L'Abattoir

Though I find its name singularly off-putting, I nonetheless seized the opportunity to finally try L'Abattoir when my mom and sister were in town recently. A joined us so we were Slaughterhouse Four. (Sorry, couldn't resist). A recent issue of Vancouver magazine rightly lauded the "attentive but unobtrusive" nature of L'Abattoir's service, and of course it has topped many a list of bests.

The menu is carefully curated with rather limited options but everything we tried was, without fail, beautiful, creative, and delicious. Of the cold dishes to start, we sampled all but the vegetable salad. For mains, our table was split down the middle with two of us going for the superb halibut, and the others the delectable steak Diane. Dessert was a round of warm chocolate tarts with one insanely yummy apple and olive oil cake thrown in for good measure.

L'Abattoir is at a higher price point than neighbouring Cork & Fin, and thus will be added to my repertoire of special occasion restaurants rather than random dinner out places. If you have something to celebrate and/or some spare cash to burn, you could do a hell of a lot worse than L'Abattoir. Enjoy!