The Acorn Market
Vendor
About
Born from the same philosophy that guides Vancouver’s award-winning Acorn Restaurant, The Acorn Market offers a line of plant-based packaged foods made with the same local ingredients sourced from many of the farmers at this very market. Every product—whether it’s our vegan Caesar dressing, pickled beets, or spruce vinaigrette—is crafted with organic, farm-direct produce, celebrating the deep relationships we’ve built with BC growers over the past decade. Our packaged foods bring a little taste of the restaurant home, with the same focus on sustainability, seasonality, and respect for the harvest.
Location
Vancouver, BC
Manager
Shira Blustein
Before becoming a restaurateur, Shira was playing music in punk and indie rock bands that toured extensively through Europe and North America. Those years spent travelling as a vegetarian were both enlightening and frustrating. On a good day, she would find an amazing dish from a street vendor that involved the freshest local produce, created with love. More often than not, however, she would find herself stuck between a brick of tofu and a hard place.
It became Shira’s mission to create a vegetable forward dining experience where creativity reigned, and the uniqueness of ingredients were openly explored and celebrated. Shira and her team have been dedicated to establishing meaningful connections with local farms, foragers and wineries, showcasing the amazing terroir driven food and wine BC has to offer.
Since opening in 2012, The Acorn has picked up national awards for excellence, has been featured in the New York Times, Bon Appetit, and was deemed one of the best vegetable-forward destinations in the world by CNN and The Daily Meal, earning the Number 1 spot for best vegan restaurant in the world by Big Seven Travel. In 2016 Blustein opened The Arbor, a casual sequel to Acorn, with the same uncompromising attentions being paid to quality, detail and plant-based deliciousness. After 8 wonderful years, the winds of change gently rustled the leaves up Main Street and with a heavy heart The Arbor was put to rest. Change, however, brings opportunity and with that a new partnership was formed with Meeru Dhalwala, acclaimed chef and co-founder of Vij’s restaurant. Six weeks later, Lila Restaurant, a take on modern Indian cuisine that places Shira and Meeru’s efforts toward a zero-waste and sustainably run restaurant, was born. In the first few months of opening its doors, Lila has attracted attention far and wide, landing a spot on Air Canada’s list of best new restaurants in Canada.
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