Vancouver Magazine
BREAKING: Team Behind Savio Volpe Opening New Restaurant in Cambie Village This Winter
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 Author of the Greatest Wine Book of the Last Decade Is Coming to Town
Wine Collab of the Week: A Cool-Kid Fizz on Main Street
The Grape Escape for Wine Enthusiasts
8 Indigenous-Owned Businesses to Support in Vancouver
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (September 25- October 1)
If you get a 5-year fixed mortgage rate now, can you break early when rates fall?
Dark Skies in Utah: Chasing Cosmic Connection on the Road
Fall Wedges and Water in Kamloops
Glamping Utah: Adventure Has Never Felt So Good
Attention Designers: 5 Reasons to Enter the WL Design 25
On the Rise: Meet Vancouver Jewellery Designer Jamie Carlson
At Home With Photographer Evaan Kheraj and Fashion Stylist Luisa Rino
Railtown’s new Italian trattoria named Restaurant of the Year—and more.
At the conclusion of the 26th annual Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards, yesterday (Apr. 21) at the Sheraton Wall Centre, Ask for Luigi was named Restaurant of the Year. The Railtown trattoria’s serial victories (it also took home prizes for Best Casual, Best Italian Casual, and Best New Restaurant of the Year) perhaps arched as many skeptical eyebrows as when the similarly green Farmer’s Apprentice claimed a trio of top ribbons in 2014.Launched in December 2013 (following a short soft opening), Ask for Luigi seems purposely, uniformly modest: small (only 32 seats), in a space hastily abandoned by its former tenant (Two Chefs and a Table), and offering a menu of uncommon brevity and specificity (some small plates, half a dozen pastas, a trio of desserts).Yet this very artlessness is what’s proven so seductive to everyone who eats here. In a city that, for all its culinary accomplishments, has historically lacked excellent yet affordable Italian cuisine, Luigi redresses the problem so effortlessly, it seems to encourage us to take it for granted. Chef and co-owner J-C Poirier’s food aims not to break new ground but to exemplify the best notion of that which is wholly familiar, whether spaghetti Bolognese or olive-oil cake. Which is why this ostensibly “neighbourhood” joint—in a ’hood where, as yet, few actually live—immediately became a destination, prompting the reliable sight of a line outside its door.Our Restaurant of the Year prize is meant to spotlight that which proved most revelatory, most exciting, and, above all, most consistently delicious throughout a specific period. To that end, and to our palates, Ask for Luigi tastes like 2014’s premier success.