Legendary Vancouver restaurateur Umberto Menghi will close his 37-year-old fine dining Italian restaurant Il Giardino this spring to make way for Seacliff Properties to develop what will likely be downtown’s newest highrise.
Seacliff bought the Hornby Street and Pacific Boulevard restaurant site on January 15 from W.P.J. McCarthy and Co. owner William McCarthy and several similar sized lots directly north of the restaurant from Menghi.
“Our plans are to look at rezoning the property,” Seacliff director of real estate Ian Porter told Business in Vancouver February 4. “We’ll look at all options. Obviously, we purchased it looking toward the future and potential things we could do on the site, but we don’t have a development application going in tomorrow.”
One block north of the iconic restaurant is a rapidly evolving three-block stretch of Drake Street, where construction is underway on:
•Concert Properties’ 194-unit, 33-storey, Salt By Concert tower at the corner of Hornby and Drake streets;
•Cressey Developments’ 215-unit, 32-storey Maddox tower at the corner of Howe and Drake streets; and
•Rize Developments’ 187-unit, 23-storey Rolston tower at the corner of Granville and Drake streets.
City of Vancouver director of planning and development Brian Jackson told BIV that Seacliff’s new 15,000-square-foot site was previously rezoned to accommodate an 18-storey hotel.
“The heights and densities for that site cannot be determined until we know the size of the assembly of properties,” he said.
There has been much speculation over the past decade about the Il Giardino site’s redevelopment. In 2006, Menghi was convinced that the stars were aligning for him to build a Tuscan-inspired boutique hotel next door. His plan was to move the restaurant’s 125-year-old yellow Leslie House before excavation and construction and then use the heritage house as an entryway to his new hotel.
He spent $700,000 on upgrading the house to heritage standards, and the city granted him bonus density. Part of the bonus density deal was that he donate to the city and pay trucking fees to move a second house that was on the property so it could become part of Vancouver’s Mole Hill neighbourhood in the West End.
“As we got closer to the Olympics, the budget for the hotel went from $22 million to $48 million, so obviously it was impossible to build,” Menghi said.
“The restaurants have been here so long that it’s time for the site to grow. The cost went up. The taxes went up.”
What’s next for Umberto?
2013 will be a year of change for one of the city’s most celebrated chefs and entrepreneurs.
Umberto Menghi is not only closing Il Giardino restaurant but he has also put his Tuscany Cooking School in Italy up for sale.
“The economy in Italy for luxury and that lifestyle is not the same any more, so we want to sell it,” the 66-year-old said.
Menghi will manage his two Whistler restaurants, Trattoria and Umberto il Caminetto, provide consulting services and write a book about his life that will appeal to those who have bought some of his many cookbooks.
Leaving the corner of Hornby Street and Pacific Boulevard will be an emotional move or Menghi, however, given that he has been on the corner for 40 years.
Menghi opened his first restaurant, Umberto, in 1973 in his yellow heritage house. The next year he opened the seafood restaurant La Cantina on the north side of Umberto. He then built Il Giardino south of the yellow house. It opened in 1976.
“I’ve got a younger wife and a young child,” Menghi told BIV, “and I want to spend more time with them.”
