Vancouver Finder Blog

As we make our way towards the Regal Heights Bistro on St. Clair just east of Dufferin, our car is slapped by the pouring rain that has caused that this part of Corso Italia has changed into a churning sea of gravel and mud. The digging up of St. Clair Avenue West for a streetcar track/road improvement works is still going on five years later, and we’re reduced to one lane. However, the traffic is easy in this bad weather, and we manage to park our car just across the street from the restaurant. Crossing the no-man’s-land of cracked pavement and orange cones, I squint at the building I believe to be the Regal Heights Bistro. “There’s no sign, there used to be a big sign, and it looks like a pub inside,” I observe uneasily. “I hope this is still the right place.” But my partner says: “Yep – Regal Heights Bistro,” pointing at the front window, displaying a small hand-lettered sign and also the trademark Jazz Brunch sign.

As soon as we cross the threshold, a hostess is already waiting to seat us and offering a choice of a table. At eight fifteen, most patrons are sitting near the bar, with the whole place being about a third full. “This is your first time here? Our sign blew down, and when we write it on a chalkboard, the rain washes it away.” “Tonight you are going to have lots of fun, there’s a birthday celebration and a jazz band is coming.” So now we are certain we are indeed in the right place, though when I look around us, I can see more of a pub than an upscale bistro interior, with the smell of French fries in the air. We examine the menu and my partner is disappointed at the two-sided thing we’re presented with.

“I’m sure they’ve changed the menu,” he observes in an unhappy voice. Being an elitist jazz musician himself, he probably doesn’t like the prospect of a live band playing here tonight. I have to check the restaurant name printed at the top of the menu again and again, so that I am completely sure we really are where we want to be. Though I could find no website for the Bistro, and precious little online information other than bare-bones positive reviews, I did dig up some posted menus: and these presented dishes like caprese salad, provencale escargots, chicken liver pate, smoked salmon crepes and black squid ink linguine. I don’t need a menu to tell me that no homemade black squid ink linguine is coming out of this kitchen. When we look at the current menu, we can see it’s mostly typical pub food, if a bit gussied up by some special flavours and toppings.

Our hostess returns to take our order so that I can ask - what happened? The current menu is very different from what we found on the internet. Different ownership? “Oh no, same ownership,” she reassures us. “The website hasn’t been freshened in a long time. Our menu hasn’t changed for the last couple of years, only our chefs have been changing a lot. Our focus is always on fresh food; we shop every day, we cut our own meat, we prepare our own burgers, there’s no microwaves…we just wish to have more of a free dining feel.” Although the whole bistro is definitely casual, including the paper napkins, when I see the wall signage from around the world, I would still expect a bit more sophisticated offer.

“Well, we are shrinking from that term gastro-pub,” our hostess laughs and we are put at her ease with a charming, friendly manner.

Want to read the rest of the story? Here you can find the whole Regal Heights Bistro write-up.