Breathtakingly beautiful and crammed with fun things to do, for
the past three years Vancouver has been voted “Best City in the
Americas” by readers of CondeNast Traveler. Always popular, this
waterfront metropolis has evolved in recent years into a super-hot
destination that offers everything from old-fashioned elegance to
cutting-edge modernism, along with plenty of outdoor adventure,
world-class dining, big-name entertainment and couture
shopping.
Among the biggest draws of late is 37-acre Granville Island. Just
off the southern edge of downtown and beneath the Granville Street
Bridge, the island draws 12 million annual visitors (71 percent of
them from outside British Columbia). Since the late 1970s, the old
factories and warehouses of this one-time industrial area have been
gradually transformed into an imaginative and high-spirited mix
that includes a giant culinary market, shops, galleries,
entertainment venues and casual eating spots.
The result is so appealing that two years ago Granville Island was
named one of the “20 Best Neighborhoods in North America” by New
York-based Project for Public Spaces (other neighborhoods on the
list include San Francisco’s North Beach and Rittenhouse Square in
Philadelphia). The same group later named Granville Island as one
of 60 among the “World’s Great Places,” along with Notre Dame
Cathedral, Vietnam’s Cai Rang Floating Market, Sienna’s Piazza del
Campo and the Spanish Steps in Rome.
The heart and soul of Granville Island is its superb Public
Market. Housed in the gigantic shell of a former rope factory, it
hosts more than 50 permanent shops and temporary vendors arranged
in an open plan (no walls). Despite its immaculate and
well-organized surroundings, the market offers all the heady
excitement of a great covered food bazaar in India or Vietnam.
The market’s emphasis centers on two simple words: fresh and
local. Multiple vendors offer a wide and artfully arranged array of
garden-fresh produce everything from the sweetest, just-ripe
peaches and berries in summer to tiny colored cauliflower and
delicate Japanese eggplant in winter. The long glass cases of Oyame
Sausage Company are jam-packed with the kind of charcuterie your
clients last saw in Paris but it’s made from pigs raised nearby on
hazelnuts, or (as with the lingonberry venison pate) local wild
game and indigenous fruit. At the Stock Market you can pick up a
quart of homemade demiglace and an astonishing array of just-made
soups. Edible British Columbia sells take-home goodies from around
the region: raspberry & rosemary seasalts from Greater
Vancouver; flower-flecked shortbreads from the Fraser Valley;
saskatoon berry jams from Okanagan. The Lobster Man can sell your
clients fresh-smoked herring, salmon packed to take home, or
just-off-the-boat oysters, clams, mussels, and of course lots of
lobster.
Other food shops specialize in unusual or hard-to-find
ingredients. At the tiny Thai Princess stand, Suratin Rianpracha
sells curry sauces he prepares from the secret recipes of his
mother. Sirops Cocktail Bar serves alcohol-free mixed drinks that
you’d swear were the real thing. South China Seas offers everything
Asian for the kitchen. A strong recommendation: the Granville
Island Tea Shop, whose enthusiastic owners will introduce clients
to rare items such as Organic Orchid Oolong, grown with orchids and
harvested when the flowers bloom, or the shriveled Golden Peach
Blossom that opens up dramatically when placed in hot water,
setting a beautiful red flower afloat.
If your clients can manage to pull themselves away from the Public
Market to explore the rest of Granville Island, they’ll find plenty
to keep them busy, including restaurants and cafes, a bookstore
geared to cooks, a wine shop specializing in British Columbia’s
increasingly excellent vintages, outdoor performers, dozens of
working artists in their studios, handmade furniture makers, art
galleries and clothing boutiques. They can hop on boat tours or
rent kayaks or bicycles, and visit shops and studios specifically
intended for kids. Of particular interest: master shoemaker Ken
Rice, who crafts handmade shoes from scratch; and Granville
Eyeland, where clients can pick up unique eyeglasses designed by
Klaus Sebok, who created many of Elton John’s most over-the-top
specs.
