Vancouver Magazine
Burdock and Co Is Celebrating a Decade in Business with a 10-Course Tasting Menu
The Frozen Pizza Chronicles Vol. 3: Big Grocery Gets in on the Game
The Best Thing I Ate All Week: Crab Cakes from Smitty’s Oyster House on Main Street
Wine Collab of the Week: A Cool-Kid Fizz on Main Street
The Grape Escape for Wine Enthusiasts
5 Wines To Zero In On at This Weekend’s Bordeaux Release
If you get a 5-year fixed mortgage rate now, can you break early when rates fall?
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (September 18-24)
10 Vancouver International Film Festival Movies We’ll Be Lining Up For
Dark Skies in Utah: Chasing Cosmic Connection on the Road
Fall Wedges and Water in Kamloops
Glamping Utah: Adventure Has Never Felt So Good
On the Rise: Meet Vancouver Jewellery Designer Jamie Carlson
At Home With Photographer Evaan Kheraj and Fashion Stylist Luisa Rino
At Home With Interior Designer Aleem Kassam
Visitors used to complain about the dearth of quality little neighbourhood restaurants in our city. “You have to go to the busiest parts of town, and when you get there half the rooms are chains.” In recent years that’s changed. From French bistros like Pied-à-Terre and Les Faux Bourgeois, to Italian spots like La Buca and Campagnolo, to harder-to-categorize, cheap-and-cheerful outposts like Habit and Cafeteria, casual neighbourhood rooms are on the rise. That’s why the judges this year chose a Best Informal Restaurant as well as a Best Formal, then voted on which of two should be named Restaurant of the Year. How do you compare a fine-dining room to a little neighbourhood bistro? It’s a bit like the problem Grammy judges have in comparing, say, Diana Krall to Nickelback when voting for Album of the Year. Which better exemplifies its genre? Is Krall a better jazz artist than Nickelback are stadium rockers? Is La Quercia a better casual spot than Blue Water is a formal dining room? Indeed it is, said the judges, and honoured La Quercia, with its fine Northern Italian fare, as Restaurant of the Year.
