Virgin Australia Voyeur — May 2017

094 VIRGIN AUSTRALIAMAY 2017

PHOTOGRAPHY

33 ACRES BREWING COMPANY,

GETTY IMAGES, SCOTT LITTLE

of these are warming up in front of 33 Acres Brewing Company

and Brassneck (two craft breweries on opposite sides of Main

Street, ofering distinctly diferent tasting room experiences).

The hill flattens out at Vancouver’s Olympic Village. Built

for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games to house Olympians, the

complex is now home to a social strata of first-time property

owners who bought into the market before it exploded. Points

of genuine fascination are Bao Down Gastropub & Raw Bar —

an irreverent eatery focused on the doughy pleasures of the

Chinese bao bun — and Legacy Liquor Store, which boasts

the city’s deepest selection of local craft beer, wine and spirits.

As Main Street continues into the city, it connects with

Chinatown, which had, until recently, escaped the sort of

gentrification that has changed the face of Mount Pleasant.

But the markets and shops here are now being replaced

with hip stores, art galleries, high-end cofee shops, cocktail

joints and well-reviewed restaurants.

The tiny charmer Bestie, for example,

serves German street food (currywurst,

pretzels, burgers and potato salad) and

cold beer in a cosy, jocular room.

Shockingly good gluten-free pizza

and fried chicken regularly attract

queues that snake around the corner

at Virtuous Pie and Juke respectively,

while a block east, two speciality cofee shops — Aubade and

Propaganda — provide places of repose. The former is located

in the front window of Space Lab, an eclectic vintage curiosity

store stocked with axes and other remnants of Vancouver’s

logging past, while the latter is filled with young MacBook

tappers. A few doors up is Kissa Tanto, a sexy Japanese-meets-

Italian hideaway that has quickly gained critics’ approval.

It is unclear how Chinatown will fare going forward. It

could go the way of Mount Pleasant, retaining a balance of old

and new, or it could be like the downtown core, where the best

food and drink is now found in its ritzier hotels (such as the

Wedgewood Hotel & Spa, with its charming Bacchus Restaurant

& Lounge; the Loden Hotel with its brooding French-themed

Tableau Bar Bistro; and the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, which

hosts the high-end Hawksworth Restaurant on its main floor).

On sunny days it’s hard to find any fault with Vancouver,

especially when you can walk or bike anywhere. The Mobi

bike share program sees a thousand rental bikes in operation

through a hundred station points across the city. One of the

routes, down one-way Dunsmuir Street, takes riders north-west

from Chinatown under the high-rises of the financial district

to the West End’s ramen district — home to casual Japanese and

Korean eateries, such as Marutama Ra-Men (known for itstori

paitanchicken broth) and Zabu Chicken (famed for its sweet and

spicy cinnamon chicken). This same route leads to the densely

forested, seawall-ringed escape of primeval Stanley Park, the

perfect place to work of the noodles and see the one facet of

Vancouver that’s been able to stay as it has always been.

GETTING THERE VIRGIN AUSTRALIA OFFERS FLIGHTS TO VANCOUVER

WITH ITS CODESHARE PARTNERS DELTA AIRLINES. TO BOOK, VISIT

WWW.VIRGINAUSTRALIA.COM OR CALL 13 67 89 (IN AUSTRALIA).

FROM TOP Bestie’s

co-owners Clinton

McDougall (let) and

Dane Brown; jog,

stroll or cycle around

Vancouver’s

Stanley Park.