Vancouver Bars and Nightlife

Hello! Spending one night in Vancouver before our cruise next week. My husband and I aren't party animals but we love discovering new bars and fun places to enjoy a nightcap. Where the best place in Downtown Vancouver to get a drink? We are staying on Robson and don't want to wander too far.

Also, is it generally safe to walk around Downtown Vancouver at night?

Thanks in advance.

The part of town you're in, very safe. That said, do keep your wits around you and just be on the look out for trouble (packs of drunken young and not-so-young men, and those who might look like gangsters.)

Drunken gangsters, oh my! :eek:

Robson runs the whole length of downtown, so depending exactly where you're staying there would be several potential drinking spots to recommend.

If it's the Stadium end of the street (Hampton Inn, Westin area) then Yaletown has more bars & restos than you can shake a stick at. I've been really enjoying the bar, as well as the food, at Good Wolfe lately - the best bourbon cocktail they offered rotated off but if you ask nicely for a Spaghetti Western they'll still make it (bourbon, cointreau, walnut bitters, amaretto are the key ingredients). If good beer is more your thing, then Yaletown Brewing is hard to beat - tip, for just drinks sit at the bar but in the restaurant side, not the pub. Faster service, way fewer fratboys.

If you're somewhere in the middle (Blue Horizon neck of the woods), then there are tons of restaurants all along Robson & Alberni but in terms of bars you'd be better heading north to the water - the area around the convention centre/Canada Place has more bars. My pick would be Tap & Barrel (excellent local beer and wine selection).

Down at the west end near the park you've got a lot of options along Denman street, but my go-to right now is a tad more out of the way: the Fat Badger. Real English beers, with gastropub cuisine straight out of Blighty too - and the best Black Pudding you'll find in North America. Or if you want to wander English Bay for sunset, right at the foot of Denman there's a Donnelly pub (I think it's the Three Brits, but frankly every one of them is entirely interchangeable - not bad, just a bit corporate & soulless but with perfectly serviceable drink menus and even OK food) as well as several other bars & restos.

If drunken buffoonery isn't your scene, then our official party district of Granville St is best avoided (there are tons of bars, but really no standouts). Gastown & Chinatown is where most of the serious mixologists work their trade - check out Pourhouse on Water St for truly old-school cocktails (no vodka, lots of pre-prohibition recipes, and period outfits for the staff may add something to your experience); Blacktail Florist is also doing some very interesting things with homemade shrubs and smoke enfused drinks; Bao Bei or Bambudda for modern China-meets-hipster cocktails; The Keefer, Mamie Taylor's, L'Abattoir or The Diamond for a more classic western cocktail experience.

If wines by the glass are more your speed than cocktails then The Wine Bar is aptly named. Nice location too, just off the seawall on the False Creek side at Davie.

Any of our swankier downtown hotels are guaranteed to have a good range of cocktails & wines, and usually at least a few choices of local beers these days. Hawksworth's bar has good people-watching as the suits roll in post-work, as well as some excellent cocktails (try the eponymous Hotel Georgia if you like lemony drinks, though warning it does have egg which is a deal-breaker for some). The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver reopened it's rooftop venue quite recently and you can go up just for drinks (there's an outdoor terrace for the view, as the resto tables get the best spots by the windows). The other Fairmonts near Canada Place also have decent bars - but the Cascades Lounge in the Pan Pacific offers better views, especially at sunset.

Wow, thank you martincath! Just the kind of info I was looking for. I really appreciate your time and input. We are staying at Listel so kind of central, I think? Seems like just a short walk from the Fairmont.

Yep, Listel is a block from BH. On foot to the Fairmont Vancouver is about 800 yards. Don't forget to peruse the historic prints & photos in the ground-floor corridor between the main lobby and the Hornby Street entrance, you can see the previous hotels bearing the same name.

Your hotel has one of the more interesting restos still on my to-do list, Forage. I've enjoyed Chef W's food at some events, and they do have some intriguing sounding cocktails too - I didn't recommend it before as I try to avoid suggesting anywhere I haven't patronized at least a couple of times.

If you do try Forage please let me know how it was!

Yep, Listel is a block from BH. On foot to the Fairmont Vancouver is about 800 yards. Don't forget to peruse the historic prints & photos in the ground-floor corridor between the main lobby and the Hornby Street entrance, you can see the previous hotels bearing the same name.

 

Your hotel has one of the more interesting restos still on my to-do list, Forage. I've enjoyed Chef W's food at some events, and they do have some intriguing sounding cocktails too - I didn't recommend it before as I try to avoid suggesting anywhere I haven't patronized at least a couple of times.

 

If you do try Forage please let me know how it was!

That's great info! Maybe we will give it a try, especially if we are tired from walking around Stanley Park all day! Thanks again.

Pardon my asking but what is black pudding? I'll be in Vancouver also and found this info very helpful ! We're staying at blue horizon thanks!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Pardon my asking but what is black pudding? I'll be in Vancouver also and found this info very helpful ! We're staying at blue horizon thanks!

Black pudding is a type of blood sausage; generally it's called this in the UK and places settled primarily by Brits. The French and Spanish types (Boudin Noir and Morcilla) might be more familiar to you. French style is always softer than British, usually contains cream, rarely if ever has chunks - Spanish, and especially Portuguese, is often very hard or even completely dried like a salami.

Fans of the genre quibble endlessly about what's the best texture, which filler(s) to use, and whether the fat should be totally combined or in chunks and what size those chunks should be - but regardless, if you've ever eaten a 'Full English' or 'Full British' breakfast that did NOT have a slice of black pudding on it, you've been scammed! A 'Full Scottish' should have both black pudding and haggis IMO, but there are a lot of places that swap out the black pud for the haggis.

Neil Taylor (now running Fat Badger) added the traditional English chunks of fat to the classic Italian spice palette (cocoa & aromatics), with a soft-but-not-runny texture to produce an absolutely magnificent beast of a sausage when he was at Cibo (and won best new Canadian restaurant). The only better black pudding I've ever had - and this is more because of the overall dish components, not the pudding itself - was the original Tarte Boudin at Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal when it came with apples instead of potatoes.

French-style Boudin noir and roasted apples (something with texture, but not sour, e.g. Granny Smith) is just such a perfect combination - and when it's served as a pie with outrageously buttery pastry and a layer of foie gras melted on top it becomes simply the finest individual dish I've ever eaten in decades of gastronomic gluttony. When the recipe changed to include potatoes instead of apples I welled up - it remained awesome, but I literally still dream about the apple version (the tremendous Elements Alsatian Gewurtz that accompanied it didn't hurt either).