Welcome to Discover Home, a multi-part series on Vancouver neighbourhoods we love.
When I was little I went to Hastings-Sunrise for very specific reasons (to visit my family’s favourite Italian grocer, namely, and also sometimes for the PNE). Those things are still great, but the diverse, garden-filled northeastern Vancouver neighbourhood offers much more to explore.
chill: Catch the newly opened Winter Farmer’s Market between the PNE Forum and Agrodome. It’s stocked with local apples and pears, huge chanterelles, chai and bountiful bakery stands. Grab Pure Bread’s banana-pepper studded cornbread and maybe a slice of the salty-sweet Crack bar and wander through the fallen leaves and chestnuts of North Renfrew toward New Brighton Park, one if the city’s prettiest spots to sprawl on a bench while dogs and tugs skitter by.
shop: Hastings-Sunrise has a clear sense of its 140-year history, reflected in businesses like Dayton Boot Company and curio shop The Mad Picker (a vintage lover’s dream, with functional jukeboxes, gorgeous gramophones and a very rare Mountain Gorilla skull, if you’re into it). Newer is Horses Records, a music shop/bookstore with diverse vinyls, cosy couches and a novel vending machine of local cassettes. Plus, it’s imbued with powder-doughnut smell c/o the bakery next door.
eat: Drop into Ugo & Joe’s Italian grocer for a bottle of pear nectar to slug back while deciding which of Hastings-Sunrise’s many incredible restaurants to have lunch at. Laksa King serves authentic Burmese and Campagnolo Roma is a clear must-hit for pizza, or you can check out Mr. Red Café for northern Vietnamese (tougher to track down than the ubiquitous southern style). Try the sticky rice with chicken pate and the mango salad served on a tangle of fresh mint; both are stellar, and service is warm and attentive … much like the neighbourhood itself. —Adrienne Matei
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