The list goes on. Geoff Kitt worked at Bishop’s before leaving for Sooke Harbour House; James Walt went on to become executive chef at Araxi in Whistler (and at the Canadian Embassy in Rome); Gennaro Iorio opened Yaletown’s La Terrazza; and Scott Kidd is now executive chef at Cafe de Paris on Denman. Even Iron Chef Rob Feenie put in a brief stint making salads and doing prep work in 1988. “John was the benchmark in pushing food to the next level in Vancouver,” Feenie recalls, adding that Bishop remains “the best host in town.”

Today, dressed in a pressed button down over a new black T-shirt and khaki trousers, Bishop looks younger than 63. His youthful face is kind and scarcely lined; his hazel eyes twinkle with his trademark good humour behind a pair of designer spectacles. The author of four cookbooks (the latest, Fresh, co-written with his old friend, the farmer Gary King), he looks more like a modernist architect than a veteran maitre’d, chef and restaurateur.

Home is a large house on a sleepy block on the west side. Theresa, who teaches fashion design, is baking sugar cookies and brewing us a cup of tea while her husband prepares a family recipe called Very Very Vegetable Beef Stew. Bishop explains that a few years ago their daughter Gemma, now 17, flirted with the idea of becoming a vegetarian. To head her off, he upped the vegetable quotient in the stew and started cutting the beef into tiny pieces in the hopes she won’t notice (it worked). Soon to graduate from high school, Gemma works summers at the restaurant, helping with pastries. Their 19-year-old son David, who helped landscape the beautiful backyard, is an undergrad at UBC and balances a passion for environmental design with the occasional hosting shift at the restaurant.

From the living room of the house, a view of the North Shore mountains is interrupted by drooping cedar branches. There’s an old stand-up piano, topped with heirlooms and books, and a sideboard holding dinner plates from the 1870s. A keen antiquer, Bishop collects hallmark silver. He’s drawn, in particular, to anything to do with food service. He shows off spoons like a schoolboy does hockey cards, and will fastidiously trace an item’s origins, down to its monarch, maker and guild, with only the slightest hint or clue for guidance.

In another room, a framed black and white photo of a long-ago holiday on Hornby Island is slightly askew. “We always had great fun there,” says Bishop as he fixes it. These days, he seldom goes on holiday, save for the rare working trip abroad. With the kids away at school, all is quiet: the picture of serene, west coast domesticity. A pair of old cats (Clive and Cleo) dart about the house when they’re startled from their slumber.

What really sets the place apart is the art. There’s really no wall space left between canvases by Gordon Smith and Jack Shadbolt, etchings by Alistair Bell, acrylics by Alan Wood (a longtime friend), and landscapes by Toni Onley. There are ceramics, woodblocks, and a shell given to him by his godmother (tucked inside is a note from her saying that Bishop’s grandmother used to press it against his ear so he could hear the sea). The renovated kitchen has a little tasting bar and a full range of gleaming silver Ultraline appliances. Fittingly, his desk is just off the kitchen—no computer, though, just papers. When I ask if he ever uses one, his reply—“Not really” —provokes a laugh from Theresa.

Like most successful restaurateurs, Bishop has a thousand close friends. But before and immediately after he clocks out, he’s usually at home being a husband and a dad. He goes out, but only on the rare occasion the mood strikes him. He enjoys spending time with his friend Eric Sonner, the esteemed art collector. Now in his nineties, Sonner has been a loyal customer at Bishop’s for many years (they go to gallery openings and shows together). Before he died earlier this year, Bud Sipko—the original angel—was one of Bishop’s closest friends (he fixed all of Bishop’s British teeth). Though he counts other restaurateurs—like Umberto Menghi, Pino Posteraro and Michel Jacob—as confidants, Theresa, he says, is his best friend.
John Bishop stands astride his trade like a benevolent colossus; people call him the Godfather of Vancouver hospitality. White Spot didn’t hire him to appear in their TV spots because he was willing to tout their sourcing of B.C. ingredients or because he remains an exemplary host. They sought him out for the same reason that diners, from here and around the world, continue to book tables in his 22-year-old room: he’s the chef who first sowed the seeds of this city’s culinary transformation.

ON THIS DAY, as we conclude one of our conversations, he’s eager to get back to work. In contrast to his placid home life, Bishop in public is a dynamo. I recently watched him as he judged a culinary competition for the Chef’s Table Society. He marched purposefully from display to display, heaping encouragement upon the students of our culinary schools with infectious enthusiasm.

The restaurant has been closed for almost two weeks for its annual paint job and is due to reopen tonight. Bishop’s anticipation is almost palpable. A leak has been fixed that had dripped in the entrance foyer, intermittently, since his first winter as a restaurateur. He went in yesterday for a peek and came home invigorated by the room’s freshness. The room was ready, the reservation book nearly full. “It was great to be back,” he beams. “I get a little anxious whenever we close."

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