means there’s less to go wrong in the box, and it also helps that the entire operation offers a comforting embrace of hominess, a boon this past year. In second place is the no-longer-under-the-radar AJ’s, a place that’s always been an industry favourite for its effortlessly convivial vibe and as-authentic-as-youcan-get Brooklyn-style pizza (which has the attitude to travel well). Taking the Bronze is another continued presence on this list: Main Street’s Farina, whose small room meant it spent years perfecting a pie built for takeout.
1 Via Tevere 1190 Victoria Dr., viateverepizzeria.com 2 AJ’s Brooklyn Pizza Joint 325 E Broadway, ajsbrooklynpizzajoint.com 3 Pizzeria Farina 915 Main St., pizzeriafarina.com honourable mention
Di Beppe
8 W Cordova St., dibeppe.com Sprezzatura
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LEIL A K WOK
Best Pizza
TANYA GOEHRING
ta k e o u t
ta k e o u t
Best Sushi
1 Masayoshi
LEIL A K WOK
TANYA GOEHRING
One of the lasting images of the pandemic is Masa-san, the uber-perfectionist behind the elaborately controlled environment of Masayoshi, cheerfully smiling behind his bar while making to-go chirashi and other delicacies for his takeout customers. No doubt many a restaurateur thought, “Well, if Masa-san can do, so can I,” and the orders that came out of the Fraser Street institution, with Masa-san working solo for the most part, will be long remembered as one of the few silver (er, Gold) linings in a supremely tough year. Silver goes to Temaki, the overnight sensation that’s only been around for 18 years. Perhaps it was the numerous chefs who posted themselves picking up takeout (Boulevard’s Alex Chen, we’re looking at you), but word has definitely gotten out that this Broadway spot mixes an accessible menu (in both selection and price point) paired with a commitment to ultra-fresh ingredients that’s seen it become the go-to spot on the west side. Bronze goes to Sashimiya, a jewel box on an overlooked and tough-to-find section of Hornby specializing in no-frills, perfectly presented sushi and sashimi paired with a well curated selection of Japanese grocery staples.
4376 Fraser St., masayoshi.ca 2 Temaki 2156 W Broadway, temakisushi.ca 3 Sashimiya 1348 Hornby St., sashimiya.ca honourable mention
Stem Japanese Eatery
5205 Rumble St., Burnaby, stemjapanese.ca Tetsu Sushi Bar
775 Denman St., tetsusushibar.com
Masayoshi
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ta k e o u t
1 Superbaba
Best Casual
2419 Main St., eatsuperbaba.com
Our co-winners in this category are both new spots, they’re situated only two kilometres from each other, and, like all great restaurants, they have both filled voids we didn’t even know we had. First up is Superbaba, fresh from its multi-year beta-testing in Victoria and backed by a well-regarded team of industry pros (Medina’s Robbie Kane, Jason Sussman of Tacofino, Ryan Spong of the recently sold food.ee), and led on the ground by Abdallah El Chami. This brain trust has come up with a take on Middle Eastern fare that has people losing their minds over the fresh, generous portions and inventive takes on a compact menu. More singular is Justin Cheung’s Potluck Hawker Eatery, an ode to the casual greatness of Malaysian cooking that sees the Angus An protégé crafting a menu that’s equal parts innovative and nostalgic, opening up the tastebuds of Vancouverites to the joy of laksa, roti and salted egg yolk chicken. Taking Bronze is Doug Stephen and Lindsey Mann’s now-iconic Downlow Chicken Shack, the perennial Gold winner that reinvented how this city saw fried chicken (spoiler—we love it). And while the pandemic had its challenges, one of the calming influences was seeing how some things stayed the same—like the never-ending lineup out its Commercial Drive door.
1 Potluck Hawker Eatery
3424 Cambie St., potluckyvr.ca 3 Downlow Chicken 905 Commercial Dr., dlchickenshack.ca honourable mention
Unchai
2351 Burrard St., unchai.ca Livia
1399 Commercial Dr., liviasweets.com Superbaba
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TANYA GOEHRING
Potluck Hawker Eatery
SUPERBABA: TANYA GOEHRING; POTLUCK HAWKER EATERY: DARREN CHUANG
Abdallah El Chami of Superbaba
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
★
ta k e o u t
Best Chinese
TANYA GOEHRING
SUPERBABA: TANYA GOEHRING; POTLUCK HAWKER EATERY: DARREN CHUANG
Chef’s Choice
1 Chef’s Choice
While takeout at entry-level Chinese restaurants has long been a staple in most Vancouver households, the elite restaurants at the top of their game often eschewed the idea. But as it became clear that wouldn’t be an ongoing option, many of the top rooms began to show that they could be masters at to-go as well. Chief among them was Gold winner Chef’s Choice, which opened on West Broadway mere months before the first shutdown but nonetheless captured the attention of the city’s die-hard foodies with its interpretation of classic Cantonese dishes like gold coin roasted chicken. A stone’s throw away is Silver-winner Dynasty, no stranger to these awards, which was able to translate its magic with seafood into takeout—no small feat. And taking Bronze was another newcomer, the opened-in-February iDen & Quan Ju De, whose somewhat gimmicky promise of 5D dining belied the fact that it did the near impossible: create a Peking duck that could travel.
955 W Broadway 2 Dynasty 108-777 W Broadway, dynasty-restaurant.ca 3 iDen & Quan Ju De 2808 Cambie St. honourable mention
Golden Paramount
8111 Anderson Rd., Richmond, goldenparamount.com HK BBQ Master
4651 No. 3 Rd., Richmond
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★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Between 2 Buns
ta k e o u t
105 E Pender St., instagram.com/ between2bunsburgers 2 Au Comptoir 2278 W 4th Ave., aucomptoir.ca 3 Trans Am/Turbo X Trans Am (closed) 1879 Powell St., transamrestaurant.com honourable mention
Per Se Social Corner
891 Homer St., persesocialcorner.com Downlow Burgers
926 Main St., dlburgers.ca
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RESTAURANT: KK L AW; FOOD: LEIL A K WOK
Burgers have never been a standalone category in the Restaurant Awards, but it’s tough to think of a food item that’s been more on people’s minds lately than a classic, well-made burger. And this year, no place captured the public’s attention more than the awesomely lo-fi Between 2 Buns. What started as a passion-project food truck that drew lines at every stop morphed into a bricks-and-mortar spot occupying the former digs of the much-missed Bestie. Smash burgers are the order of the day here, and don’t even think of asking for tomatoes (or any substitutions, for that matter). Your subservience will be rewarded by warm-hearted staff and even more warm-hearted prices ($10 for a burger)—and because it’s already smashed, it travels like a pro. A jump up the elegance scale is the very unsmashed marvel from Kits stalwart Au Comptoir, all Gallic pride in its juicy thickness and topped with caramelized onions and raclette. As a takeout option, it’s an exercise in messiness, but worth it. And last on the podium is the most bittersweet of the bunch—the legendary beefy star of Gianmarco Colannino’s Trans Am, then its offspring Turbo X Trans Am, both victims of the pandemic: a burger so great and pure that it started a movement.
1 Between 2 Buns
TANYA GOEHRING
Best Burger
ta k e o u t
Best Formal
1 Boulevard
It’s easy to look at Gold-winning Boulevard’s deep-pocketed owner and think, well, the pandemic was a cakewalk for them. But anyone who ordered takeout from this spot in the early days was greeted by GM JP Potters—and seen out by him too, as he walked your bags to your car himself—while acclaimed chefs Alex Chen and Roger Ma toiled away making meatballs for patrons and selling prime meat at cost. Three people, that was it. As the months clicked by, the offering from BLVD Provisions expanded (exceptional chowder, make-your-own sea bream in salt crust) and the fact that Boulevard—with its level of greatness that has dominated these awards in the past few years—was able to translate its excellence into takeout was a source of near normalcy for many. Across town, JC Poirier’s St. Lawrence, our Silver winner, took a little longer to figure out how to recreate their intricately devised meals into a takeout format, but when they did, wow. That telltale blue bag holding the multi-course extravaganza mirrored the restaurant’s renewed commitment to table d’hôte dining at the highest level. And rounding out the podium was the tour de force of Top Table2U, an Avengers-esque grouping of CinCin, Blue Water, Elisa and Thierry that quickly became an essential service, be it for a bag of flour or a Holstein striploin, and continued delivering a wide array of perfectly executed dishes at an even wider array of price points.
845 Burrard St., boulevardvancouver.ca 2 St. Lawrence 269 Powell St., stlawrencerestaurant.com 3 Toptable2U Various locations, toptable.ca honourable mention
Hawksworth
801 W Georgia St., hawksworthrestaurant.com Pidgin
350 Carrall St., pidginvancouver.com
RESTAURANT: KK L AW; FOOD: LEIL A K WOK
TANYA GOEHRING
Boulevard
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SPONSORED REPORT
Simple and Sustainable: Masi’s Fresco is Winemaking at its Best for an authentic, simple taste experience. They were produced from organic grapes harvested during the coolest hours then immediately vinified, without drying or any wood influence. The wines are fermented with only the naturally occurring wild yeasts and are bottled unfined and unfiltered, delivering identifiably Veronese wines to be enjoyed in their youth. Given Masi’s long history of innovation, it’s not surprising the venerable vintner is playing a part in an important conversation about where our wines come from and how they are made. Back in 1964 it introduced Campofiorin, the original Supervenetian created through a unique production method (it is still one of the most popular wines in B.C. today).
Masi itself began making wine in 1772, when the Boscaini family acquired vineyards in the Vaio dei Masi valley. Today, the sixth and seventh generation of Boscainis produce Amarone and other wines at a world level using the Appassimento method dating back to ancient Rome. In addition to the thoughtful process in the farming and winemaking of Fresco di Masi Rosso and Bianco wines, Masi realized that sustainable packaging would advance the brand’s objective of minimizing impact on the environment. The light, transparent bottle that imparts the sensation of holding the wine in the palm of one’s hand also reduces shipping weight and energy costs, and the natural cork stopper (no capsule) makes
the packaging entirely plastic free. The label reinterprets the original design of the vintner’s iconic wines with a choice of pop colours. This last year and a half have reminded us how important it is to be together and share the simple pleasure of food and wine, and how we must look after each other and the planet. Small changes in farming, winemaking and supply chain can make a difference, and Masi are excited to be a part of that conversation. CONTACT: Authentic Wine & Spirits Merchants, www.awsm.ca OR VISIT: www.masi.it
Created by Vancouver magazine in partnership with Authentic Wines and Spirits
Authentic Book 1.indb Wines 50 & Spirits.indd 2
Zuba from
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CARLO RICCI
Leave it to Masi, one of Canada’s most popular Italian wine brands, to create the beverage equivalent of the farm-to-plate food trend, with a vine-to-glass experience that harkens to the days when wines were created simply. Fresco di Masi Rosso Verona and Fresco di Masi Bianco Verona, both of which will launch exclusively in BC Liquor Stores in September, are made with minimal processing, are not overly alcoholic, and are characterized by distinct fresh fruit accents (pomegranate, currants and cherry for the former; pineapple and citrus fruits coupled with wild flowers for the latter). The wines were created in response to a growing interest in sustainable, low intervention winemaking and the search
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Quick Change Artist Restaurateur Brandon Grossutti of Pidgin founded the grassroots delivery system FromTo.
e ’s
ave t e
Best Pivot
1 Pidgin
Zuba restaurant and the dishes This is the five-letter word that no one will ever want to hear once the pandemic from Zuba far leftcategory caption here thanks
et.
CARLO RICCI
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is fully behind us, but it was also one of the dominant skills required for survival during the dark days: take your modus operandi and radically rethink it as quickly as possible, or you’re finished. Perhaps the greatest achievement of Gold winner Pidgin is that owner Brandon Grossutti’s first response in the face of upheaval was: “How can I help my community?” His answer was to create FromTo, a grassroots delivery system that sought to shield participating restaurants from the high costs of delivery services through a transparent cost-based model that benefitted both consumer and producer. Pidgin and their acclaimed takeout may have been the test case, but soon dozens of thoughtful owners signed up as well, willing to explore the idea of another way to do delivery. Taking Silver is the one-two punch of Caffé la Tana and Pepino’s who, like Davey Boy Smith and the Dynamite Kid, joined forces to offer everything under one metaphorical tent: groceries, pizza, fresh pasta and wine with a side of the welcoming hospitality that both are known for. Bronze goes to Say Mercy!,whose Staff Meal initiative gathered a disparate group of good souls (from Masayoshi to the Arbor to Belgard Kitchen) to cook affordable takeout, earmark funds for food banks and lend a hand to front-line workers—all while trying to stay afloat in a terrible business environment.
350 Carrall St., pidginvancouver.com 2 Pepino’s/Caffè la Tana 631-35 Commercial Dr., pepinos.ca, caffelatana.ca 3 Say Mercy! 4298 Fraser St., saymercy.ca honourable mention
Mak N Ming (closed)
1629 Yew St., instagram.com/ maknming Burdock & Co
2702 Main St., burdockandco.com
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The Front of House Rules EVERY YEAR when we hold these awards, we carve out a page or two for Premier Crew, a recognition of five or six frontof-house workers who, in the eyes of our judges, have gone above and beyond. We get them together for a photo shoot, write a few nice things about them, and the next year we do it again with another batch of honourees, and so on. But this year it all feels a woefully inadequate response to the people in an often-overlooked segment of the industry who were, without a trace of irony, our goddamn heroes. Let’s have a short recap. The pandemic started for many in the FOH with an immediate layoff notice as restaurants, suddenly plunged into a cash-flow abyss, scrambled to cut costs at every angle in order to survive. And while CERB and a few other related programs tried to stem the financial catastrophe, there were no programs to help with the trauma of being let go by people you often consider family. And worse, the break wasn’t clean, with servers being rehired and let go again and again as restaurants suffered the modest ups and terrible downs of the pandemic, trying to keep their heads above water when it wasn’t even possible to gauge the depth.
And for the lucky few who did come back to work, here’s what they faced: an environment radically worse than the already-precarious one that existed before COVID. There were, at best, half the number of tables, so one can imagine how that affects the livelihood of people whose compensation has been shunted to a customer who enjoys unfettered discretion in what they offer. Vancouver’s FOH folk found themselves spending their entire day masked and gloved up. They found themselves in the role of enforcer as customers grew lax on provincially mandated mask requirements. They routinely had to ask people not to mingle or visit other tables. And all of these unenviable tasks were rarely met with decency—let alone respect—by the unmasked mouthbreathing offenders. And then there was the constant fear and uncertainty of being around large numbers of people day in, day out, when our knowledge about COVID was changing by the week. In a final insult, when the province started to prioritize who would be eligible for early vaccination, they— the very definition of front-line workers— were on the outside looking in. Work in a plant that processes chicken? Here’s your
The work you do is invaluable in keeping the social fabric of our society together— without you, restaurants don’t exist, which means neighbourhoods don’t exist.
shot. Spend all day serving that chicken to a revolving door of randos? We’ll get back to you. For many, it’s been too much. Restaurants are desperate for FOH workers right now, and while jaded people point to the CERB subsidy, the reality is that after the year-and-so that FOH folks have endured, many just don’t know if they can keep doing it. Here’s hoping that everyone involved can find a way to remake the FOH a place worth working in, because, without these professionals, restaurants as we know them will cease to exist. Step one in that journey is gratitude. So, for our part: thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We absolutely respect the job you’ve done over these impossible 18 months, and we promise not to forget in the months and years to come that you answered the call when asked. The work you do is invaluable in keeping the social fabric of our society together—without you, restaurants don’t exist, which means neighbourhoods don’t exist, which means we’re well on our way to being little more than those energy pods from The Matrix. With you, our life is richer, and we want you to know that we appreciate you.
ISTOCK
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RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
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The Hidden Costs of COVID From takeout to Tock, your favourite restaurant has been facing more of a financial strain than you may realize. by
Bridget Stringer-Holden
“This January, we’ll have been in the business for 14 years,” says Robbie Kane, owner of Café Medina. The always-busy spot originally opened in 2008, but COVID-19 saw it transition from brunch hub to online store in a matter of weeks. “It was a huge, huge learning curve,” emphasizes Kane. “We went from serving 400 people a day to walking into an empty room and taking an order for three lemons, two potatoes and a side of hummus—it was a kick in the gut.” But while everyone knows it’s been tough, no one seems to be laying out the actual nuts and bolts of the extra costs restaurants took on to serve fewer people. So we sat down with Kane to take a look at his keeping-afloat-in-COVID price list.
+ TAKEOUT NECESSITIES Approximately $3 for a party of two people ordering brunch.
+
DELIVERY Uber Eats is an extra 20 percent of the total bill (as per government mandate; it was 23 percent before). For an average order of $50, we are giving up $10.
+ CREDIT CARD FEES Fees have remained the same (average: 2.75 percent), but almost no one pays with cash anymore, so that cost has increased. If we’re using Shopify to sell inhouse groceries, that’s 5 percent of sales. For Stripe, which we use to process Tock (Tock also takes 10 percent of any sales over and above a monthly fee and independent of Stripe), that’s 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction. (Credit cards are on top of that.) Paypal takes 10 percent for gift card orders.
+ RESERVATIONS AND TAKEOUT SERVICES Tock’s reservation service is $250 per month. Ritual’s takeout service is 13 percent of sales.
+
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MAILCHIMP Hosting for our new newsletter costs $79 U.S. per month.
b All in all, Kane is grateful that Medina was able to keep its doors open. “I think, at the end of the day, what I’m most proud of is how the entire industry has come together to support each other,” he says—through the pandemic, Kane and his peers shared information about subsidies and how to overcome industry-specific challenges. “There have been lots of chats, group conversations and Zoom calls—the industry is really rising up and meeting the challenge together.”
ISTOCK
PPE AND SAFETY Masks are $50 per week. Gloves went from $12 per box of 100 to $22 very quickly (and we likely doubled our glove usage during this time). Hand sanitizer is $25 per litre. Acrylic shielding cost $10,000. Cleaning supplies and labour are... a lot.
PATIO CONSTRUCTION This is sadly a temporary patio in Medina’s case. Cost: $10,000, not including labour time.
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LEIL A K WOK
Modern Master It’s easy in our current frenetic restaurant scene to forget just what a sea change it was when Tojo’s brought its authentic and wildly innovative Japanese cuisine to town.
IMAGE CREDIT
★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Hall of Fame While we’re all looking forward to the end of the pandemic, this global pause has also given us a chance to look back at three decades of these awards and marvel at some of the rooms and personalities that have dominated their respective categories. Here’s a list of spots that have garnered the most hardware over the previous 31 years—and a celebration of what made (and makes) them so special to the city.
Tojo’s
LEIL A K WOK
IMAGE CREDIT
CATEGORY: Japanese RECORD: 17 Gold Medals in a row from 1992 to 2013
In each of the years Hidekazu Tojo’s Broadway restaurant won Gold it was not only the best Japanese restaurant in town, but in the country, too—and probably the continent. He was our first culinary superstar and, more so than anyone else, he put Vancouver on the world map for dining. The standard he set was so high (and remains so) that
Vancouverites who travel to much larger cities are frequently perplexed to find only one or two high-level Japanese spots, compared to back home, where Tojo’s created an atmosphere of excellence that raised the entire industry. And all while the chef himself has continually exhibited the traits that helped define the tenor of his elegant room: hard work, humility, preternatural focus and never beating his chest about his accomplishments (like when he didn’t lay off a single employee when COVID hit). Tojo-san, you are a generational talent.
Everyone knows that Tojo-san helped put Vancouver on the culinary map, but most people don’t know just how funny and generous he is as a person. He is not only a friend to me, but to every chef in the city.” —Michel Jacob, Le Crocodile
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RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Meeru and Vikram’s New Indian cuisine introduced Vancouver to a fresh constellation of flavours and spicing, rooted in tradition but always pressing forward. Lamb popsicles rained over us! And they never rest: each dish continues to reveal complexity without complication, served forth with effortless charm.”
CATEGORY: Indian/South Asian RECORD: Vij’s, 19 Gold Medals in a row from 1997 to 2015; My Shanti, Gold Medals in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020 (together, Vij and Dhalwala have won 23 out of 24 years)
Do you know how hard it is to win Gold 19 years in a row? Do you know how hard judges and magazines try to add some variety when at all possible? The reality is that, save for a blip of a year in 2019, the team of Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala have dominated the entire idea of what South Asian food is not only in B.C., but also throughout North America. Want another scary fact? The only reason they don’t have three more Golds is that we didn’t even have a Best Indian (as it was then known) award for three years of the restaurant’s operation, after which point it became embarrassing that a spot that
—Jamie Maw, VanMag Food Editor Emeritus was not only attracting Martha Stewart and Harrison Ford but also making them line up like regular joes might be worthy of its own category.
(FOOD) GRANT HARDER; (RESTAURANT & VIKRAM & MEERU) FLORENCE LEUNG FOR PENDULUM MAGA ZINE
Vij’s / My Shanti
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(FOOD) GRANT HARDER; (RESTAURANT & VIKRAM & MEERU) FLORENCE LEUNG FOR PENDULUM MAGA ZINE
PROFESSIONAL
PRO GAS COOKTOP
REDEFINE YOUR KITCHEN AT
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★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Cioppino’s CATEGORY: Best Italian/Best New RECORD: 17 Gold Medals between 2004 and 2020
Running an acclaimed fine Italian restaurant is sort of like being a famous gunslinger back in the Old West: there’s always some young whippersnapper looking to ride into town and take your title. But, since 2004, that’s mostly been an
exercise in futility for anyone challenging Pino Posteraro for dominance in the realm of cooking Italian food at the highest level (he was knighted by the president of Italy in 2018, to underscore the point). His Yaletown room (recently redone, as if to prepare for another 17 years of Golds) seems like one of the pillars upon which our local industry is based—setting unreasonably high standards for both customers and chefs, and then exceeding them.
Pino is always the first one in and last one out. His dedication to his craft is second to none. I’m honoured to be his friend.”
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Since its founding in 1981 by my friend Jack Evrensel, Araxi has established itself not only as one of the best restaurants in B.C., but as one of the best restaurants in the country. With culinary director James Walt bringing his expertise and talent for using local ingredients to the restaurant, Araxi continues to share envelope-pushing food with diners from around the world.” —Rob Feenie, Cactus Club
—Angus An, Maenam
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CATEGORY: Best Whistler RECORD: 17 Gold Medals in 18 years, from 2000 to 2008 and 2010 to 2016
Legendary restaurateur Jack Evrensel was not someone to do something—or anything—lightly, so when he bestowed his Whistler restaurant with the name of his wife Araxi, you knew it was a venture that would strive to be the very best. Early on, he took a chance on a young chef named James Walt and the bet paid off in Gold (a winning trend that continued after Evrensel sold his restaurant to the Aquilini family). Under Walt’s watch, Araxi became the standard that all resort dining had to live up to: locavore, inventive, the type of spot visitors would return home from and rave about to their friends. In so doing, it brought the
De
Su for entire level of Whistler dining up several notches—and made the competition for future Gold Medals that much harder.
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Namesake_VancouverMagazine_Final.pdf
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Namesake
Introducing NAMESAKE, a bespoke luxury furniture collaboration by Victoria McKenney of Enviable Designs and Once A Tree Furniture Designed and Made in Canada
Coming October 2021
Subscribe to our newsletter today at onceatreefurniture.com for first access to shop the entire collection when it drops
750 SW Marine Drive Vancouver, BC 604.324.2126
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★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
Waterfront Wines
CATEGORY: Best Okanagan RECORD: 12 Gold Medals in row, 2009 to 2020
It’s hard to think of a region of Canada that’s had a more dynamic last two decades than the Okanagan. The wines have gone from pleasant curiosities to consistent world beaters and the food has been in quality lockstep: not a month goes by that we don’t hear of some chef leaving Vancouver for the Valley so they can open their own spot, be closer to their suppliers and actually consider buying a house. But you know what’s not dynamic? The Gold Medal winner. Mark Filatow cut his teeth under another local legend, Rod Butters, at the Wickaninnish and ultimately followed his mentor east. He opened the lowkey Waterfront in 2004 and within a few years his mix of precise cooking in a casual atmosphere paired with his deep
knowledge of wine became the paradigm of what a modern restaurant in the new Okanagan should be. Except that whenever anyone else tries to follow that model, they have reliably fallen short of the standard that Filatow and his team continue to set. Who knows when this streak might end?
I have had the pleasure of working with many chefs over the years with events and winemaker’s dinners, and Mark has always been a favourite of mine to work with. He possesses a calm demeanour that is rare in his profession: his combination of having a great palate for food and being a trained sommelier is a winner, and he’s excellent at making dishes that complement and accentuate the wines he is pairing. A rare talent who is a pleasure to work with, ski with or crush riesling with.” —David Paterson, Tantalus Vineyards
47 Olive
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Culmina_V
Congratulations
4790 Wild Rose Street Oliver, B.C. , Canada V0H 1T0 Culmina.ca
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to all 2021 Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Award winners
Please enjoy responsibly
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★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
CATEGORY: Best Vancouver Island RECORD: 15 Gold Medals between 1997 and 2012
In a time before a seemingly endless series of World’s Best lists, Sooke Harbour House reigned supreme as the one spot in Western Canada that could attract the international foodie set (a class of patrons far smaller than it is today). When Sinclair and Frederique Philip opened the restaurant-focused inn in 1979, there was no such thing as a destination restaurant in Canada. But through the early adoption of slow food techniques and a whole lot of sweat and passion they transformed SHH into one of the great rooms in the country. It was also one of the top training grounds for chefs: at various times James Walt, Brock Windsor, David McMillan, Melissa Craig, Jonathan Chovancek, Rhonda Viani, Andrew Richardson and
Marc-André Choquette passed through the kitchen here. We started the category of Best Vancouver Island in 1997—in large part to recognize them—and they dominated it for years, spreading a legacy of relaxed fine dining that continues in the province today.
My time there came immediately after working in some of the best restaurants in France. What I learned at Sooke Harbour House shook me to my core, changing the way I cook and how I think about food, wine and service forever. Sooke Harbour House during the Philips family reign was one of the most historically important restaurants in North America.” —David McMillan, Joe Beef
SOOKE HARBOUR HOUSE & SINCL AIR: WOLFGANG K AEHLER / AL AMY STOCK PHOTO; FREDERIQUE: Y VET TE CARDOZO / AL AMY STOCK PHOTO
Sooke Harbour House
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[
Fo se b
Fort St. John
SOOKE HARBOUR HOUSE & SINCL AIR: WOLFGANG K AEHLER / AL AMY STOCK PHOTO; FREDERIQUE: Y VET TE CARDOZO / AL AMY STOCK PHOTO
(Move up! you’ll love living here)
#1
304
11
Highest household income in BC, and fifth in Canada
Sunny days per year
Public schools
(same as Kelowna)
(elementary, middle and secondary)
31.4
$373,000
Median age
Average price of a single-family home in 2020
(11 years younger than BC’s median age)
[REALLY] LIVING HERE Fort St. John is British Columbia’s best kept secret: Move up here for affordable living and big city amenities in a small, friendly town.
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Estimated Prophet Chef Robert Belcham takes in the view at his Popina Canteen.
IMAGE CREDIT
★
RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
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We Are Failing the Restaurant Industry
When COVID-19 hit, customers were quick to offer their support... but are we the problem that’s holding the industry back?
IMAGE CREDIT
by
IF YOU HAD BEEN LUCKY enough to snag a table at Harry Kambolis’s C Restaurant in its early-aughts heyday, you were in for a treat. The economy was humming (the average price for a detached home in Vancouver was then a “crazy” $400,000), tables were packed and the food—prepped by Robert Belcham, a young sous chef from Peace River a few years removed from the French Laundry in Yountville—was easily among the best in the province. If you had the money and wanted the best seafood, you made the pilgrimage to the foot of Howe Street—and if you wanted a beautiful piece of wild salmon linecaught by the Hawkshaw family of Prince Rupert, it would set you back a cool $25. A small price to pay, thought most Vancouver patrons. Now imagine that, instead of buying that salmon, you took that $25, invested it in the S&P 500 and waited. All the way until July 2019, by which time it had magically transformed into $116.02. To celebrate your enviable restraint, you might want to treat yourself—and, as luck would have it, not only is that same chef still cooking and not only is he still preparing salmon, but he’s still buying it from those exact same fishermen: the Hawkshaws. You stroll to Campagnolo, his popular Main
Neal McLennan
photographs by
Street homage to regional Italian food (that he was able to buy with industry partners on his chef’s salary), and order said salmon... for $28. That’s a 12-percent increase in 16 years. Detached house prices are now hovering at an average $1,417,000 (more than 300 percent higher). Commercial rents have shot up, and minimum wage has almost doubled: two numbers that are of grave importance to someone running a restaurant. But you, the consumer— whose house value has quadrupled, whose stock portfolio has quintupled, whose salary has almost certainly increased—you don’t have to pay for any of that. If you adjust for inflation, the price you’re paying for that salmon has actually decreased in value while all those numbers surrounding it have shot up. Is anyone surprised that Campagnolo shut its doors last year? And not because of the pandemic, but because, even once recovery began, Belcham still couldn’t see a situation where a reasonable rate of return might be earned from it. No wonder the restaurant industry is screwed. What happened? How did a restaurant go from a stable business through which a reasonably successful owner could anticipate
Carlo Ricci
It’s convenient for consumers to assume COVID is the cause of local restaurant woes. And while no one is disputing the devastating effects of the pandemic on the industry, the reality may be that it’s been as much a magnifier of endemic issues as it has been a destroyer in itself.”
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Hang Time A portrait of Gianmarco Colannino in his happy space—the sadly nowclosed Trans Am.
One of the harsh truths is that, as friendly as the industry is with each other, there’s always cutthroat competition just below the surface. Of particular note right now is the high degree of poaching that’s going on for both front and back of house among the restaurants that are struggling to find staff.”
having a detached house in Vancouver and taking their family on a few nice vacations a year to where we are now: a hand-to-mouth grind that awards success only to the most lean of operations and punishes any largesse—like a living wage for employees—with a lifetime a money stress? In the not-too-distant past, restaurants operated on the same basic principles as other successful businesses: when costs go up, so do prices. Now, we have the polarized situation where the only way to make a decent living running a restaurant is to either go big with multiple outlets and the increased
buying power that goes with it, or go low, crafting more affordable fare like sandwiches, burgers and pizza, where ingredient prices are more stable and the canny operator can find better margins. It’s convenient for consumers to assume COVID is the cause of local restaurant woes. And while no one is disputing the devastating effects of the pandemic on the industry, the reality may be that it’s been as much a magnifier of endemic issues as it has been a destroyer in itself. To crib some analysis from current tech sage and NYU professor Scott Galloway: COVID-19 has initiated some trends and altered the direction of others,
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RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
but its most enduring impact will be as an accelerant. Take any trend— social, business or personal—and fast-forward 10 years. What are the issues that need to be addressed if the industry we know and love is to survive? We sat down with a few chefs and owners to chat about the challenges they’ve been facing since long before COVID hit.
Vancouver, You’re a Problem
First and foremost, this is an atrociously expensive city to live in, routinely topping the world’s unaffordability index. And for the vast majority of occupations, there has been no corresponding increase in rates or wages whatsoever to offset the absurd cost of housing and commercial rents. A new line chef fresh out of culinary school (frequently an education expenditure of about $25,000) might hope to make $45,000 in their first year in a Vancouver kitchen. In Calgary, where housing costs are half what they are here, they’d make the same (or more). In Toronto, with similar housing costs, they’d make quite a bit more. In some ways, our low wages are simply a function of the lower amount of money our operations have coming in compared to rival cities. A scan of the menus at Vancouver’s top restaurants shows that entrées priced over $40 are a rarity: Hawksworth—a restaurant synonymous with high-end dining, patronized by movie stars and titans of industry—has only three, while Calgary’s nice-but-not-Hawksworthnice Teatro has 10. Boulevard, our reigning fine-dining champ, has one entrée over $50; at Montreal’s Toqué, a full 80 percent of the entrées are over $50. The tasting menu at Toronto’s Alo, ranked as Canada’s best restaurant by enRoute, is $185. St. Lawrence, the #2 restaurant on
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that list, offers their (admittedly smaller) tasting menu for $65. And on it goes. Merde. Why are our prices so low? To chef Angus An, who worked in London and New York before opening Maenam, it comes down to simple demographics: “We lack the head offices that most other big cities enjoy,” he says. “And we’re far more house-poor to boot.” The result is that we don’t have the expense accounts that help sustain higher-priced spots in places like Calgary and Toronto, and we don’t have the disposable income that helps drive the high-end in cities like Montreal (although somehow, inexplicably, we’re a world leader in Lamborghini ownership and students who buy mansions). Worse, almost every industry person will admit that Vancouver simply has too many restaurants vying for a paucity of dollars. And the numbers back up this sentiment: Statscan reports that, at 3.6 restaurants, eateries, pubs and bars per every 1,000 residents, Vancouver edges out all other major Canadian cities in terms of sheer number of establishments. The next major city down on that list, Montreal, sits at 2.7. So we have more places going after a smaller pool of money. Not a recipe for long-term economic viability.
an accessible price point for the neighbourhood, notwithstanding his plans to cook at the highest level with top-drawer ingredients. So when it became clear that the prices of a few menu items had to rise given their attendant costs, he was hesitant: “I had a certain sense of guilt as a chef raising the prices, but at the same time valuing the work we’re doing in the kitchen.” A similar situation played out at Trans Am, where people lost their collective minds over that restaurant’s much-lauded burger. And why wouldn’t they when a patty made from honest-to-goodness 100-percent wagyu was selling for $17 when it needed to be $27 to break even? Even when Gianmarco Colannino raised the price to $21, he still never came close to breaking even, let alone making a profit. (He subsidized the burger with profits from his liquor sales.) Colannino’s suppliers implored him to raise the price again, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d spent his youth working in restaurants in Montreal and he had vowed that when he opened his own spot, he’d do everything he could to make it the watering hole of his dreams. “I knew I was crazy, but this is what I do,” he says. “This is my path. I don’t want to sit at a desk. I want to give a piece of myself.” And he did. Too much, some might So Why Not Just Raise Prices? say, as Trans Am is now permanently One of the most basic answers to this question is hospitality. The majority closed. And while his actions may seem like that of an inveterate of people in the industry—both dreamer, they hit on another employees and owners—revel in the truism: people have long entered the act of welcoming people into their industry even when its barriers to establishments and enjoying the daily back-and-forth that’s foreign to financial success are so high because they love it like nothing else. “There most other industries. They simply were nights where I had 40 great don’t want to charge their patrons conversations with 40 different huge amounts. When Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson people,” recalls Colannino wistfully. “When a restaurant is working... life opened Published on Main in 2019, is so good.” it was important for him to have
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RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
The less rosy answer to raising prices is that, given the issues, most restaurateurs are fearful that this city won’t accept a hike thanks to a combination of our demographics and our relentless culture of perpetually low prices. One of the harsh truths is that, as friendly as the industry is with each other, there’s always cutthroat competition just below the surface. Of particular note right now is the high degree of poaching that’s going on for both front and back of house among the restaurants that are struggling to find staff. On the one hand, it’s a boon for the employees, at least in the short term. But on the other hand, it’s wreaking havoc within an industry already operating on razorthin margins. Everyone is friends until someone needs a line cook. Likewise, notwithstanding common interests, the industry rarely moves together even when it would be in the owners’ self-interest to do so—say, like agreeing to raise the price for a piece of sustainably caught salmon. There’s a reason that supermarkets and gas stations are always profitable—their prices rise and fall in near-perfect lockstep. And yet, in the restaurant industry, it rarely happens. A few months into the pandemic, for example, restaurants were reeling. And one of the things they all routinely put up with—no-shows— suddenly could mean the difference between a gain or a loss on any given night. Chef JC Poirier of St. Lawrence was the first to implement a solution that’s been growing in popularity at fine-dining restaurants throughout the world: the prepaid reservation. “Why is it okay to not show for your reservation?” wonders the chef. “People prepay for the theatre, cinema, concerts, vacations, even yoga classes—why would restaurants be any different?”
St. Lawrence, desperate to maximize its small number of seats, put the policy in place. You could still cancel free-of-charge, of course, but you couldn’t simply not show up. According to Poirier, the benefits to the system are huge: “We can plan ahead, schedule the right amount of staff, purchase the goods needed for the service, we can schedule payments to suppliers with prompt certainty— it’s just a much healthier environment to run a restaurant.” But even though a few spots tried the concept out, ultimately everyone but St. Lawrence reverted to the terrible old system, fearful of customer backlash. Perhaps the most ironic aspect is that there is already a level of de facto collusion— it just works against the industry, to keep prices low. Want a piece of halibut? It’ll cost you $44 Boulevard. And at L’Abattoir. And Botanist. And Bearfoot Bistro. Hawksworth knocks a buck off it. Of course, there’s no actual collusion, but if an industry leader like Boulevard said their halibut—a product that any consumer who’s been to a local fishmonger knows is ungodly expensive—was going to cost $55, what might happen? This pricing conundrum births yet another problem: a newcomer like Published on Main, which is as ambitious in its cooking and sourcing as any of the spots listed here, has to come in under these heavyweights. Their halibut is $41 for a piece of fish that might cost a consumer $20 at the store—before it’s adorned with exquisite Zaklan Farm vegetables and prepped by a team with decades of experience between them. Perhaps this is the most disheartening aspect of the pandemic. Throughout the world there are ready examples of industries that took the forced break to re-examine and reimagine their
The most obvious yet heartbreaking line item is staff salaries. You’d be hardpressed to find an owner who wouldn’t want to pay all of their employees a living wage (there’s a reason many staffers use the word ‘family’ to describe their work environment).”
processes. The fashion industry moved together to stop the insanity and grotesque expense of holding dozens of wasteful runway shows a year—not only to stop hemorrhaging corporate cash but also to reignite their designers’ creative process. Huge retailers like Ikea and H&M have moved toward a more sustainable model by offering buyback and resell programs. Yet early signs show that, as we emerge from COVID, the restaurant industry is sliding back to its old ways, racing to discount fare in order to get some semblance of cash flow back into their strapped bank accounts.
The Fallout
At the end of the day, it’s a simple economic calculation: if not enough money is coming in, costs need to be
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Thought Leader JC Poirier runs one of the most lauded restaurants in the country—but is he properly rewarded for his achievements?
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RESTAURANT AWARDS 2021
lowered or you’ll go out of business. The most obvious yet heartbreaking line item is staff salaries. You’d be hard-pressed to find an owner who wouldn’t want to pay all of their employees a living wage (there’s a reason many staffers use the word “family” to describe their work environment). It forces an owner to adopt the truly astonishing system that is the modern tipping culture: an owner delegates what compensation a server makes to a customer they have likely never met before. “It’s an incredibly disrespectful system,” says Belcham, noting that it also rewards a first-day-of-work server the same as a 20-year veteran. And it’s not just the front of house. The permanent cash crunch means that the proper training of chefs is a luxury that most establishments can’t afford. Poirier came up under the tutelage of Normand Laprise of the famed Toqué, where the concept of mentorship was deeply imprinted upon him. “If you’re serious, you need a minimum of two to three years at one spot to truly learn from that environment,” he says. But he notes this is a rarity these days, especially given the chronic chef shortage, where people finishing the first year of an apprenticeship are routinely offered head chef positions at desperate restaurants anxious to keep their kitchens running.
Mea Culpa
Which leads to our role—the media— and our complicity in this Catherine wheel of an industry. If Published on Main did the proper thing and charged $50 for its halibut, who do you think would be the first to point it out to the whole wide world? “Newbie thinks they’re better than Boulevard,” the headline would blare. And that’s not even scratching the surface of what the majority
of mouthbreathers on Yelp would unleash. For years I’ve been parsing bottle prices, careful to catch an establishment slipping in a greaterthan-3x-markup and castigating them, publicly, for their greed. It was done in the interest of serving the consumers and protecting them from unscrupulous owners. But pull the lens back on that myopia, and see the big picture: in order for the industry to get to a place where establishments can make sufficient profit to pay everyone involved properly, order sustainable local produce and protein and offer an environment of mentorship for both the front and back of house—then costs need to rise, even on those bottles of wine. The B.C. government’s recent decision to finally allow restaurants to buy liquor at wholesale prices is a help—but it’s not enough. We must evolve our thinking to encapsulate the true cost of running a restaurant. Belcham puts it best: “There’s always a cost to cheap food. Sooner or later down the line someone has to suffer. It might be the owner, it might be the farmer in the Fraser Valley earning less than their parents did on the same land—or the migrant labourer toiling under unreasonable conditions, or an actual enslaved labourer catching shrimp in Southeast Asia. Ultimately, there’s always a cost, and if you care about that, you need to change how you approach dining in a restaurant.”
The Results
Boulevard is hands-down one of the best restaurants in Canada. But it’s also owned by a billionaire. So is Blue Water. And Elisa. And Araxi. Cactus Club is satisfying 1,000 customers as you read this. And Superbaba and the growing Downlow empire are showing that you can do casual fare at a high level with no apparent sacrifices.
If that’s enough for you, then don’t worry. They’re probably all safe. But what about Chambar? L’Abattoir? Burdock & Co? I have no inside knowledge as to their finances, but how do we expect them and their ilk of chef-driven spots with personality to make a continued go at it when the numbers will never add up to a return that is commensurate with their experience and the risks they take? The eating public has a binary approach to a restaurant’s financial health—either you’re out of business or you’re doing great—but the reality is that there’s a huge pool of precariousness in the middle. And, unlike with other speculative industries, there’s almost never a potential pot of gold at the end. Are you comfortable telling JC Poirier that, despite having ascended to the heights of his profession such that, were he a lawyer, he’d be making seven figures, he still needs to continue giving his all for the salary of a first-year associate? There’s not a single chef or owner whom I talked to who had a bad word to say about customers—even off the record. Most wouldn’t stop talking about their gratitude for the acts of kindness and support they experienced during the pandemic. But that triage is over. We’re now in the less-exciting rehabilitation stage of the process, where our support is even more important. The easy answer is that everyone has to do more. We need to affirm to the industry that, just as we will not buy a t-shirt made in a Bangladeshi sweat shop, we will likewise pay the appropriate amount of money for food prepared by a seasoned professional that’s supplied in an ethical manner for everyone along the chain. But appreciating the underlying concerns is one thing; getting comfortable saying “I’ll have the $55 halibut please” is quite another.
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VA N M AG .C O M/C I T Y
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TK TK Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, at probo constituam sed. Alterum aliquando inciderint in eum, ne ius omnium perfecto ullamcorper, ad pri labore volutpat. Qui cu solet complectitur. Ad pri vitae docendi signiferumque, impetus euismod dignissim pri te. Per ut semper epicuri, mei habeo ocurreret no. Usu eu vidit omnis legimus. No sit mutat philosophia, eam et persius discere. Sdmodum mediocrem reprehendunt nec no, eu vis nibh petentium omittantur, per ea unum cotidieque neglegentur. Eos ignota dissentiunt ex, vis eu noluisse similique maiestatis, ad mea electram gubergren. Case abhorreant ei nam, est doctus definitionem et, qui aeterno aliquam consetetur ea. Pri id congue tollit saperet. Has an euismod gloriatur. Ea mutat iusto quo, eum enim reque repudiare ut. Et nec debitis tacimates, ad has ludus nullam vulputate. Velit dolorum vulputate ex vim, natum labore sadipscing et pri. Te graece equidem explicari duo, posse virtute interpretaris nam te. Vim ea purto animal veritus temporibus. Adhuc verear corrumpit te nam. No quem verterem vix. Erant insolens eu mei, vel ferri graeco habemus in, laboramus efficiantur usu an. Suavitate instructior eu mel, ne vim quodsi consequat, ad eum nostrud tacimates scribentur. Ad nec quis reformidans signiferumqutur eum ut, at eam dico meis. Meis COMMUNITY CALLS erant quo ad, ea mucius viderer contentiones When Larissa Healey received compensation from thepostulant, est doming mea. In sea melius government part of theperfecto Sixties deserunt sit eu. constitutoas ne, aeque Scoop settlement, they spread it among the community, who in website.com @instagram turn handmade Healey’s regalia.
BLESS THIS BEAT Larissa Healey is now used to donning the 20-pound-plus regalia worn when grass dancing, but the two-spirit Anishinaabe artist didn’t grow up celebrating Indigenous arts and culture. Healey was a Sixties Scoop baby, stolen from their family and adopted out in the Canadian government’s effort to erase their people. Through powwows at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre and meeting other Indigenous folks in the arts, Healey began to reconnect with their heritage in adulthood. “It’s been awesome, brutal work— the healing process is hardcore,” says Healey. “But your insight and foresight become farther when you deal with your trauma.” As a grass dancer, Healey’s responsibility is to bless the ground through movement: their flexibility and fluidity mimics the way tall grass moves in the wind. It’s a complex and meaningful art, but one that the dancer’s background in martial arts well-prepared them for. Healey grew up practicing kung fu, kickboxing and Brazilian jiu jitsu. That, in addition to their work in sculpture and graffiti (which has been exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Bill Reid Gallery and National Gallery of Canada), informs the discipline and passion that makes their dancing so compelling. “When you hit that happy spot with that drumbeat, your ancestors are there,” says Healey. “They will put their hands on your elbows, and help carry you. I am so proud to be able to hold that space.” Healey will be performing at the opening of the DTES Heart of the City Festival on October 27. Full details on page 78.
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La Otra Orilla at the Vancouver International Flamenco Festival
Monstercat Compound
Culture T H E T I C K E T
Fall into Culture
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Alyssa Hirose
MONSTERCAT COMPOUND DATE September 18 VENUE 380 Railway Street COST Free with RSVP monstercat.com This annual (save for last year) outdoor block party is an electronic music lover’s paradise, with live tunes, art and gaming. Entry is free, but for $25 you can treat yourself to a private bar and viewing area.
Duckie, a show at East Van’s Transform Cabaret Festival
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FLAMENCO FESTIVAL DATE September 4 to 26 VENUE Varies COST Varies, many events free vancouverflamencofestival.org Outside and online, the Vancouver International Flamenco Fest is all Canadian this year. Live performances will take place at the Waterfront Theatre and at the Picnic Pavilion at Granville Island. If you can’t have fun at a flamenco show, seek treatment.
COMEDYPANTS DATE September 18 & October 2 VENUE China Cloud Studios COST $15 eventbrite.ca This monthly comedy show returns to a newly renovated China Cloud (so they’ll be clowning around on an actual stage, rather than on the charming but small rug the performers used to stand on). ComedyPants is hosted by local jokesters Alistair Ogden and An-Te Chu and features special guests from around the city.
VANCOUVER FRINGE FESTIVAL DATE September 9 to 19 VENUE Venue Various COST Varies vancouverfringe.com Vancouver’s weirdest theatre festival is back, and you can bet all the performers in the city have been itching to get silly (and serious) on stage. Expect both live performances and pre-recorded shows in this year’s hybrid fest. SONGS OF SUMMER DATE September 11 VENUE Gateway Theatre COST $20 gatewaytheatre.com In the conclusion to their outdoor concert series, Richmond’s Gateway Theatre is spotlighting dynamic duo Krystle Dos Santos and Steffanie Davis. Their upbeat contemporary funk and soul is the perfect mood booster for the greyer days ahead.
Steffanie Davis and Krystle Dos Santos at Gateway Theatre’s Songs of Summer
Alistair Ogden, ComedyPants
TRANSFORM CABARET FESTIVAL DATE September 23 to October 2 VENUE Online and the Historic Theatre at the Cultch COST From $15 online, from $29 in person transformcabaret.com There’s something for everyone at this fest: think theatre, music, comedy, drag, burlesque and circus. The 10-daylong extravaganza spotlights both local and international Indigenous artists, with a focus on unity and empowerment. Catch it online at home or attend a viewing party at the Historic Theatre.
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fi L A OTRA ORILL A: MARIE-ANDRÉE LEMIRE; MONSTERCAT COMPOUND: BRANDON ARTIS; DUCKIE: MANUEL VASON; STEFFANIE DAVIS AND KRYSTLE DOS SANTOS: K ALIA H./SIMPATICO AGENCY
Cozy up to the best events in the city.
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N OW S E L L I N G
on Okanagan Lake in Kelowna. Located mere steps from Kelowna’s coveted Gyro Beach in South Pandosy, homes at Caban feature luxurious resort-like amenities, including an outdoor terrace overlooking Okanagan Lake complete with infinity lap pool and hot tub, private cabanas, Himalayan salt sauna, and fully-equipped
L A OTRA ORILL A: MARIE-ANDRÉE LEMIRE; MONSTERCAT COMPOUND: BRANDON ARTIS; DUCKIE: MANUEL VASON; STEFFANIE DAVIS AND KRYSTLE DOS SANTOS: K ALIA H./SIMPATICO AGENCY
fitness centre. Revel in solid concrete construction and premium finishings from renowned developer Cressey. From beachfront to cityside or poolside to fireside, Caban is where lifestyle and location intersect.
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Culture T H E T I C K E T
Yoko Ono
VANCOUVER FALL HOME SHOW DATE October 14 to 17 VENUE Vancouver Convention Centre COST $16 for adults vancouverfallhomeshow.com The ideal event when you’re looking for home inspo: hundreds of booths, home experts and swoon-worthy displays. You’ll need a blueprint to tackle this one.
An Eric Metcalfe mural from Teeth, Loan and Trust Company, Consolidated: The Trylowsky Collection
TEETH, LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY, CONSOLIDATED: THE TRYLOWSKY COLLECTION DATE September 24 to December 11 VENUE Griffin Art Projects COST Free griffinartprojects.ca This is a collection of dental office art (stay with us) from Dr. Zenon Trylowsky. But unlike most kitschy, seaside-focused dental decor, this is a gallerylike collection Trylowsky curated through pro bono work. He’d get art as a thank-you— the ideal exchange for artists without dental plans. VSO’S BACK TO THE FUTURE IN CONCERT DATE September 24 & 25 VENUE Orpheum Theatre COST From $32 vancouversymphony.ca Sure, we can see movies in theatres again, but the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is doing us one better. Films with live orchestra music are back at the Orpheum, and first in the lineup is Back to the Future. A fitting choice, as we’re all now well aware that time is liquid. HARVEST HAUS DATE October 8 to 10 VENUE PNE Agrodome COST From $35 harvesthaus.com
It’s stein time. On the menu at this traditional German cele bration is spaetzle, pretzels, bratwurst, schnitzel and, of course, plenty of beer (that includes both German bier and local craft brews). The oompah band plays bangers only. YOKO ONO: GROWING FREEDOM DATE October 9 to May 1 VENUE Vancouver Art Gallery COST $24 for adults vanartgallery.bc.ca This new exhibit invites the viewer to take part in the artistic process, creating a unique collaborative method that Yoko Ono herself pioneered. Through mending broken china, hammering nails and writing notes about your mom, you get to be part of the art.
Grace Eiko Thomson, Heart of the City Festival
Vancouver Fall Home Show
HEART OF THE CITY FESTIVAL DATE October 27 to November 7 VENUE Online and throughout the Downtown Eastside COST Varies heartcityfest.com This Downtown Eastside community festival is bursting with talent. Highlights include a reading from author Grace Eiko Thomson, an extraordinary archival collection of Chinese Canadian social movements from Sid Tow Chan and, of course, performance from grass dancer Larissa Healey, featured on page 75.
BACK TO THE FUTURE: © UCS LLC AND AMBLIN; GRACE EIKO THOMSON: JOHN ENDO GREENAWAY; YOKO ONO: BJARKE ØRSTED
VSO’s Back to the Future in Concert
EMERGENCE: OUT OF SHADOWS DATE October 10 VENUE Online COST Free kdocsff.com KDocsFF, our city’s leading social justice film festival, brings you the premiere of this gripping documentary. It follows three South Asian queer people living in Vancouver, and how they resist silence—and find compassion—within their conservative families.
Emergence: Out of Shadows at KDocsFF 78 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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BACK TO THE FUTURE: © UCS LLC AND AMBLIN; GRACE EIKO THOMSON: JOHN ENDO GREENAWAY; YOKO ONO: BJARKE ØRSTED
Culture O N T H E R I S E
SHOES WITH SOUL
Casca Designs 3D prints footwear right here in Vancouver— keeping their own eco footprint to a minimum. Alyssa Hirose
Founder’s Keepers Casca’s founders, Braden Parker and Kevin Reid
After 10 years in the fashion and footwear industry, collaborating with brands like Adidas and Arc’teryx and working as head designer for Native Shoes, Kevin Reid was ready to make his own kicks—ones that could really go the distance. “Traditional manufacturing is all about short cycles and seasonal releases. The moment that a season is done, the products become obsolete,” explains Reid. “It generates so much waste.” Eager to step up to a more eco-friendly venture, he teamed up with college friend (and fellow outdoor enthusiast) Braden Parker. Reid designed the product, Parker worked on the business model, and they launched Casca Designs out of a Kitsilano basement in 2018. Casca eliminates waste offcuts by using 3D printing technology, so each component of the shoes is created to be the exact shape and size required. The shoe material is a recyclable thermal plastic. (“We can basically put our test pairs into an industrial blender and make more from them,” Reid explains.) But being manufactured by robots doesn’t make the shoes rigid—in fact, Casca consults with a local orthotic lab for each new style. Reid compares investing in supportive footwear to eating organic or getting regular exercise. “You might think that orthotics are nerdy, but proper foot support can do wonders for the entire body,” says Reid. “Our balance, posture and energy levels can all benefit. And that’s possible without sacrificing style or design.”
Proper foot support can do wonders for the entire body.” Walk This Way Casca’s latest sneaker, the Avro recycled knit shoe, is made using recycled plastic bottles. It took over a year to develop, says Reid. “It needed to last as long as our standard product.”
CASCA SHOES
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p t s. D e c a n t e r W o r l d W i n e Aw a r d s GOLD
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CASCA SHOES
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LOV E LET TER
I Missed You, Beach Logs
During the long arc of the pandemic, I perfected the art of preparing for a day outdoors. It helped that I had a toddler with a puppy-like enthusiasm for playing outside, which meant twice-daily journeys in search of space to roam. Small children are impervious to poor weather, and I gradually accumulated a collection of sturdy outerwear to fortify myself for our excursions. My backpack was always ready with snacks, water, sunscreen, extra layers and even a book (too optimistic). In five minutes, we could be out the door, on our bike and headed to the beach, which is where we found ourselves most of the time. Beaches in summer get all the glory, animated by the manic energy of Vancouverites emerging like a cicada brood after the rainy season. At the height of its postcard-worthy perfection, the beach provides an antidote to our most common urban complaints. Instead of rainy, expensive and lonely, we get sunny, free and teeming with life. But, during the pandemic, I remembered a forgotten truth from childhood: the beach is worth visiting all year long. When I was little, I could spend all day at Jericho, digging in the sand, racing in and out of the waves, climbing over the logs—even in October. Those logs are one of my favourite things about our beaches, though they’re easy to overlook. They’re such an intuitive, enduring part of the landscape that it’s possible to believe they are a natural feature, or that you might find them on beaches everywhere. But they’re a Vancouver idiosyncrasy, thanks to landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander, who had them added to the city’s beaches in 1963. A practical environmentalist,
Oberlander was appalled when she found park workers at Jericho burning logs that had broken off from logging booms and washed up on shore. It’s impossible to imagine this level of bureaucratic efficiency in 2021, but with a single phone call to Parks Board deputy superintendent Bill Livingstone, she successfully made her case for using those logs as seating rather than destroying them. Nearly 60 years later, this idea is still benefitting beachgoers looking for a spot to relax, myself and my toddler included. After locking up our bike, we’d head out onto the sand in search of an unclaimed log to orbit for the day. My daughter would immediately busy herself with the important work of shovelling sand into a bucket or hunting for shells while I sat and unpacked our supplies: snacks, drinks, the book that I might read four or five pages of, if I was lucky. Occasionally, she would take a break from her work and clamber up to sit beside me, the wind-smoothed knots in the wood helping her up. It may be too cold to swim most of the time, but everything else I love is still there: the salty air, the rushing music of the waves, the seals popping their heads out of the water like friendly Labradors. The logs were easy to take for granted until they were locked up in fenced enclosures, in March 2020, to prevent people from gathering during the early stages of the pandemic. Suddenly my familiar Jericho looked bare, bereft, strangely generic—like any logless beach anywhere else in the world. When they were released from log jail by the Parks Board a few months later, I rejoiced. Suddenly the beach had definition again: places to sit, places to gather, places to play. —Michelle Cyca
DESTINATION BC /TANYA GOEHRING
It’s not the sand or the sea that makes Vancouver’s beaches special—it’s the logs.
82 VA N M A G . C O M S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
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DESTINATION BC /TANYA GOEHRING
2020
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