Funky ’ hood for craft beer, stellar food
VANCOUVER, Canada — Walk east from Vancouver’s Gastown neighborhood and you’re in the unofficially named Railtown, only six blocks long and four wide alongside the port’s rail lines. You can hear trains shunting behind the revamped warehouses where dozens of artists and designers have their studios. Many of them open their doors to visitors during the fourday Eastside Culture Crawl every fall ( this year, Nov. 17- 20).
Until recently, even longtime Vancouver residents didn’t realize a neighborhood existed here. Now it’s the go- to place for British Columbia’s best selection of local craft beers at the Alibi Room. It’s also the site of a perpetual line outside a minute but stellar casual Italian trattoria called Ask for Luigi, which was justifiably crowned the city’s best new restaurant in 2015 by Vancouver Magazine.
Railtown is becoming a real hip ’ hood, and it’s changing fast. I met up with Bonnie Todd, who offers Off the Eaten Track foodie tours in Railtown. Our small group stepped from nondescript Dunlevy Avenue into a warehouse, where we were culture- shocked by the ultra- modern interior containing the Vancouver Urban Winery, Postmark Brewing and the Belgard Kitchen smallbite restaurant. .
We noshed our way through Railtown, indulging in the Uncommon Café’s legendary meatballs and sipping in- house roasted coffee at chic East Van Roasters. Its mandate is to train and employ marginalized women from the Rainier Hotel residence upstairs. As in Gastown and Chinatown, many locals struggle to get by, and social enterprise is a big theme in this neighborhood.