Vancouver Magazine
Care to travel the world, one plate at time? Visit Kamloops.
Flaky, Fluffy and Freaking Delicious: Vancouver’s Top Fry Bread and Bannock
The Best Gelato in Canada Was Made in a Hotel Room (and You Can Get it Now in Kitsilano)
Wine Collab of the Week: The Best Bottle to Welcome a Vancouver Spring
Naked Malt Blended Malt Scotch Whisky Celebrates Versatility and Spirit
A $13 Wine You Can Age in Your Cellar
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (March 20-26)
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (March 13-19)
Looking for a Hobby? Here’s 8 Places in Vancouver You Can Pick Up a New Skill
What It’s Like to Get Lost on a Run With a Pro Trail Runner
8 Things to Do in Abbotsford (Even If It’s Pouring Rain)
Explore the Rockies by Rail with Rocky Mountaineer
4 Fashion Designers From African Fashion Week Vancouver to Put on Your Radar
The Future of Beauty: How One Medical Aesthetics Clinic is Changing the Game
Before Hibernation Season Ends: A Round-Up of the Coziest Shopping Picks
We’re smack dab in the middle of bivalve heaven.
The scene opens not on the Pacific Ocean but at an unnamed temple of culinary excess in Las Vegas, where bread is flown in daily from France, Dover sole from England and, the chef explains in heavily accented anglais, “Ze oysters are Kusshi, from Breetish Columbia—ze best!” And he’s right.
We’re smack dab in the middle of bivalve heaven: in addition to the Kusshi, with its salty-then-sweet profile, there’s the cucumber-y Fanny Bay, the tiny, almost floral Royal Miyagi and the meaty and plump Sun Seeker. All of the above are available at the new 20-seat oyster bar at Sandbar, in a Granville Island setting that’s seriously apropos.
And if you want to dive in deeper to more obscure genera, like Hollie Wood, Pacific Kiss or Golden Mantle, head to the new Papi’s Seafood and Oyster Bar overlooking English Bay or the no-frills Oyster Express, whose Old-West-meets-Chinatown decor often hosts the nerdiest selection in town.
1. Merroir (or marine terroir) is the au courant term that describes the flavours an oyster shows as a result of the marine environment—kelpy, for example—in which it was grown.
2. Sergius Orata of Rome invented the cultivation of oysters decades before the birth of Christ.
3. A baby oyster is called a spat.
4. Unlike many farmed fish, farmed oysters actually improve the quality of the surrounding environment, thanks to their ability to filter up to 50 gallons of water per oyster, per day.
5. Many places use the term “buck-a-shuck” very loosely, but here are the ones that actually follow through on the promise:
Gold ($1) Wildtale Coast
Silver ($1.50) Chewies, Fanny Bay, Rodney’s, Joe Fortes and Oyster Express