Western Living Magazine
East Van Escape
Kitchen Infinity Atelier
Design Crush: A Sustainable, Stylish New HQ for Pyrrha in Vancouver
Recipe: The Perfect Blueberry Scones for Springtime
The Only Irish Coffee Recipe You’ll Ever Need
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Editors’ Picks: The Best Trips We Took in 2022
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Trending Now: The Best New Furniture and Homewares for Spring
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The Future of Beauty: How One Medical Aesthetics Clinic is Changing the Game
Designers of the Year 2023: Meet the Architecture Judges
What It’s Like to Win a Designers of the Year Award
Submissions Now Open! Enter Western Living’s 2023 Designers of the Year Awards
The fuss over Oca Pastificio comes from the lack of fuss.
Ask any artist (okay, at least any modern artist) what the most difficult task is and they will tell you it is drawing that perfect circle—anyone looking at it will know exactly where the mistakes are, because there’s no hiding space for error like you’ll find in shading or colouring. Which sort of makes Greg Dilabio the Titian of fresh pasta, Antoine Dumont the Bernini of the front of house, and their modestly sized Oca Pastificio the Uffizi of Commercial Drive—except that it’s easier to get into the Uffizi in July than it is to get into Oca, with its firm no-reservations policy and eight zillion people out there hankering for its wares.
The fuss over the spot comes from the lack of fuss—the pastas are made literally right in front of you by Dilabio, cooked just feet behind him, and then delivered to your table by Dumont and his small team in a relaxed choreography that’s a necessity in such a small room. The whole dance is accomplished with an air of the everyday, but one bite of Dilabio’s squash tortelli (one of the few staples on the ever-changing menu) and you’ll realize you’re in transformative territory here.
The melon baller.
Ratio by Michael Ruhlman.
Ferrari Trento for the bubbles.
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