Gastown food tours: Vancouver' new buzzing dining destination

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This was published 7 years ago

Gastown food tours: Vancouver' new buzzing dining destination

By Brian Johnston
Pizzas from Nicli Antica Pizzeria in Gastown district, Vancouver.

Pizzas from Nicli Antica Pizzeria in Gastown district, Vancouver.Credit: Mark Kinskofer

I could have wandered Gastown all day and never known what I was missing. Thank heavens for tour guides, especially one like Lisa, familiar with every courtyard and cranny in this rapidly changing historical district. Is there anything she doesn't know about local dining? My fellow travellers quiz her on where to find the best breakfast, good Korean, finger-licking ribs. She has an answer for everything, and more. Pourhouse has the city's best Scotch eggs, and if you've want juicy porchetta sandwiches, then elbow your way through the crazed lunch crowd at Meat & Bread.

I'm on a three-hour wander through Gastown with Vancouver Foodie Tours, which is providing not just a progressive meal but enough advice to keep me well-fed for the rest of the week. There's dollops of history too. Gastown is Vancouver's original 1860s settlement, spruced up from the 1970s as a tourist destination. More recently, locals have been rediscovering its charms.

We start at Six Acres, Gastown's oldest building, with a beer and tasting plates: bison steak salad in a truffle and balsamic dressing, and that French-Canadian favourite poutine, cheese curds and gravy over fries. Behind Six Acres is one of those alleyways most tourists never find. The theory goes that Blood Alley was once the location of the city's abattoirs but, says Lisa, it was in fact arbitrarily given its name in the 1970s as Gastown was emerging as a tourist district keen to create a louche history.

Vancouver Foodie Tours tucks in at Six Acres.

Vancouver Foodie Tours tucks in at Six Acres.Credit: Mark Kinskofer

"But never mind that. Take note instead of Salt Tasting Room, a great place for plates of cheese and cured meats with wine. And here's Taco Fino, which has the best fish tacos in the city. Not to mention, the nachos are epic and churros perfection."

It's a measure of how many good Gastown food choices there now are that we aren't stopping in either place. Instead, Lisa leads us to Nicli Antica Pizzeria. Its interior is sleek and white, with a long bar ending at a domed pizza oven big enough to shove in Hansel and Gretel. Waiters are suave in long aprons: this is clearly part of the new wave of contemporary, upmarket Gastown eateries.

Nicli Antica is the city's first pizzeria certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. "The dough must only contain water, yeast, flour and salt, kneaded by hand and baked in an 800-degree wood-fired oven for 90 seconds or less," explains Lisa as we tuck in. The toppings – fior de latte mozzarella and prosciutto, later heaped with rocket – are sparse in the Italian manner, the thin crust nicely blistered and crispy at the edges.

A guide for Vancouver Foodie Tours shows guests the steam clock in Gastown.

A guide for Vancouver Foodie Tours shows guests the steam clock in Gastown. Credit: Mark Kinskofer

And then we head onwards, meandering past Bauhaus ("Getting a lot of buzz for its modern German food") to The Capilano Tea House, where a mother-and-daughter team serve First Nation food with a contemporary twist. We have a little elk pie served with cranberry compote, and salmon on endive with a lemon-honey dressing, arranged on a three-tiered stand like an English afternoon tea. We finish with bannock, an indigenous bread adapted from the early Scots settlers, topped with blueberry jam. The store smells of the teas the two make from flowers and roots.

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Along the street is cocktail bar Revel Room. "Rumour has it that if you stay until closing you get a chocolate-chip cookie, at least according to my friend, but I've never been there that late myself," says Lisa as we sail past. It's another cocktail bar we're heading to, Mosquito, and another of those places I'd miss if I were on my own. The dark, intimate and rather dramatic space, glowing with purple and pink mood lighting, specialises in champagne-based cocktails with matching desserts.

I have a vodka-laced champagne sour and an outrageous peanut-butter chocolate bar with caramelised popcorn and gelato, which looks like a work of art. The slow gentrification of Gastown over the decades seems finally to have come good in sugar and champagne, and I'm pleasantly buzzing.

Peanut-butter and chocolate with caramelized popcorn and popcorn gelato from Mosquito.

Peanut-butter and chocolate with caramelized popcorn and popcorn gelato from Mosquito.Credit: Mark Kinskofer

Brian Johnston was a guest of Destination British Columbia.

TRIP NOTES

MORE INFORMATION

www.hellobc.com

www.tourismvancouver.com

GETTING THERE

Air Canada flies direct to Vancouver daily from Sydney (about 14 hours) with domestic connections from Melbourne. Phone 1300 655 767 or see www.aircanada.com

STAYING THERE

The Burrard is a funky, revamped 1950s motor inn with considerable retro style, friendly staff and complimentary bicycles. Phone +1 604 681 2331, see www.theburrard.com

Luxury Metropolitan Hotel is a short walk from Gastown; its restaurant Diva serves excellent regional food and offers 500 wines. Phone +1 604 687 1122, see www.metropolitan.com

DOING THERE

Vancouver Foodie Tours has various city tours, including a three-hour Gastown Gastronomic Tour with 12 tastings. Phone +1 604 295 8844, see www.foodietours.ca

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