This ruggedly elegant French-inspired charmer, whose name pays homage to Gastown’s meat-packing provenance, pioneered quality dining in the stubbornly sketchy neighbourhood — and, 15 years on, it remains on top. Set in a refurbished, historic 19th-century brick-and-beam space that housed Vancouver’s first jail, this chic but relaxed fine-dining sanctuary spans a bar, upper dining room, glass-encased atrium, a second-floor private dining room and, across the back alleyway, a self-contained private-dining special facility — 1 Gaoler’s Mews. Chef-owner Lee Cooper’s cooking is focused on West Coast ingredients and French technique. Demand never fades for his enduring signature dish of baked Pacific oyster with truffle purée, mushroom marmalade and whipped garlic butter, which is now available à la carte, on the chef’s menu, and, during happy hour, at the bar. Cooper and chef de cuisine Charlie Kunsang otherwise let each season’s bounty guide their creativity. In spring and summer, that might mean wild Pacific lingcod with mussels and spiced nage. Or beetroot carpaccio with blackberry, oveja con trufa and umeboshi vinaigrette. A recent and canny shift to the à la carte menu: Dishes are no longer parsed as starter or main. As most dishes are similar in size, you are encouraged to order what you feel like eating in the order you like. Wines and cocktails achieve commensurate standards of excellence.