From seedy to ‘SoHo’ in Vancouver

In my younger days, when I was traveling eight months out of the year, all my worldly possessions were stored in a locker in a warehouse in a seedy district called Yaletown, near Vancouver’s waterfront. Back then, my father wouldn’t let me go there alone in the evenings.

These days, it is I who must accompany my father to Yaletown -- to help him decipher the latest yuppie trends. A brick-walled bistro now occupies that warehouse, and it’s beside a trendy spa and just down the street from Don’t Shoot the Elephant, a chic Asian tearoom where you can peruse Vogue Taiwan and listen to the city’s biggest collection of Norwegian CDs while sipping a green tea latte.

They’ve finally done it right in Vancouver, a city renowned for demolishing anything old or with character. (The one exception is Gastown, the city’s birthplace, but its tourist focus keeps locals away.) Often called “Vancouver’s Little SoHo,” Yaletown has evolved over the last decade into an ultra-hip residential neighborhood. Housed in the old redbrick warehouses are nightclubs, a brew pub, cafes, art studios, galleries and some of the city’s best restaurants and most interesting boutiques. The elevated, brick-paved loading docks are crowded with sidewalk tables, their cantilevered canopies now shading the Palm Pilot set from sun and rain as they chat over chai and watch the passing parade of hip Vancouverites.

It was at one of those cafes, Seattle’s Best Coffee, that I met with my friend Kasey Wilson, a food writer and radio personality. I was in Vancouver visiting family and was keen to explore this rehabbed section of my hometown; Kasey promised me a walking tour of the neighborhood that she has called home for eight years.

It seems everyone knows everyone else in Yaletown. At the cafe, friends greeted one another on arrival and knew the wait staff by name. As we walked through the area, people stopped to chat with Kasey.

“It’s like a small town, a closely knit neighborhood,” she said.

On the waterfront

Yaletown’s renaissance seemed to be a long time coming, considering its prime location alongside the downtown core and within roller-blading distance of the sea wall and Stanley Park.

In the late 1880s, when Vancouver was the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the company built rail yards and repair facilities in Yaletown alongside False Creek, an inlet off Georgia Strait. Heavy industry, from shingle mills to cement works, followed the railroad. In the early 1900s, rows of six-story brick warehouses were built for small manufacturers and shipping companies that took advantage of easily accessible rail transport. Their wide loading docks, with sloping, overhanging roofs, sheltered goods from the rain as they were loaded onto boxcars lined up on rails alongside Hamilton and Mainland streets. Yaletown became Vancouver’s industrial heart.

The area suffered badly in the 1940s, when manufacturers turned to the highways to move goods, and it continued its downward slide into the 1970s, becoming the domain of the rag trade, storage facilities and tough bars. Many of its industrial sites were razed before Expo ’86 briefly energized the Yaletown waterfront.

The old warehouses that remained were gradually taken over by artists and bohemians seeking large spaces, abundant light and low rents. The rag trade and rough bars have given way to lofts, studios and offices for multimedia and high-tech businesses. And to preserve its 19th century industrial character, Yaletown has been designated a historic district, which means that the buildings can be used for new businesses but that their exteriors and character must be maintained. Some of the old rooming houses where Canadian Pacific workers stayed, like the Yale Hotel, now a popular spot for live blues, remain much as they did in the past, and the redbrick Roundhouse, where steam locomotives were once repaired, is a community center. Steam engine No. 374, the first train to cross Canada in 1887, is also in the Roundhouse complex. Just outside the boundaries of Yaletown are the dramatic new public library, a coliseum-shaped building designed by noted Israeli-born, Montreal-educated architect Moshe Safdie, who also designed the nearby Ford Centre for the Performing Arts.

Although Yaletown doesn’t cater to tourists -- the area’s first hotel, Opus, a contemporary boutique inn that reflects its trendy location, didn’t open until Sept. 16 -- its shops and restaurants are attracting visitors.

Roughly eight square blocks bounded by Nelson, Homer, Drake and Pacific streets, Yaletown is safe and easily walkable; gentrification has squeezed out the prostitution and drug trade that once haunted its streets. Even the early Yaletown bohemian pioneers were forced to flee as the area -- and the rents and condo prices -- moved upscale.

Most of the shops and galleries are centered on Hamilton and Mainland, two narrow, one-way streets where, in places, you can still see the old railway tracks through the asphalt. Just up Homer Street are the latest in cool restaurants and nightspots. Some are so popular with 20-year-olds and Botox beauties that there is a three-week wait for reservations. Lucy Mae Brown’s was named for the proprietor of the 1900s-era brothel and opium den that the restaurant occupies.

“Chain stores did move in,” Kasey said, “but it wasn’t what people here wanted, so they were forced to shut down.” Several prominent Canadian clothing companies cycled in and then out. Now shops like Global Atomic Designs, which sells hip fashions, and high-end home furnishing shops like Chintz & Co. dominate. The area’s trademark is small, one-of-a-kind gems like La Bottega del Mediterraneo, stuffed with imported Italian dishes and home wares. An all-cookbook shop called Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks offers cooking classes several times a week with local and visiting chefs.

And there are all manner of galleries, including Coastal People, which specializes in Northwest Coast native art.

Even grocery stores in Yaletown are chic. At Urban Fare, a Zabar’s-like food mart, every shopping cart has a coffee holder, and there is a cafe featuring live music on weekends. Among the 40 kinds of fresh bread on the shelves is a $100 loaf that is baked fresh in a Paris bakery every morning, then couriered to Vancouver.

Seafood, raw or cooked

You can’t spend more than an hour with a food writer before it’s time to eat. Kasey and I started our culinary explorations at the comfortable, Nantucket-y Rodney’s Oyster House, where we were served chowder and oysters (at 11 a.m., our lunch appetizers) in an atmosphere of whitewashed brick and biceps by a handsome shucker named Ian. Rodney’s has a dozen or more fresh oyster varieties daily and goes through 800 raw oysters on a typical Friday night.

For the main course, we moved on to Cioppino’s Mediterranean Grill & Enoteca, informally called “Pino’s” after chef Pino Posteraro, whose illustrious career has included cooking for Frank Sinatra. Cioppino’s is considered one of Vancouver’s best Italian restaurants, and just down the block on Hamilton Street is the Blue Water Cafe and Raw Bar, one of the city’s best for seafood.

The Blue Water has two exceptional chefs who literally face off against each other. Chef Max Katsuno presides over the raw bar at the southern end of the restaurant. His trademark is two- and three-tiered servings of sushi and sashimi. In the northwestern kitchen at the opposite side of the restaurant is chef James Walt, who produces such innovative gems as local line-caught halibut with oyster veloute, white asparagus and squid tempura. Its 600-bottle wine list has earned Blue Water Cafe the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.

Working off all that eating is easy in Yaletown. There are yoga and Pilates studios. At the foot of Davie Street, alongside the sea wall that curves for eight miles around Stanley Park, the Reckless Bike Shop rents cycles and skates. Or catch one of the small electric Aquabus ferries that depart regularly for points around False Creek, including the Science Center and Granville Island Public Market, where you can rent kayaks. Or visit one of Yaletown’s spas, as I did.

“I’ll give you a couple of minutes to dress down to your comfort level,” chimed lovely Trang Tran, the esthetician who administered my “Facialiscious” at the Skoah Spa. Jamie McKeough and Chris Scott made up the name of the spa from their last names. “We checked 77 languages, including Yiddish and Finnish, to make sure it didn’t mean anything,” Jamie told me. They created the tranquil spa out of a place that once was a poolroom.

“Does your face need a complete overhaul?” the spa menu asked. How many women could say no to that? “Facialiscious” turned out to be a decadent facial that included a foot and neck massage on a heated massage table. My facial was a procession of organic, largely fruit-based products from a Hungarian company called Eminence. By the time Trang had finished massaging, masquing, toning and polishing my face with delicious potions of apricot, peach and honeydew, I’ll be darned if I wasn’t hungry again.

So I was glad that after my spa session I had arranged to meet Kasey at Brix, a popular tapas restaurant on Homer Street. We sat in its very European open courtyard, which at the turn of the 20th century was used by trucks delivering cattle to the building, then a slaughterhouse. Chatting with owner Patrick Mercer, we nibbled on black tea-smoked chicken flat bread and apricot and avocado salad.

As I sipped a Blue Mountain Pinot Noir and marveled at how much the British Columbia of my youth had changed to produce such first-class wines, Patrick echoed my thoughts.

“Who would have thought,” he said, holding his arms out wide as if to encompass all of Yaletown, “that a grubby little corner of Vancouver like this would one day become this charming little SoHo?”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

*

A Yaletown walkabout

GETTING THERE:

From LAX: United, Alaska and Air Canada have nonstop service to Vancouver. America West has connecting service (with a change of plane). Restricted round-trip fares begin at $187.05.

WHERE TO STAY:

Westin Grand Vancouver, 433 Robson St.; (888) 680-9393, (604) 602-1999, fax (604) 647-2502, www.westingrandvancouver.com. An all-suite large, luxury hotel on the Yaletown border. Studios $166, one-bedroom suite $178.

Opus Hotel, 322 Davie St.; (866) 642-6787, (604) 642-6787, fax (604) 694-2116, www.opushotel.com. This 97-room contemporary boutique hotel is the only lodging in Yaletown. Doubles from $131.

WHERE TO EAT:

Blue Water Cafe, 1095 Hamilton St.; (604) 688-8078, www.bluewatercafe.net. Entrees $16-$25. Reservations recommended.

Brix Restaurant & Wine Bar, 1138 Homer St.; (604) 915-9463, www.brixvancouver.com. Tapas are a specialty, $6-$9; entrees $12-$16.

Cioppino’s Mediterranean Grill & Enoteca, 1129 Hamilton St.; (604) 685-8462, www.cioppinosyaletown.com. Entrees $15-$22.

Rodney’s Oyster House, 1228 Hamilton St.; (604) 609-0080. Seafood entrees $8-$12.50.

WHERE TO RELAX:

Skoah Spa + Store, 1011 Hamilton St.; (604) 642-0200, www.skoah.com. Their trademark Facialiscious, a 75-minute treatment, is $56.55. Open daily.

FOR INFORMATION:

The Greater Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau, 200 Burrard St., Suite 210, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6C 3L6; (604) 682-2222, fax (604) 682-1717, www.tourismvancouver.com.

Canadian Tourism Commission, 550 S. Hope St., 9th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90071; (213) 346-2700, fax (213) 620-8827, www.travelcanada.ca.

*

Margo Pfeiff, a freelance writer based in Montreal, visits Vancouver, her childhood home, frequently.