Vancouver Gets Glitzy Before Olympics

Those looking for Vancouver's urban beat should head toward Yaletown, the city's trendiest neighborhood, featuring renovated warehouses and mid-rise lofts. Opus Hotel has been part of a yuppie gentrification that's resulted in a coffeehouse, sports bar and be-seen brasserie on almost every corner. The hotel's reception is smack-dab next to the Opus Bar, which has one of the hippest hotel lounges in town, with a loft-style space of Alice in Wonderland-size gilded furnishings. Open-plan guest rooms feature peek-a-boo bathrooms and a modern-design palette of ultra-suede upholstered furnishings.

Closer to the waterfront, Shangri La Hotels is opening its first North American property on the first 15 floors of a new 61-story high-rise. The hotel features live-work condos and a sculpture collection by the Vancouver Art Gallery. Even closer to the waterfront is Kor Hotel Group's new Loden Hotel. The Loden lobby is a palette of natural-wood accents and autumn colors with a nod to green hospitality arranged around an elaborate gas fireplace. The hotel's restaurant, Voya, is a hotbed of Vancouver's popular set mingling amongst a supper-club style lounge with tufted banquette seating, Baker chairs and walls that are a throwback to the '60s.

Best bites of the Northwest

The closest thing Vancouver has to a foodie empire, West is part of an innovative dining group that also owns Whistler's Araxi and Yaletown's Blue Water Café. Often reviewed as Vancouver's best restaurant, West chef Warren Geraghty creates a regional menu of Northwest cuisine utilizing mostly organic and locally sourced ingredients. A street-front façade sleeps through the day under a row of shade trees awakening in early evening to a valet parade of Vancouver's staunchest food lovers. The interior space is divided between a long bar opposite a central dining room with Cassina leather chairs, leather-paneled walls and an elaborate sculpture from Werner Forster suspended from the ceiling like a culinary angel.