Part of BIV’s What big money buys series: Wealthy Vancouverites are lavishing untold amounts of money on big-ticket indulgences, driving a bonanza for the region’s dealers in luxury furnishings, vehicles, yachts and other top-tier toys.
Vancouver's level of consumer wealth, both among its residents and among an increasing number of affluent travellers visiting the city for business or pleasure, is driving significant growth in demand for high-priced fine dining.
But if you’re looking for the uptight kind of upscale options one might find in New York or London, you may have missed the phenomenon completely.
That’s because, many local industry insiders say, Vancouver’s fine-dining scene is taking a decidedly casual and relaxed path, reflective of the city’s laid-back style that helps draw tourists and immigrants alike.
When affluent diners come to Vancouver, they aren’t looking for the same type of luxury dining fare that they would in larger megacities. Rather, they want something that, while having the finest ingredients and preparation, remains satisfyingly similar to Pacific Northwest home cooking.
“In my two and a half years here, I’ve noticed an increase in the finer-dining establishments,” said Brad Simmons, director of sales and marketing at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, which houses Vancouver star chef David Hawksworth’s namesake restaurant. “And that market is changing a bit. People want great food, but it doesn’t necessarily have to have one or two Michelin stars. The upscale dining here is relaxed, with a West Coast feel.… Great hearty food, traditional techniques, but not overly formal. It’s a casual fine dining.”
For example, a plate of Big Boss Fried Rice at Peninsula, a Chinese seafood restaurant at Oakridge Centre, features abalone – pushing the price to $108 per plate. The Fotiaoqiang, a Chinese vegetable and seafood stew using shark-fin soup as a base, is available in places like Mott 32 and Shun Feng Seafood Restaurant in Richmond, with one set dinner for 10 people featuring the dish, along with a whole roasted suckling pig and lobsters, at a price of $2,388.
Away from the Chinese cuisine front, the back-to-basics approach continues. Octopus’ Garden in Kitsilano serves grilled parts of bluefin tuna as well as sushi and other traditional Japanese and fusion dishes that can easily push the bill for a casual dinner for four to $400 and beyond. Items like the Tiger Eye (caviar and quail egg) and the Mt. Fuji Mille-feuille (foie gras, Wagyu beef, caviar and truffles) go for $50 and $55 apiece, respectively.
Then there are the steaks. Nightingale, Hawksworth’s other signature restaurant, features a $98 porterhouse. Gotham’s Tomahawk steak is $165 – without side dishes; the steak house also offers a straightforward Seafood Tower of lobster, king crab, snow crab, Dungeness crab, jumbo prawns, oysters, salmon and scallops for $159. At Hawksworth’s namesake restaurant, its B.C. Journey tasting menu ($129 per guest, $208 with wine pairing) features Pacific Northwest culinary standbys like clam and smoked salmon, and items like pheasant and bison.
However, when dining on simple comfort dishes, upscale diners aren’t necessarily skimping on drinks. Almost every one of the restaurants above and their competitors have wine lists that are closer in heft to dictionaries than to pamphlets, and while the prices of the wines listed online often stop in the hundreds, it is not unusual for in-the-know diners to order bottles priced in the four- or five-figure range with their meals.
French champagne producer Champagne Barons de Rothschild recently took note of Vancouver’s growing wealth, setting up tasting events at Mott 32 last year to entice the city’s affluent Chinese diners to match sparkling wine with Asian dishes. Managing director Fréderic Mairésse said he has often found Vancouver to be a valuable place to reach Chinese consumers who are either visiting or living part time in the city.
“Because our brand itself is a little new, the plan is to expand awareness and introduce our brand to customers, to show them why we are different,” Mairesse said of Rothschild’s visits to Vancouver. “And every time we come here, we try to explain that to new customers…. It’s a new Hong Kong; the cities even bear some physical resemblance.”
Increased consumption by those not born in Canada, and the rising sophistication of their tastes, is a major driver in the industry’s tilt toward high-end “home cuisine,” said Benjamin Yeung, general manager of Shun Feng in Richmond. Shun Feng highlights the phenomenon of casual cuisine moving upscale; located in the Parker Place mall, the restaurant has been in business for 12 years, but it underwent extensive renovation before last Christmas to reflect its move up the quality food chain.
“We want our customers to come in and get the sense that they are coming to a brand new place,” Yeung said of the renovations, which included LED chandeliers, high-grade porcelain and a reduced table count, down from 40-plus to 29. “Word of mouth is crucial in our market; people want to be able to come in and have ample personal space. They need to have the comfort of being able to hear their own conversations. Yes, we’ve upgraded all facets of our food from source to table, but we need the entire package to reflect that.”
Yeung stressed that the upgrade in cuisine doesn’t mean a change in the types of dishes themselves; he pointed to menu items like the shrimp dumplings and chicken sticky rice as typical comfort food for Chinese dim-sum goers, but noted the restaurant now sources the shrimp from a more expensive source, and each dish now features new ingredients and cooking methods to deliver the increasing quality that diners demand.
“Right now, we have Chinese diners of all kinds, young and old, new residents and repeat customers, tourists and business people,” Yeung said. “The next step is to get more mainstream attention. We still get fewer mainstream upscale diners than downtown establishments, but I think our focus on quality of experience, from presentation to service and, yes, food, will surprise many people. It already has, to a degree.”
Rosewood Hotel Georgia’s Simmons agrees, noting the hotel just completed a major upgrade to its 1927 Lobby Lounge, where diners can order a $22 chicken pot pie with Rossdown Farms chicken. The upgrade, with new furniture and photos drawing on Vancouver history and the city’s Hollywood North role, seeks to convey a “sense of place,” Simmons said. That, maybe as much as the food, is increasingly the focus of the upscale diner. All of the hotel’s restaurants will also go through continuous fine tuning to menus and decor to maintain that attraction, he said. •
