George Lounge

[chrisstearns]

Anybody been yet?

I'm curious about how their cocktail program is shaping up (it's by Nick Devine ex of Sugar & Sugar).

George Lounge

Vancouver Sun Review (Mia Stainsby)

[SBonner]

Anybody been yet?

I'm curious about how their cocktail program is shaping up (it's by Nick Devine ex of Sugar & Sugar).

George Lounge

Vancouver Sun Review (Mia Stainsby)

←

Chris,

I've been there once...pretty tasty cocktails very much in the modern London style. I recommend it. Lots of fresh muddled fruit, intense flavoured syrups, and a hip Yaletown crowd late at night.

Cheers,

Stephen

Edited September 2, 2005 by SBonner (log)

[Andrew Morrison]

Nice to see you posting Chris! Welcome.

I enjoyed George big time. I'm curious though...a man of your rep....what did you think?

[chrisstearns]

I enjoyed George big time. I'm curious though...a man of your rep....what did you think?

←

I've been in Montreal since March, so I haven't had the chance. I'll check it out when I return to Vancouver in October. The city needs more places that take cocktail-making seriously.

...Rep?

CMS

[Andrew Morrison]

...Rep?

- former Lumiere Bar Manager and Cocktail Aficianado (not official title)

- author: co-wrote "Lumiere Light" with Feenie and Co. Also contributes to En Route. See here for EG.

- lecturer: Dubrulle Intl. | THE HISTORY OF CLASSIC COCKTAILS EXPLORED

- senior mixologist: Decca77, Montreal.

- returning to moonlight at Nu avec Jay Jones and Co.

That rep, Chris.

[D. Peckham]

Stearns has also been known Andrew to be Red Hot. He is not the best at throwing lemons for money, but besides making a great drink is pretty good at Kung Fu fighting.

[chrisstearns]

pretty good at Kung Fu fighting.

←

That's, uh, off-topic.

[shelora]

George. Went for a quickie. Is that a Dale Chihuly chandelier? That is tasty.

Wonderful cocktail list, expert bartenders, but alas, the joint is too loud for me. Not a place to try and have a conversation. I can't stand having to yell when I just want to relax and unwind.

And I do worry about the low backs of those bartenders, observe next time you are there, how they have to stand. Man, that looks killer after an eight hour shift.

[waylman]

hip Yaletown crowd

*shudder*

[Foodie in Vancouver]

Went a couple of weeks ago for a business meeting. Great drinks and excellent food. It was a great way to have an informal meeting with a business colleague - and we got a lot of stuff done. Really! We sat on the patio so didn't find it loud. In fact, I never went inside. Will have to remedy this - soon.

[snacky_cat]

I was locked out of Casa del Cat briefly this afternoon, so I hit the patio at George for a drink and some dessert.

Not knowing how long the lockout would last, I went for a glass of Matua Hawkes Bay Sauvignon Blanc instead of one of the many, MANY tasty looking cocktails, which I fear I would have knocked back rather too quickly than decorum (and budget) allows.

The menu offers a "seasonal dessert", which at this time is a wonderful milk chocolatey mousse, topped with whipped cream, a chocolate orange nut-dusted truffle, and a sprinkling of orange, red and mauve flower petals. It was beautifully presented, and was vaccumed up extremely quickly. Only the aforementioned decorum kept me from licking the last bit of mousse out from the very bottom of the glass.

Service was friendly and attentive, the place looks great, and they have an unobtrusive but pleasantly toasty patio heater which they flick on around 6, when shade takes over that part of Hamilton St.

[seanw]

Chocolate mousse season, look out chocolate mousse.

[sugar plum]

We attempted to check out George post-Yuk Yuk's last night but the place was packed! Just teaming with beautiful people. It would have been a 30 minute wait (at what I believe was only around 9:30pm) and frankly, I wasn't that keen.

Instead of drinking ourselves sillier, we headed to HSG for the infamous gingerbread pudding. Yum!

[janevm]

and there's the G spot room. As Babs would say: "How many girls become a sinner while waiting for a roast beef dinner?"

[Andrew Morrison]

Chef Tina Fineza and George have parted ways. So sayeth some staff, the volume of dining customers versus those in for drinks could no longer justify the expense of having her. The Brix kitchen now has the run of the menu.

[Jamie B]

Well Chris, I'm sure that you've gone by now. Thoughts?

[Shiraziste]

www.georgelounge.com

Ok, so this is the center of the Universe in hip Vancouver right now, for this minute anyway.

Along the way through Yaletown we walked by the Opus Hotel, which has a big windowed space lounge that looked like a big empty shower stall. I hate that place so it was a funny and pathetic site, a place that rose to such heights last summer but now not a soul sitting in it. It looked so bleak, cold, bright and stark, because everyone who's anyone in this town was in George last night.

Attached to the bum of Brix on Hamilton Street is this new lounge whose entrance name is an illiminated 'spotlight word sign' on the black painted wall entrance. This place is right next door to Ciopino's if you can't find it during the day, since the name light obviously won't work during the day hours, a cool concept of signage if you are only open when the sun goes down.

Inside is a sexy design of mahogany, copper, brass and red hues, with velvet red seating banquets and tables, a private room called the G-spot (500$ minimum spending, seats 6 ppl) just for the VIPs who may want to orgy I guess, and an amazing and huge central bar.

The real center piece though was a fabulous piece of lighting hanging from the ceiling that looks like a exploding star of red, yellow and orange hand blown glass, a really cool piece of art.

The music is a loud and pounding thud of percussion beats that could be heard from the other side of the street, I suppose the house music is all the rage but people were yelling at each other inside.

This atmosphere makes me nervous and causes me an uncomfortable anxiety.

Upon entering I realize this is where Vancouver's entire allotment of brightly dressed peroxide purchasers hangs out, all with straight white-blond hair, every girl is strangely underweight but also have unusually large, gregariously displayed breasts on their thinly constructed bodies. It's a colourful sight of boobs and glittering bling, shiny pink make-up, 4" stilettos, and chain slung clutch Coach bags. An entire room of Paris Hilton wanna-be's , if we hadn't planned this visit last week already, I would've left immediately.

I wondered silently if they'll even allow us in, as my mistake was not wearing anything labeled Armani Exchange, with my feet clad in practical shoes, my ass may or may not fit through the door .

I felt dowdy and completely under dressed.

My friend fortunately looked fabulous in Prada jeans and a dressy navy jacket, but after scanning around the room all the boys they were wearing exactly the same things - dark styled jackets, button down relaxed shirts and designer denim.

Patrick Mercer is manning the door in a black Crew suit with effective swooping grace, but he's clearly and seriously multi-tasking, moving people from the bar to tables and from cluttered door to cluttered bar.

Even with Patrick there looking so good it seems way too busy for me because of course we chose a night where the lounge was just written-up in the Vancouver Sun as one of the hippest places to be, AND it was a Saturday night.

I hate bloody crowds, I like serenity and relaxation, and I especially hate being treated like a number, fortunately Patrick engaged both of us with eye contact, concerned conversation and serious regard for our buisness or I would've split right there.

Within 5 minutes we were seated, which was miraculous I thought, but it was on the patio, fortunately under comfortable heat lamps overhead. It was a nice night after a beautiful Fall day so it did seem like the better option anyway, rather than being crowded into a room where seating seemed restricted to a long narrow tabled space that went further than my near-sighted eyes could see. The seating area in the lounge is like a hallway and made me feel claustrophobic.

Finally seated outside I felt relaxed with room to spread my elbows and swirl my wine about, it was much quieter there and I felt calm.We were given what we realized was the food menu, one small but long strip of paper with about 10 dishes listed that appeared to all be share plates.

It didn't impress, this place is definitely not about food but neither were we last night, so we chose something light.

Well, being rather low-maintenance I was just happy to be seated and all I really needed now was a big glass of red wine. I had just worked a full week and a back-to-back double-double and accidentally walked into a bus bench along the way (while laughing at Opus's empty space, no doubt karma for my catty behaviour). My knee was bruised and I saw stars for 10 minutes so sitting anywhere to mend with a drink was all I really wanted. Amazingly no wine list was offered so my friend bravely entered the establishment to fetch one from the bohemian Stevie Nicks look-a-like, a colourfully dressed blond bomb-shell hostess with the huge gazongas - this seemed to take many minutes as she is dealing with 15 people waiting for a seat

We waited and waited, about 10 minutes passes before we are greeted at our table, it was another 10 till we received our drink order.

I like Brix's wine program of well thought-out practical selections with 100% mark-ups, so this is exactly the same as it's owned by those very same men. The list is not long or lofty and 15 reds are offered by the glass, and another 40 by the bottle.

11$ got me a glass of Leasingham 61 but when it came I realized I should've ordered a bottle, a teeny but cute carafe was brought with a decent stemed wine glass. I drank that glass in under ten minutes and tried to order another but no waitron was in sight for 20.

I'm anxious again.

My friend ordered something in a tall glass with pureed mango fruit and ginger. I'm not the adventurous type with cocktails but I tried it and loved it, at 10$ for a double it was very inventive - called Mumbai sling.

We had ordered our food as soon as we ordered the drinks but an after 50 minutes and two drinks later our food still hadn't arrived.

After two glasses of wine I really wanted to leave but we were still not served our food , so we were held hostage by our tab and very slow service.

No food, no server, now no drink and with a dozen people surrounding us we went virtually un-noticed most of the night.

Now I'm getting growly, even the people-watching had quickly becoming boring as EVERYONE looked the same, and we clearly didn't stand-out enough to command much attention.

We finally receive the veggie appy we ordered after an hour +, served on a long rectangular narrow plate. This was essentially a take on antipasto with a couple of fried chevre filled mushroom caps. I didn't quite 'get' that fried mushroom addition with all the pretty coloured and healthy foods assorted around it but they were good, the rest was standard grilled veggies with drizzled balsamic and olive oil - 18$.

We ate it in 10 minutes, another 10 passes before our empty plate was cleared, and another 10 until we receive our bill. Our server was nice enough but it probably took her ten minutes just to get to us through the long hallway and crowd around the bar.

I couldn't wait to get out of there, go home, put on my sweats, slippers, and put my feet up with a bottle of Cabernet while Natalie Cole sang me a lullaby.

I've become a shoe fit for comfort and not style, a hush-puppy who obviously prefers walks to runs, so this place is just not my scene, but I did like that funky light thing in the room and the fruity cocktail list.

Opus be damed, you've got what I thought was virtually impossible to acheive - an even more pretentious competitor !!!

Great place for Platinum Amex-ed girls and their queers (like me and mine ), and boys who look queer but are straight.

Blond highlites in your hair will likely get you in more quickly if you're a guy

[kontemporary]

Thanks, that one of the best reads I'be had in a while . Yaletown reminds me of a Vancouver that tried to grow up too fast...

[Andrew Morrison]

It's a wonderful room, best seen close to empty. The quality in the food and the cocktails are there, and I'd argue it warrants the occasional surrender to it's varying atmosphere rather than a reluctance to give up going where we want when we want.

For me, I go early and leave early so I never go in after 8pm. If I dropped in for a martini and a bite at 11pm on a Saturday night, I too would likely never return. The crowd, almost literally, is night and day.

More than most, George is a tale of two restaurants. Choose the vibe better suited to you, either early and excellent or late, crowded, and blonde, but I hope you don't feel reluctant to go again because you saw Dr. Jeckyll turn into Mr. Hyde.

Edited October 25, 2005 by Andrew Morrison (log)

[Shiraziste]

It's a wonderful room, best seen close to empty. The quality in the food and the cocktails are there, and I'd argue it warrants the occasional surrender to it's varying atmosphere rather than a reluctance to give up going where we want when we want. 

For me, I go early and leave early so I never go in after 8pm. If I dropped in for a martini and a bite at 11pm on a Saturday night, I too would likely never return. The crowd, almost literally, is night and day.

More than most, George is a tale of two restaurants. Choose the vibe better suited to you, either early and excellent or late, crowded, and blonde, but I hope you don't feel reluctant to go again because you saw Dr. Jeckyll turn into Mr. Hyde.

←

Andrew, I love BRIX, I do, I really do........

I'll wait till next year to go back to George though - never say never. Just waiting till the new flavour of the week comes by and all the poseurs find a new place to prance

[Andrew Morrison]

Of course. Chacun son gout.

[butter]

Have to try George again as per Andrew's suggestion of going pre 8 p.m. on a weekday as my experience was similar to Shiraziste's. It was a Friday night around 11 p.m. Expected the crowd and the noise so wasn't disappointed in that sense, unexpectedly met an acquaintance in the G-spot room (was just checking it out to see how special it was for $500; did not stay in there as there were no VIPs and no orgy going on ) and had a cocktail. Sorry, but this was the most disappointing part. Am I missing something? Paying $10 for a glass full of mint and ice. Perhaps part of that price is for the "big wooden stick in the glass" show. I will give it the rating of "Best Place to See Vancouver's Latest Fashion" or "Best Place to Get a Plastic Surgeon Recommendation".

[MightyMrQ]

Was there on Saturday night.

Had one of the best shots - Lemon Meringue pie.

Mr Nick Devine poured about 2/3 secret lemon mixture, whipped together (I'm assuming) egg whites and sugar, poured it on top and cooked it with a little blow torch to make meringue. Taste, presentation, and construction were all amazing.