Gary’s in Vancouver takes the number nine spot on the Top 10 list of Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants 2024.
Gary’s
Vancouver, BC
9 9
Prestigious Partners
Street Address
1485 W 12th Ave.
City + Province
Vancouver, BC
Reservations
Yes
Website
It’s the classic meet-cute. Then-server’s assistant Bailey Hayward and then-chef de partie Mathew Bishop get together at Vancouver’s Mackenzie Room. Stints at Say Mercy! and Collective Goods follow. Enter the pandemic, and B.C.’s household restrictions give rise to the couple’s intimate home dinner series called Gary’s Social Club, named after a mutual friend who was once mistakenly called Gary. Six years after meeting, the duo opens a spot that weds front-and back-of-house into a fine-tuned kitchen party.
Meet Mathew Bishop and Bailey Hayward, the veteran duo behind this South Granville date-night spot.
We watch the rom-com unfold in the kitchen through the cut-out window in the bar. I’ve got a Grapefruit Garibaldi going, a flirty pink highball that’s as lean as the glass it’s served in, with Tromba Blanco tequila, Aperol, tonic and fresh grapefruit. I lean back and take in the scene’s easy elegance.
The reason Gary’s smells so good: daily fresh-baked rye-sourdough rolls, brushed with orange-tinted egg wash – a sign of a healthy hen.
Braised rabbit leg with garlic sausage, radish, leeks and sauerkraut in rich consommé.
That’s when the strawberries take us by surprise. Cut like tiny rubies, they glisten in a sumac vinaigrette on kanpachi crudo painted with white shoyu. It’s the edible equivalent of a romantic gesture. Then, with the swish of a maxi skirt, our server appears and sets down the hen-of-the-woods. A zippy mustard sauce clings between plumes of mushrooms, battered and fried, providing exclamations of sharpness.
Chef Mathew Bishop gives a grapefruit garibaldi a swirl.
When it comes to the rabbit, exclamations do not suffice. The braised leg rests in a scintillant consommé alongside white garlic sausages and winsome leeks. This time, it’s the cabbage that surprises. The strands of lightly fermented sauerkraut weave a subtle sour note through the roundness of the broth. As I spoon up the last drop, I almost expect to hear someone say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Instead, it’s our server, letting us know it’s the last night for rum baba. Decision made. We swoon over the bouncy camomile-perfumed cake trimmed in pistachio custard and topped with an ample quenelle of chantilly. It’s a love story.
Don’t miss: Hanging Close, a large-scale painting by Dan Climan, an artist the owners fell for after seeing his work at Mon Lapin in Montreal. Pictured parked under a laundry line in Climan’s crisp and calming shapes, the vintage Chevelle evokes their fondness for road trips.
Prestigious Partners
