Water Street Cafe: happy hour in Gastown

Water Street Cafe is a Pacific North Western restaurant featuring classic Canadian dishes with Italian influences. They are located in Gastown in downtown Vancouver.

I came here for their happy hour and also to celebrate my birthday with some friends on their patio. This review is based on an in-dining experience during covid with in-dining restrictions.

Patio

My reservation was for 5 people so they gave us a big corner table. This table has booth seating so it is more comfortable than their regular chair seating.

They did have 2 heaters but it was sunny the day we went so we didn’t really need the heater turned on. A note that our spot was not under any cover though so if it rained, I’m not sure if they would have moved us to another table or not.

Happy hour food

They have happy hour 7 days a week from 3-5:30 pm.

Meatballs ($11)

The meatballs are made with handmade pork, beef and veal with a rich tomato sauce, fresh basil and cracked pepper.

I think the meatballs were quite good (not dry) but I’ve never been a big meatball fan. One meatball can be shared between 2 people.

Bison carpaccio ($13)

I love carpaccio! This one uses Albertan bison, pink peppercorn, shaved parmesan, truffle aioli, greens and crispy capers. I don’t notice the bison to be gamier than regular beef. The bison carpaccio is sliced very thinly and I love the truffle aioli.

Calamari fritti ($13)

This appetizer is quite large as there are many pieces of fried calamari. They also include fried peppers, red onion, lemon pepper and garlic aioli.

Generally, it tasted good but I usually prefer bigger chunks/cuts of calamari to be fried so I found these individual pieces to be a bit too small even though the overall portion size is large.

Mushroom gnocchi ($20)

This is a good choice for vegetarians and non-vegetarians because it is so savoury and tasty. The mushroom gnocchi has mushroom medley, truffle butter, goats cheese, parmesan and green onion. The gnocchi is soft and fluffy and I love the mushroom sauce and truffle butter used.

Eggplant involtini ($23)

So this dish is not on their happy hour menu but on their regular menu. It sounded good so we decided to order it anyways. It has roasted eggplant slices, lemon ricotta, parmesan, basil, roasted garlic tomato sauce, rosemary panko and salsa verde.

I love eggplant but I found the flavour of the eggplant to be kind of lost because all the other things have a much stronger flavour. The roasted garlic tomato sauce and the parmesan was much more overpowering and I found all the sauce to be just a tad bit too salty for me.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Out of all the items we ordered, I like the mushroom gnocchi the most. I would consider selecting that as my main from time to mine. They also have a seafood gnocchi on their regular menu that sounded good. My least favourite was probably the meatballs but that’s just because I don’t like meatballs lol. One item we wanted to order was the crab cakes but they ran out.

I had a great time at Water Street Cafe. Our server was very nice and recommended different drinks for us. One of my friends is pregnant and she also prepared a non-alcoholic beverage for her before she arrived, which I thought was very thoughtful.

Sincerely, Loewe