V!, Tourism Vancouver’s publication, wrote an article about how Vancouver’s downtown core is being referred to as a “mini Rodeo Drive”, with Coast & The Italian Kitchen standing strong at the heart of it all.
Upscale Eating: Vancouver’s “Mini Rodeo Drive”
Finding a great restaurant in Vancouver has never been a problem. Looking for authentic Japanese and Chinese? Catch a taxi to Main Street. Intimate, neighborhood restaurants? Check out beachside Kitsilano. Wanna eat and admire the fashionistas? Grab your heels and head to Yaletown. Now, add a new neighborhood to the dining mix.
Clustered within a few blocks of the new Shangri-La Hotel, Vancouver, in the heart of downtown are some of the city’s best upscale restaurants. “It think it’s very quickly becoming a mecca,” says John-Paul Lamb of Glowbal restaurant group, the team behind two new eateries in the area, the Italian Kitchen and Coast. “You’ve got all the high-end boutiques and then you’ve got fantastic restaurants. It’s being referred to as the mini Rodeo Drive of Vancouver.”
One of the restaurants on the scene is The Italian Kitchen, specializing in family-style Italian. “What we do which is quite different is the art of sharing,” says Lamb. “We encourage platter service.” Nearly all dishes on the menu come in family-size portions, including the Kitchen’s signature spaghetti and Kobe-beef meatballs.
Just across the street from the Italian Kitchen is Coast, a new restaurant dedicated to serving Vancouver’s freshest fish in a high-energy, seafood-house atmosphere. “It’s very hearty, very rustic,” Lamb says. “We don’t take a scallop and dress it up with tons of garnish. We’d rather see a plate with several king-size scallops and a nice sauce.” Coast’s crabcake has won early praise from seafood buffs. “We’ve taken out all the other ingredients that people put in crabcake and beefed it up with fresh crab,” Lamb says.
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