L'Abattoir | Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants, Bars and Chefs.

LOTS OF CHANGE at Gastown’s finest. Founder Paul Grunberg has amicably departed to focus on Savio Volpe’s expansion, while co-owners Nin Rai and executive chef Lee Cooper have launched the nearby Coquille Fine Seafood with chef de cuisine Jack Chen.

Restaurant director Lisa Haley keeps the home fires burning brightly at this ruggedly elegant French-inspired charmer set in a brick-and-beam heritage building appointed with classic tiles, sculpted driftwood and sleek industrial accents. L’Abattoir offers a bar, upper dining room, glass-encased atrium and self-contained private dining facility across a cobblestone alley at No. 1 Gaoler’s Mews, home to a new monthly dinner series (eight guests, 10 courses) for which tickets sell out within minutes. Chef de cuisine Michael Christiansen, hailing from The Pear Tree and winner of the 2014 Hawksworth Young Chef Scholarship, has steered the menu back in a more classical direction.

Baked Pacific oyster with truffle purée and mushroom marmalade, steak Diane and pan-fried veal sweetbreads on toast remain popular mainstays, but do save room for the excellent foie gras tartlet. A notable weekend brunch service offers impossibly fluffy buttermilk and ricotta pancakes, a full breakfast with boudin noir and impressive pastries alongside biodynamic bubbles and grower champagne from Vancouver’s original all-natural wine list. Katie Ingram’s ever-changing cocktails are always inventive.

Dinner
Sunday to Thursday
5:30 PM until 10:00 PM

Friday, Saturday
5:30 PM until 10:30 PM

Brunch
Saturday, Sunday
10:00 AM until 2:00 PM