Canada's Best New Restaurants 2011

Steak Diane with charred onions and potato fondant.

French for slaughterhouse, L’Abattoir refers to its neighbourhood’s historic vocation as the butchery district; Blood Alley is around the corner. This is not actually a meat-centric restaurant (although it serves a sanguine steak Diane) – it’s the nucleus of modern Vancouver cuisine, the place to take the post-Olympic pulse of the city. The multi-level Gastown space by Situ Design celebrates heritage grit: battered bricks juxtaposed against steel, glass and mind-bending tile work. That chandelier in the atrium that looks like antlers? Driftwood.

Dungeness crab and chickpea “toast.”

You’ve entered the universe of chef Lee Cooper, where nothing is quite what it seems. With an eclectic experimental background (a year at the U.K.’s the Fat Duck, Market at Vancouver’s Shangri-La Hotel), he’s perfectly poised to take risks, and his vision of French-accented West Coast food is breathtakingly original. An appetizer called Dungeness crab and chickpea toast puts dainty crabmeat, chickpeas and brioche croutons in a toasted brioche cylinder, with sumptuous crab custard and pickled carrots, of all things. Each dish is a who’da thunk it, like jiggling cubes of Aperol (Jell-O shots!) surrounding a foie gras terrine, or crisped, Szechuan-spiced dumplings (oxtail egg rolls!) alongside exquisitely seared scallops, Asian pear and charred daikon.

For all the kitchen’s derring-do, GM Paul Grunberg sets a high standard for service: It’s girl-next-door sweet but ultra-smart, ready to make suggestions or send over the sommelier. It may be barman Shaun Layton you want, though, whose exceptional cocktail program includes the namesake Slaughterhouse, a take on the Sazerac that’s delicately misted with green Chartreuse. They kill you softly here.