As children, what pasta represented was a dish you could play with: it was accepted as one of the few excuses to slurp up your food at the dinner table. Our parents would buy it at the grocery store, rock hard in a package and it would take 15 to 20 minutes to boil before they served it on a plate. Pasta was plain and simple; there was no breaking down the complexity of a sauce or an invitation to discover tenderness and texture.
Stepping into Powell Street's The Birds & The Beets, you'll enter a bustling shop. On the left are rows of brilliant fresh flowers for purchase supplied by The Wild Bunch Floral Studio and smaller square tables align along the right. If it’s summertime, the large pane windows will be folded open steeping fresh air and sun into the café. There will be a quick moving line, but there’s always a chance to gaze at the day’s enticing goodies in their glass encasement. Before you know it, you'll find yourself wanting to order a hops kombucha, a rhubarb soda, their homemade lemonade, and a macchiato all before even looking at the food options. Once you see a miso barley bowl glide by in an employee's hands, you'll be instantly back to scanning the menu board: the options for deliciousness are endless.
Blenheim Restaurant owners Morten Sohlberg and Min Ye, an accomplished husband and wife duo, merely intended to create a neighborhood staple but wound up with a highly sought-after Michelin Recommendation, ushering their team into a rare class of pre-trend innovation. The intimate nook in Manhattan's West Village sits at the intersection of two tree-lined, cobblestone streets: a romantic throwback to the days when the Chase Banks and Walgreens of the world had less of an imposing presence.
Timbertrain is a vignette of two loves: trains and coffee. Entering into the coffee shop is like stepping into a modernized rail car, the world is bustling and quick to pass by, but here you can settle back as a passenger, have a conversation, drink coffee, peruse the newspaper and enjoy the sites (feel free to hop back into the rat race at any time you like).
Located in Crosstown (the ambiguous mid-zone between Chinatown and Yaletown), the remodel of the second location of Chambar was a collaboration between co-owner Karri Schuermans and Carscadden Stokes McDonald Architects, who are also based in Vancouver. Their design goal was to parallel the reach of the restaurant’s ambitions with "exquisite cuisine, exceptional service, and a room that glows", branding it as "an unpretentious fling with fine dining.”
Kokomo is a winsome new addition to the Chinatown/Strathcona neighbourhood. The area has had a significant influx of new cafés and eateries sprouting up over the past couple of years, but none quite as vibrant and refreshing as Kokomo. We’d like to get you excited about Kokomo for two reasons: their robust vegan food (the whole menu is “gluten-free, refined sugar-free, vegan, and largely nut-free”) and our favourite part... they're open early! Finally, our ethereal chow prayers have been heard! Accessible from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm Kokomo grants us early birds the perfect stop for a nourishing breakfast on a quick dash to work.
Given the moniker for the surname of its Michelin starred pastry chef Ryan Butler, this bright, propitious corner café at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge will remind you of your long-lost love for brioche, crumb cake, scones, and toast. Interlacing the nostalgia of freshly homemade baked-goods with the exultation of detail-oriented gourmet cuisine, Butler brings its guests back to what food is supposed to bestow upon us: emotion, nourishment, and reverie.
Becoming enamoured with Devoción coffee starts the minute you enter the Williamsburg Roastery. Design wise, Devoción is a very exciting place to check out and we highly recommend it to anyone in New York. It's the type of coffee shop gem you can only hope to come by when looking for good espresso.
Situated in a building deeply rich with local history, Homer Street Café stops you in your tracks as soon as you enter the room. Featuring an open-concept Rotisserie, this upscale Café is known for a focus on its juicy and perfectly seasoned chicken - so much so, that with an order of chickpea dip and bread thins you get a crispy, fried chicken skin. By sourcing from BC estates like Salt Spring Island's Foxglove Farm, the team behind Homer Street's menu is committed to seeking out humanely raised proteins and freshly harvested produce - a place where nothing sits in a fridge or on a shelf for longer than it should.
A restaurant that truly exemplifies its "Farm to Downtown" branding, we first heard about it from Harvey's Organics at the Trout Lake Farmers Market. The menu changes every few weeks, is always seasonal, local, and "99% organic". Each type of pasta is handmade in-house, right in front of your eyes (if you get there early enough!) by one of the unbelievably consistent sous-chefs.
