| The former Love Shop space in the Grain Exchange Building on 1st Street S.W. has held a restaurant of one kind or another for at least 20 years – I, for example, am old enough to remember eating at the Cascade Grill.
The latest tenant is Gypsy Bistro and Wine Bar (817 - 1 St. S.W., phone 263-5869), which takes over the space from Divino, one of the city's oldest bistros, which has reinvented itself with a new menu and a new look a block away on Stephen Avenue (this restaurant is now known as "the new Divino"). The Gypsy retains the same look as the original Divino, along with many of the menu items.
Some years ago, the space expanded to include the store next door, creating nooks and crannies are part of Gypsy’s charm. It's like eating in an apothecary shop, with the large windows, dark wood interior and imposing bar, and some of these eccentricities appeal to me very much.
There are other oddities, though, that tend to grate. In the winter, the diners closest to the door can freeze to death. The bistro chairs are old and uncomfortable, and the tables are miniscule, but the menus are huge – they, and the cutlery, won't all fit on the table at the same time. The plates, similarly, are large, as are the tall and wobbly water glasses. Dining at one of these tables, you end up feeling like a very large person riding a kid’s tricycle.
The menu has many of the original Divino's signature dishes, along with some new twists. At two recent lunches, the food quality was varied – some dishes were excellent and others undistinguished.
To start, the feta-stuffed squid appetizer ($9) had a lovely scent of Greece, and came with a fragrant tomato sauce. The soups were good without being outstanding. The bouillabaisse ($11) seems expensive for some mussels and shrimp in a shallow soup bowl, and its broth needed more oomph. The seafood chowder ($6) was tasty, but also didn't have the concentration of flavour that I'd expect.
The lamb burger ($12), seasoned grilled lamb on a Kaiser bun with caramelized onions, is a succulent take on a regular burger. With a crisp side salad, it was a filling and savoury lunch, without being too heavy.
Least successful was the charcuterie tower ($10), a stack of cool roasted eggplant and grilled sausage accompanied by a tomato-based sauce. The eggplant was good, but the sausage was disappointing. I was hoping for grilled Italian sausage or something distinguished – instead, it tasted like grilled luncheon meat.
The Chicken Curry Colombo ($21) is a smallish bowl of very good chicken curry with some green and yellow beans along with basmati rice. It's a homemade curry and you can taste the spices beautifully, but it seems terribly overpriced. Our server, while enthusiastic, couldn't explain why it was called "Chicken Curry Colombo" (you'd expect that it was a Sri Lankan curry), so I found myself wondering if, in fact, Peter Falk invented it.
The best part about Gypsy is the bar – a large wooden affair that sits against the south wall. It's a natural gathering point for a restaurant like this, and the Gypsy's layout definitely draws you towards it. It's a lovely place to swill a glass of house red.
The stained glass Love Shop sign also remains planted in the window – and that, if nothing else, makes it worth a visit. |
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