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Culinary Queen

The woman who conceptualized the restaurants at Vancouver’s new Parq hotel is adding Vegas glitz to our city’s restaurant scene.

The woman who conceptualized the restaurants at Vancouver’s new Parq hotel is adding Vegas glitz to our city’s restaurant scene. 

Elizabeth Blau

When I first met Elizabeth Blau, the Las Vegas restaurant maven who runs Blau + Associates along with her husband Kim Canteenwalla at an event this past summer, she told me about one of her most buzz-worthy projects: the $640 million Parq Vancouver urban resort and casino that would house five Blau-designed restaurants and three lounges. With three decades in the foodie biz, Elizabeth is credited with transforming the restaurant scene in Las Vegas to a world-class foodie destination—and she has the James Beard Award nomination to prove it.

Flash forward to late September and I find myself in Parq’s lobby, where I’m meeting Elizabeth for a personal tour of the 775,000-square-foot metallic bronze u-shaped Parq complex that has changed Vancouver’s “city of green glass” skyline. It’s a few days before the casino/resort opens its doors to an eagerly awaiting Vancouver and the place is abuzz with construction staff putting on the finishing details, racing to the finish line of opening day. For someone who is responsible for opening an array of restaurants and lounges in just 72 hours from our meeting, I mention that the almost six-foot tall Elizabeth seems so calm … she laughs and says, “nothing can stop us now!”

Parq Vancouver exterior

The next thing I know, Elizabeth is whisking us through back stairs and elevators as we tour the LEED Gold complex for a sneak peek of the property’s restaurants and lounges, the casino, spa, the JW Marriot Hotel, The Douglas hotel, Autograph Collection hotel and the Parq’s “park”—yes the complex boasts 30,000 square feet of outdoor space on the sixth floor complete with 225 trees.

Elizabeth doesn’t just spearhead the food and menu creations with her husband and Chef Kim Canteenwalla—who have made a home here on Vancouver’s West Side with their teen son Cole and their two dogs Brookie and Dodger—she’s also hands-on with the design and décor and has been studying Vancouver for a few years to make sure the city’s culture and the area’s local ingredients are reflected in its restaurants fare, and that local merchants are supported.

We pop our heads into 1886, named after the year Chinatown emerged in Vancouver. In the opulent room featuring velvet banquette seating and large round tables, innovative dishes from four culinary regions of China—Canton, Szechuan, Hunan, and Shanghai—are served. There’s also a live seafood tank filled with seasonal delicacies and tableside tea service on offer. Inset in the ceiling is a beautiful fabric art piece Elizabeth says was created to replicate abalone.

BC Kitchen
B.C. Kitchen

Next, we wander through one of Elizabeth’s other creations, MRKT EAST, inspired by Singapore’s night markets and featuring a menu of Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Thai, Singaporean and Vietnamese dishes. When I ask Elizabeth how she managed to simultaneously develop so many different restaurant concepts, she tells me how she had dedicated teams working with her in order to create a distinct esthetic for each space.

We whizz around to the sixth-floor rooftop and pop our heads into where the soon-to-open Pacific Northwest inspired The Victor eatery will be. Then it’s off to check out the lounges D6, Centre Bar and Lotus Whiskey/Tea Lounge. I’m struck by the views from every angle (a novelty in a casino resort where daylight is scarcely seen) already making plans in my head to grab dinner and drinks at some of these spots with my girlfriends.

Parq Chandelier
A chandelier at the Parq Hotel and Casino

A few days later, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, Elizabeth and I meet for lunch in the light-flooded Honey Salt dining room on the hotel’s main floor. Elizabeth’s tells me Honey Salt is her baby—a comfort food concept she and Kim originally created when they opened the first location in Vegas back in 2012. The couple consider it to be an extension of their home: “All of the dishes Kim and I would make for friends can be found on the menu,” she says over a portion of Market Vegetables. Nicknamed “Vegetable Jenga,” it’s a tower of Klippers Organic farms’ local charcoaled beets and squash, pickled vegetables, cauliflower hummus, peppers, radishes, heirloom carrots, sweet potato chips and goddess dip. She continues to share stories of meeting B.C.’s farmers and says how important those relationships were to her and Kim when creating the menu from locally sourced ingredients, listing Les Amis du Fromage, Two Rivers Specialty Meats, 7 Seas Fish Market and Terra Breads among the local purveyors on Parq’s menus.

Next, we share the B.C. Poke Bowl, a mix of Albacore Tuna, green chilli ponzu, avocado, cucumber, tobiko and crispy black rice, and Salt Spring Mussels with cider, chorizo, saffron and preserved tomato and garlic. We finish with a crisp-fresh Louie Louie Salad, a mix of Dungeness crab, shrimp avocado, hearts of palm and gem lettuce.

With a culinary lineup that balances larger-than-life glitz and local fare, Parq, and the tall, energetic powerhouse that is Elizabeth Blau, are a welcome addition to Vancouver’s restaurant scene.