DINNER WITH… pairs interesting Vancouverites with top notch restaurants. We want to showcase the minds and menus of some of our favourite people and establishments. We’ll pick their brains, while they devour their dinner, and hopefully YOU will come away inspired, enlightened and hungry…

Welcome back to Dinner With…summer is finally here, so I jumped on the opportunity to sit on a patio and have my…

DINNER WITH… ANNE COTTINGHAM!

Anne is VIA’s Visual Arts editor whose column is (as its description says) all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. You know she’s qualified as her job is an arts administrator here in Vancouver and she’s qualified for a Dinner With… as she’s one of Vancity’s awesome human beings.

As I mentioned, summer is here and we made our way out to the patio at the Tea House at Stanley Park for an evening of excellent food.


We were first presented with a crab salad with a tarragon velouté sauce to wet our palates and get us hungry. Which is exactly what happened…

Next we perused the menu and placed our orders, opting to share our appetizers…



The Tea Room has a tasting board selection with the option to put together your own! We chose the cheese plate, with smoked salmon, hummus and olives. I could have eaten this all night.
Next we shared a prawn cocktail and mussels provencal, both delicious.

Our conversation centered around the arts scene in Vancouver (go figure) as we’re both products of photography studies programs! (Emily Carr for Anne, Ryerson for myself). If you haven’t checked our Anne’s column, you should do so…there are so many talents people in this city.
She’s a delightful person and the only one I know that calls VIA “vee-ah” instead of “vee-eye-eh”, which made me smile.


So I think Anne and I ate ALL the seafood…and as you see by the photo above, we were excited to do so.

Anne got the Fresh Pacific Salmon with a lemon caper sauce, and my dinner (below) was the Roasted Sablefish with a miso soy marinade. Both fish were Ocean Wise, thumbs up!

Next up were the Dinner With… Questions!

Favourite Foods?: butter, any seafood, wine, scotch, cheese, tacos (even Old El Paso!), nachos and bacon

Favourite Vancouver Restaurants?: “Rodney’s, brunch at Eight 1/2, Jagerhof Schnitzel House in North Van, Aphrodite’s (amazing pie, everything is organic), the patio at Havana’s, shout out to the cheese bread at Hy’s!”

If you could have dinner with one person, who would it be…?: “#1 Elizabeth I – I love British History (my first degree is in history) and think she’s a strong woman and had to deal with all those men.” “#2 Several British Artists – Tracey Emin, a bold, brash, open woman. She has a piece called My Bed that was displayed in the Tate Modern…I love that kind of honesty. Or Gilbert & George…they’re two gay men that met at art school and collaborate together. They make lots of art that is centered around homosexual issues.”

Our dessert was the Fresh Fruit Tart (our meaning we both only had enough room left to split it with each other) and it was the perfect ending to the meal.

It was a lovely and VERY tasty dinner…that, if you’re looking for one with a view…check this out:

Thanks so much to the Tea House at Stanley Park for filling our bellies with wonderful food!
Stay tuned for the next installment in our Dinner With… series, set at another one of Vancouver’s best restaurants with another one of Vancouver’s best humans.