The Refinery

Address: 1115 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC , Canada
Tel: +1 604.687.8001
Website: view The Refinery’s website
Style: Restaurant bar

Review

The Refinery is a restaurant that feels like a lounge, located up a flight of stairs above busy Granville Street. There are just a couple seats at the bar and the rest at communal and individual tables, meaning that almost everybody is sitting down for drinks and food in groups of friends, to a soundtrack of upbeat party music. The casual restaurant has a full menu but a focus on charcuterie, some of it made in-house.

Also made in-house are syrups, preserves and vermouths for cocktails, mainly created with local ingredients. The 'Green Chartreuse pop', for example, is made from a syrup of green herbs like mint and cilantro meant to mimic the flavour of the famous liqueur, and is then fermented into fizziness using champagne yeast. This is added to a version of a Last Word made with tea-infused gin. Other tempting ingredients include grapefruit-fennel bitters, yuzu marmalade, and blackcurrant tea syrup. For all the homemade ingredients, the focus of The Refinery remains at the tables where good times are shared with friends, rather than on trainspotting the mixologist.