downtown (but mostly gastown), sorta yaletown, kitsilano, and parts of main street are the cool areas
pretty much all of the good shopping is in gastown/kits
there are tons of worthwhile restaurants everywhere, I can give recommendations if you let me know what you like/a rough budget (i assume you're staying in/close to downtown).
To name a few favourites: Farmer's apprentice, pidgin, l'abbatoir, the union, ask for luigi, meat and bread, the oakwood, bel cafe, the arc restaurant at the fairmont (have pancakes), Kin Kao Thai Kitchen, minami, miku, hapa izakaya, etc etc
earnest ice cream near olympic village is a really popular thing to do
the art gallery is quite nice, its in a really impressive old building and the exhibits are generally well worth a couple hours
grouse mountain and stanley park are extremely touristy but pretty worth checking out (not in season for big tour groups and stuff anyway so it wontbe thaaat busy)
granville island is a bit of a tourist trap but its cute
if you like craft beer its huge here; this website lists all of the breweries and tells you when they're open
http://growlerfill.ca/33 acres, brassneck, main street are all within like a 3 minute walk of each other, are really well rated, and have tasting rooms where you can try flights
alibi room is the best craft beer bar in the city, period.
wrote this awhile ago about shopping in gastown for someone else, i'll edit it to be current:
Livestock-mainly sneakers, basics streetwear stuff. 3 locations.
Roden gray- you've probably seen their online store but yeah, lot of higher fashion stuff, TB, giv, dries, moncler, mmm etc.
Neighbour- OL, Norse, ervell, schnieder, raeburn, that kinda thing.
Neighbour woman- same idea but for women. where inventory used to be
Haven- i'm sure you know them
Dutil- denim
niftydo- workwear/repro stuff
old faithful shop- housewares, really cool store.
board of trade- pretty random selection of brands, a kind of guise, muttonhead, silent, mcnairy, i love ugly, etc.
inform- one of the best furniture/interiors store i've ever been in
litchfield- housewares
one of a few- building block, wood wood, apiece apart, etc. only womenswear
nouvelle nouvelle- small selection of housewares and clothing
the block- apc, oliver spencer, creep, vibskov, endless filsons and such
Nordstrom just opened and while those are everywhere this is a flagship so its massive (think its their largest store), has SPACE their little shop for up and coming designers and stuff, and a nice cafe.
Holt renfrew is similar to like barneys
The bay kinda sucks for guys, the room section is good for women though
there are basically infinite coffee shops:
revolver, timbertrain, matchstick, 49th parallel, beaucoup bakery, kafka's, musette cafe, east van roasters, prado, and elysian are all good but seriously there's so many
let me know if you have any questions
Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 7:27 pm
