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‘Yaletown’s the scene’: Vancouver’s urban village began the 20th century as one of the roughest parts of the city, and ended it as one of the bougiest
Exploring the restaurants that bring Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods to life.
Cosmopolitan, chic, cool, uncool, fun, picturesque. Expensive. A mix of old and new. A place of radical, rapid reinvention. Tiny dogs wearing puffy vests seated at patio tables.
Many of the most common descriptors and stereotypes for Vancouver apply especially aptly to Yaletown, the urban village on the downtown peninsula’s southern tip.
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Yaletown is also a great place to eat. And drink.
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Yaletown began the 20th century as one of the roughest parts of Vancouver, and ended it as one of the bougiest. This spot on False Creek’s north shore grew from being a rough-and-tumble area of rail yards and railworkers in the late 19th century to a warehouse district for most of the 20th century.
Many of those warehouse buildings are still there, a century later, but their wares have changed. The clientele, too, has changed — and is more dressed up.
By the 1980s, many of those old brick buildings were derelict. But by the end of that decade, software companies and creative professionals started locating offices in the neighbourhood. Then in 1994, Vancouver’s first brew pub, Yaletown Brewing, opened among the warehouses. The brew pub is still there, but it has a lot more company now.
In the mid-1990s, when local businessman John Evans was looking to create Vancouver’s first boutique hotel, he acquired a property at Davie and Hamilton and, he recalls, “people thought I was crazy. … There was nothing there, just warehouses.”
But “hip people” didn’t want to stay among the shiny towers of the central business district, Evans figured. “They wanted to go somewhere edgy.”
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His bet paid off. When the Opus Hotel opened in 2002, its Parisian-style brasserie Elixir had “a lineup down the street to get into the place for two years,” Evans said.
The hotel’s restaurant is now an Italian joint called Capo & the Spritz.
The neighbourhood was still pretty rough around the edges when Brix & Mortar opened on Homer Street in 1999, owner David Hannay recalls, sitting in the glass-covered courtyard of the 114-year-old brick former Heinz warehouse that has become one of Vancouver’s most photogenic wedding venues.
“Then Yaletown just exploded.”
Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Yaletown became one of Western Canada’s top areas for buzzy restaurant openings.
Many of those establishments are now gone, but a few, such as Brix, are still going strong. Blue Water Cafe is still renowned for its seafood and refined atmosphere, and Rodney’s Oyster House, another seafood place, is long-beloved for its decidedly less-refined atmosphere.
The Yaletown vibe is “more refined than Gastown, and more urban and energetic than Kitsilano,” said Sarah Vallely, who was the Opus Hotel’s longtime general manager before taking over last year as executive-director of the Yaletown Business Improvement Association.
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“It’s Vancouver’s SoHo,” she said, referring to the industrial-turned-upscale neighbourhood in Manhattan.
“At its core, Yaletown is really a ‘going out’ neighbourhood. … People are there to have a good time,” Vallely says. “People don’t just come to one restaurant, they come to spend an entire evening going from place to place.”
With more than 80 food-service businesses -— many with happy hours and late-night liquor licenses — packed into a small urban area, Yaletown is conducive to hopping around multiple locations in a single day or night. Banter Room co-owner Teddy Wilkie calls it “the Yaletown shuffle.”
“Yaletown’s the scene,” Wilkie said. “People want to see and be seen in Yaletown. It’s where the hockey players go, it’s where the actors go.”
His partner, Justin Mensah-Coker, chimes in: “Yaletown’s got that buzz, it has that energy.”
It may not be for everyone, Wilkie admits.
“I think Yaletown’s the best place in Vancouver, but it has a stigma about it.”
People who don’t live or work in Yaletown sometimes think it’s “stuck-up,” Wilkie says.
Wilkie didn’t exactly shy away from this stigma when his restaurant installed a vending machine that dispenses 200ml bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne.
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But, Wilkie says, “that stigma goes out the window pretty quick when you spend some time in our restaurant and the other restaurants in Yaletown. … The camaraderie of Yaletown is still there.”
It’s true. Like a small town inside a big city, business owners here know each other and their regular customers.
Unlike many of Metro Vancouver’s best dining districts, Yaletown’s food scene is not associated with a particular ethnocultural background. Instead, it’s defined by bringing together a bit of everything from around the world.
You can enjoy a Moroccan-style rack of lamb flambéed tableside at Moltaqa, a $335-per-person “theatrical omakase experience” at Okeya Kyujiro‘s sushi bar, savoury Korean pancakes with squid and scallops at Mapo, a mortadella-and-burrata panino at Valoroso Foods deli, braised lamb shoulder with saganaki cheese at The Greek, and tamales from Sombrero‘s Mexican grocer.
Many Yaletown restaurants include cuisines from different continents on the same menu.
“We’ve tried to take popular items from around the globe and source local ingredients, and put our spin on it,” says Banter Room executive chef Mike Rose, seated at his restaurant while the pair at the next table lunches on aburi sushi, tacos, and a fried chicken sandwich.
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The Banter Room guys are part of a newer generation of Yaletown restaurateurs who opened new places over the last decade as local 20- and 30-somethings. Many of them are not only competitors but good friends. Some have known each other since high school.
Another newer joint, Dovetail, proves Wilkie’s comment about Yaletown being “where the hockey players go.” The restaurant has hosted rookie parties for three different NHL teams this season, co-owner Colin Denton says.
Before Dovetail opened in 2023, Denton and his team considered a few possible locations before settling on Yaletown.
But after 2½ years of brisk business there, he says, “our only choice when we were looking for our second location was to stay in Yaletown.”
That second location, just a few doors down from Dovetail, is set to open this summer at 1165 Mainland.
While Dovetail draws inspiration from California, its sister restaurant, to be named Bevel, will be its New York-style counterpart, with pizzas, steaks, and high-end hamburgers.
For many Vancouverites, the idea of “Yaletown dining” suggests boozy meals at upscale white-tablecloth eateries testing the limits of corporate expense accounts. But there are also some well-loved, if lower-profile, options frequented by the people who live and work in the neighbourhood.
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You can still get a good lunch for around $10 or less in Yaletown, including a chorizo burrito at Salsa y Agave, grab-and-go Korean kimbap rolls at HNS Hannam Supermarket, inari sushi pouches at Red Wasabi, a pork belly sub at Van Banh Mi.
For a sit-down meal, Zab Zaab offers a great $16 lunch special with rice, a spring roll, and your choice of curry.
It’s been a tough time in the hospitality industry, said El Guapo Mexican restaurant owner Jay Zayadi, but there is a measure of optimism now in Yaletown, with the World Cup bringing crowds to nearby B.C. Place this summer and some well-established operators opening new restaurants soon in the area.
“There’s a crazy buzz,” Zayadi said. “I think Yaletown is definitely on the upswing.”
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Number of restaurants and food options: More than 80.
What are the options for parking? Paid parking is available along most of Yaletown’s streets, but it’s limited. There’s a large public parkade at 909 Mainland on Yaletown’s northern edge.
Yaletown is easily accessible by SkyTrain, bus, or Aquabus and False Creek Ferries.
What are Metro Vancouver’s Eat Streets?
This article is part one of a series highlighting Metro Vancouver’s must-visit Eat Streets. With the goal of celebrating — and maybe even introducing you to — stretches of community around the region that have a notable concentration of local food businesses. Know of a great Eat Street in your community? Let us know where. Email us at artslife@vancouversun.com.
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Read about more of Metro Vancouver’s Eat Streets:
• Eat Streets: A United Nations of cuisine on Vancouver’s Victoria Drive
• Eat Streets: Langley City’s one-way a hub of local food
• Eat Streets: Delta and Surrey unite over food on this stretch of Scott Road
• Eat Streets: Comfort food served Hong Kong-style at Richmond’s Empire Centre
• Eat Streets: There’s now a world of flavours on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive
• Eat Streets: North Vancouver’s Lower Lonsdale reinvented as a foodie destination
• Eat Streets: Where hippies used to gather on West 4th Avenue, foodies now flock for the old and the new
• Eat Streets: New Westminster gets fresh life on Columbia Street (and in a SkyTrain station)
Bookmark THIS PAGE to read the latest instalment every Wednesday.
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Source: vancouversun.com
