Pacific heights

Local wags call Vancouver Hollywood of the North because of all the films that are shot there. The difference being that it's cheaper and comes without the attitude, says Mike Hodgkinson

Saturday August 16, 2003                                               
The Guardian

 
The recent history of Vancouver is one of rapid re-development, imaginative culinary fusion and reformed hairstyles. Blurred video footage of the 1994 Stanley Cup riots - where 80,000 ice-hockey fans vandalised a substantial swathe of downtown after a Canucks play-off defeat - is perhaps most startling because many of the rioters were still wearing mullets, long after the style had disappeared from Top of the Pops.

Now, it's evident that the typical pedestrian requires much less in the way of shampoo. A sign in a barbershop window off a central artery, Burrard Street, read proudly: "Yes, we do buzz cuts".

Today's Vancouver, particularly the freshly made-over Yaletown district, is a welcoming matrix of design shops, coffee bars and outstanding restaurants - give or take the odd furtive huddle of porn shops around the main drag of Granville Street.

The city's population is now around a third Asian, which accounts for a large chunk of development capital as well as the diversity of food on offer. Locals are proud of their reputation for tolerance, free expression and hedonism - in the local listings, we found an advertisement requesting support for mayoral candidate Marc Emery: Vancouver Marijuana Party.

The arrival of the film industry - with such blockbusters as I-Spy and X2 - has led some to re-christen the city "Hollywood North". Sharper wags have labelled Vancouver "Brollywood" because its climate generally mirrors the Lancashire Riviera rather than California. It's not half as larey as Beverly Hills either, though Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell are now permanent residents.

An extended stay in Vancouver - still one of the world's best looking cities on a clear day - is sure to unearth great pleasure in unexpected quarters, not least your wallet. Expect to save around 40% on hotel and restaurant bills compared with US cities. It also pays to stock up on CDs at the main Virgin store: they're dirt cheap.

Get a room
 

Until the Opus Hotel (322 Davie Street, +604 642 6787, opushotel.com, rooms from £66 pn) opened a year ago, a room in Vancouver offered little beyond the traditional, the stuffy or the uninspired. At the top end of the scale remains the solid luxury of the Four Seasons (791 West Georgia Street, +604 689 9333) - the Prime Minister's Suite over two floors is the city's prestige booking, but the chain also offers excellent value packages around £90.

In the boutique hotel market, Opus stands alone. Unlike many boutique properties, the staff are helpful and friendly. Within a month of its opening, REM (working in Bryan "The Groover from Vancouver" Adams's recording studio) and the cast of X2 had checked in to Opus for long-term stays. They were no doubt impressed by the heated bathroom floor, smartly designed to evaporate shower drippage, and the high-speed internet connection.

The cramped but friendly hotel bar heaves at the weekend. Next door is the in-house Elixir restaurant - a version of the French brasserie not unlike the UK's Café Rouge chain, only better. There's also a complimentary hotel car service (a Mercedes S430 no less) to all downtown locations.

For an alternative to Opus, you'll find an elegant bargain at the Sylvia Hotel (1154 Gilford Street, +604 681 9321, sylviahotel.com, rooms from £35). The building, completed in 1912, sits smack on the water, has stacks of throwback charm, and you can book a suite with a sea view for a reasonable £70.

Get some stuff

Across the water from the downtown area, directly beneath Granville Bridge, is Granville Island where you'll find a world-class food market and craft centre. It's a quality enclave (hawkers flogging crap T-shirts and fake watches are forbidden), where a little local knowledge helps.

We enlisted chef and market "face" Don Letendre, who knows a thing or two about cosmopolitan cheffing and exotic victuals: he cut his teeth at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo, and currently heads the kitchen at the brasserie Elixir at the Opus hotel in Yaletown.

He told us to ask the "monglers" (fishmongers) for Indian candy (delicious nuggets of curried salmon), heartily recommended the Oyama sausage charcuterie, then guided us past the Stock Pot, which deals in outstanding pre-made stocks and soups.

Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks (1128 Mainland, +604 688 6755) is well worth a visit - they stock any cook book worth its salt, then demonstrate recipes from them, occasionally with help from the authors. (Gordon Ramsay's in-store photo sits among others on the homely "pin-board of fame".) Urban Fare (177 Davie Street) is arguably the world's best looking corner shop: it's a boutique farmer's market, and the cafe in front of the tills is as pleasant a spot for coffee as any in Yaletown.

Two other shops stand out: Blue Ruby (1089 Robson Street, +604 899 2583) for designer jewellery at excellent value; and home furnishing emporium Liberty (1295 Seymour Street, +604 682 7499), which sells enough pocket-sized stuff (books, salt and pepper shakers, tiny white rabbit-men) among the sofas and beds to make it a good one-stop present shop.

Get a seaplane

To make the most of Vancouver's unique gulf location, take one of the city's nifty seaplanes to Saturna Island. We flew with Zoltan, a pilot with Harbour Air (+604 274 1277, £69 pp, two passengers minimum, harbour-air.com). Saturna Island has a pub (The Lighthouse), a population of feral goats and a vineyard.

One of the vineyard labourers, the tireless Pierre from Quebec, has sunk all his earnings into an iconic, silver Airstream caravan, which sits between the vines and a sheer mountain slope. Pierre harvests the grapes that have produced a respectable semillon-chardonnay (1999), and you shouldn't leave without a couple of bottles. On July 1, Canada Day, you can get stuck into Saturna's equivalent of a Wicker Man festival - the roasting of 26 lambs on an outdoor spit. And if you'd like to extend your trip, stay at The Lodge (+250 539 2254, saturna-island.bc.ca), which has seven rooms and a woodland hot-tub.

Get into the groove

Nightlife in Vancouver is part Manhattan, part Taunton - some corners are high-concept, others are primitive. Almost everywhere, though, you can expect a raucous evening. At the smoother end of the mix is Voda (783 Homer Street, +604 684 3003), where the dancefloor is intimate (OK, tiny), which means the chance of making new friends is excellent. Capones (1141 Hamilton, +604 684 7900), fiercely recommended by the doorman at Opus, will sort you out for martinis and live jazz.

You'll find plenty of big names (Paul Oakenfold and George Clinton while I was there) in the gig listings for the Commodore (868 Granville Street, +604 280 444). The place has something of a reputation for its sprung dancefloor - elderly music lovers feel less strain on their joints, and the agile encounter a satisfying feeling of added bounce. Down the road, The Vogue Theater (918 Granville Street, +604 280 4444) has a similar international flavour (Badly Drawn Boy was followed in November 2002 by the "king of flamenco" Vicente Amigo and Diamanda Galas with her "four-octave vocal range").

Get something to eat

Vijs (1480 West 11th Avenue, +604 736 6664) serves the city's best Indian, and consistently crops up as an insider's favourite. You may have to wait, but by the time you've washed down your first green chilli dumpling with a swig of Storm Lightning Wit beer, you'll understand its popularity.

The Elbow Room (560 Davie Street, +604 685 3628) is Vancouver's greasy spoon equivalent of the old Langan's in Mayfair - no dish is served without a ritual insult from owner Patrick, and it pays to arrive prepared with counter-heckles. And if you can't finish your food, he expects a charity donation: their tax on your consumptive, foppish appetite. Just tell him to get stuffed.

The Blue Water Café (1095 Hamilton Street, +604 688 8078) serves raw, Asian and traditional seafood in an attractive if generic loft space. Start with a three-storey seafood tasting platter on ice: you get sushi-type dishes, seasonal oysters and a fine selection of dipping sauces.

Lumiere (2551 West Broadway, +604 739 8185) has built its reputation on a fantastic cocktail bar and a visionary chef - local loose cannon Rob Feenie. One seasoned local compared Feenie to Mozart, alluding to his compositional genius with food and his reputation for outrage. Both ensure his unflagging popularity.

At the Sandbar (1535 Johnston Street, +604 669 9030), you should head for the top floor so that your view of Yaletown is framed by the girders of the Granville bridge. The menu resembles a ballot paper, listing all available fish like election candidates. Next to the name of the fish, a series of chads (pregnant or otherwise) made with a fish-shaped hole-punch indicates availability.

In the shape of Steamrollers (586 Hornby, 437 Davie, 693 Broadway), Vancouver has spawned an impressively healthy and burgeoning fast-food chain. It's a take-out burrito restaurant where everything is cooked with steam, keeping it nutritious and flavourful.

Get on your bike

Guests at the elegant Wedgewood Hotel in downtown Vancouver - a favourite with rock stars such as Michael Stipe and actors on location - are becoming accustomed to adults in Lycra cycling kit in the foyer. Two members of staff, bellman Randy Rutherford and general manager Philip Meyer, are ex-pro cyclists and have started running bicycle tours of Vancouver, a city so cycle friendly that even the buses have bike racks.

Although Meyer, an expat Brit who has raced in Europe, and Rutherford, a pro mountain bike racer, are forgiving taskmasters, those who sign up for the two-day cycling package should be reasonably fit - and sufficiently experienced to save 30% of their energy by slipstreaming close behind their guides. The pace is up to guests, and ride distances range from 30km to 80km.

Day one, and we roll south across Burrard bridge, past the University of British Columbia's campus, on beachside roads to the fishing village of Steveston for a coffee break. Heading back, you can eye up the million-dollar homes in the well-heeled Kitsilano neighbourhood from largely traffic-free avenues.

Looming over the second day's ride is the 12km climb up Cypress mountain, the most westerly of Vancouver's three North Shore peaks. But it's a gradual incline, and every switchback is worth it for the dazzling views across Stanley Park and English Bay.

The cycle tours are not just about getting an insider's view of Vancouver - they also offer an introduction to a friendly pedalling fraternity in a city where drivers are outnumbered by cyclists, runners and skaters.

Racing bikes can be provided. Keen cyclists bring their own pedals and shoes; wearing Lycra isn't compulsory.
Robin Barton

 

· The Cycling Adventure package at the Wedgewood Hotel costs CAD$585 (£255) for two nights' B&B, energy food, guided rides and use of the health centre (+604 608 5314, reservations@wedgewoodhotel.com ).

Getting there: Air Canada  aircanada.ca) from Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai is a good option, especially as they've just revamped their executive first service to include a new cocktail menu (featuring Canadian Iceberg vodka) and top-class food.