Vancouver's Chinatown is experiencing a culinary renaissance, with 44 restaurants and cafés now operating in the historic neighbourhood, offering cuisines ranging from traditional Chinese to Vietnamese, Japanese, Malaysian, Singaporean, Mexican, Irish, Italian, Indian, Peruvian, and Nigerian. The area is home to two Michelin-starred restaurants: Barbara and Kissa Tanto.
Barbara: A Michelin-Starred Hidden Gem
Janet Benedetti raves about Barbara, a small restaurant tucked away at 305 East Pender St. The exterior is low-key, with the name written in small letters at the bottom of a window. Inside, it is one of 12 Vancouver restaurants awarded a Michelin star. The tasting menu costs $120 per person. Benedetti recommends going with friends to sample more dishes. "You choose three things from his menu of nine items," said Benedetti. "I bring friends, so we order all nine (dishes), and then we're able to eat everything on the menu. Oh my gosh, his beef tartare is so good. But it doesn't matter what you order, they're all so good."
The menu rotates, but a constant is Arctic char with hummus, lemon brown butter, pine nuts, mint, dill, and pomegranate vin. Owner and chef Patrick Hennessey explains, "It tastes closer to a white fish than it does a pink fish, even though it is a pink flesh. The reason why I love it so much is because the skin doesn't have any scales, so you can crisp the skin really, really well while still cooking it medium rare." The restaurant has only 14 seats in a 500-square-foot space, most arranged around an elegant bar, allowing diners to watch Hennessey assemble the dishes.
A Community of Independent Restaurateurs
Hennessey, who worked at Chambar and Kissa Tanto before opening Barbara six years ago, loves the community of restaurateurs in Chinatown. "We're all small, independently owned businesses," he said. "We have guests come in and say, 'I'm here for the weekend,' and I just will write down a list of places in the area for them to go try."
Hennessey's go-to lunch spot is Fat Mao (217 East Georgia St.) for roti and Thai rice soup. He also recommends the breakfast sandwich at Honeybee (789 Gore St.) and Phnom Penh (244 East Georgia St.), a Cambodian-Vietnamese institution since 1985 known for its legendary chicken wings. For late-night tacos, he suggests Los Sapos (210 Keefer St.), where birria tacos cost about five dollars until 2 a.m. "It'll be full of people, and everybody's speaking Spanish," Hennessey said. "You order your tacos, and sometimes there'll be people just jamming music. You smash a taco or two, and then head home."
The 200-Block of East Georgia: A Food Hot Spot
The 200-block of East Georgia Street has become a food hot spot, with restaurants such as Fat Mao, the Ramen Butcher (223 East Georgia), the Irish Heather (248 East Georgia), Mercato di Luigi pasta (213 East Georgia), and Fiorino (212 East Georgia), which sells Italian street food. This concentration of diverse eateries makes the area a vibrant destination for food lovers.
Traditional and New in the 100-Block of East Pender
The 100-block of East Pender is arguably the culinary heart of Chinatown, anchored by three restaurants in the middle of the block: Chinatown BBQ (130 East Pender), Golden Smell Mee (142 East Pender), and the New Town Bakery (148 East Pender). Across the street is another staple, Jade Dynasty (137 East Pender). Chinatown BBQ offers a signature four treasures chef's plate on steamed rice, featuring barbecued pork, soy sauce chicken, roasted pork, and half a salty duck egg. The restaurant is owned by Carol Lee, co-founder of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, who has spent years trying to revitalize the neighbourhood.
Lee recently celebrated her late father's birthday at Uchu (158 East Pender St.), a Peruvian cevicheria and raw bar. Two days later, she dined at Kissa Tanto (263 East Pender St.), an Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant with a Michelin star. Kissa Tanto and its sister restaurant, Bao Bei (163 Keefer St.), led the wave of chic new restaurants and bars that helped make Chinatown cool again. Tannis Ling, co-owner of both establishments, explained, "I could never understand why you did not have Chinese food in a kind of more comfortable atmosphere rather than the big banquet halls with the bright lighting. There is nothing wrong with that, the food is amazing, but sometimes you just want to get cosy and have a small table and a good wine list and good cocktails."
A Symphony of Flavours
Urban planner Andy Yan describes Chinatown's food scene as a symphony. "You have the bass notes of older Chinatown, the restaurants, bakeries, the dim-sum places, the [traditional] barbecue places. And then now you have the new restaurants, the new instruments coming online." The neighbourhood offers a glorious mix, from the ginger mushroom chicken rice bowl at Kam Wai Dim Sum to the lemon-grass chicken Vietnamese sub at Ba Le (638 Main St.). Visitors can go old-school with a coconut bun from Maxim's Bakery (257 Keefer St.) or try a brioche doughnut filled with coffee mascarpone cream at Mello Donuts (223 East Pender St.).
Looking ahead, Carol Lee plans to reopen the historic Ho-Ho restaurant at Pender and Columbia streets in November, across the street from its original location. The reopening will include its famous three-storey-high neon sign featuring a rice bowl and chopsticks with steam rising up. "Nothing says Chinatown in Vancouver more than a cool neon sign," Lee noted.
Practical Information
Chinatown's boundaries are Carrall to Gore east-west and East Pender to East Georgia north-south. Parking is available at meters. This article is part of the Eat Streets series highlighting Metro Vancouver's must-visit food corridors. To suggest a great Eat Street, email artslife@vancouversun.com.
