Restaurants
10 Best New Restaurants, 2008
By Andrew Morrison published Nov 1, 2008
Additional Images click to enlarge
They have three things in common: an unexpected location, a savvy menu, and an innovative approach to marketing
The signage at Ping's was faded and falling apart. The fabric from its steel awning frame was gone, and its windows were covered with opaque frost. Anyone passing by on this stretch of Main would have assumed it was closed. But once inside and beyond a heavy grey curtain, I found a minimalist 35-seat space of zinc tables fronting grey, pleated banquettes. Overhead a hundred cones suspended from an intricately pressed ceiling emitted amber light. Several local aesthetes, colleagues of a young artist and restaurateur named Josh Olson, had contributed to the design, with stunning results.
I was there this past April because my brother, an artist who lives around the corner and is friends with Olson, had called from the opening party the night before. He wanted to know if I'd heard of it. I hadn't. "Yeah, I don't think they're into publicity," he said with a chortle. "They want to keep it quiet." I hung up the phone, baffled by the hubris. With a new restaurant opening just about every week in Vancouver, competition had become especially fierce. So this was weird. Seduced by coyness, I couldn't keep from checking it out.
The contrast between the sleek interior and the drab exterior told of a carefully calculated conceit. Even if the food concept-a salable cross between Japanese home-style yoshoku and irreverent izakaya (no sushi here)-tested our credulity, it delivered something more valuable in today's crowded dining landscape: a sense of being let in on a secret. Within 24 hours of its opening, photographs and first impressions began circulating in the blogosphere, and within a month most of the professional reviewers had taken its temperature in print. The reviews may have been middling, but no matter. The word was out, and it was interesting.
