Vancouver’s Commercial Drive seems to have always had “Little Italy” as an alternative moniker to most people’s go-to handle: the Drive.

The fact that the annual Italian Heritage Month celebrations are back in the old East End neighbourhood cements that continental identification on a regular basis now, but the name Little Italy, historically, has been applied to a few other city locales within the past century.

Strathcona, then Chinatown, were enclaves of Italian culture, food, and community in Vancouver in the pre–world war years, according to local civic historian John Atkin, who researched a paper on the subject for the city in 2016.

Between 1896 and 1911, the number of Italian immigrants who had moved to Vancouver jumped from 100 to more than 2,500, with most of them living and conducting business between Main Street and Clark Drive, along Union, Prior, East Georgia, and Atlantic streets. That number increased to around 3,500 by 1931, and the post–Second World War immigration influx took that number up from roughly 5,000 to about 19,000 by the early 1970s.

Those numbers caused the Italian population to spread out, mainly along East Hastings as far as North Burnaby, but with the largest cluster remaining between Commercial and Renfrew Street and 1st Avenue and Adanac Street. East Hastings and Commercial became the business hubs of the community, and they both retain a strong Italian presence today, though greatly augmented and strengthened by the city’s present multicultural mix.

The Drive’s traditional Italian (and Portuguese) coffee shops, restaurants, delicatessens, and businesses may be fewer in number today—cheek by jowl along Commercial with strong numbers of Asian and Latin American eateries, among other ethnic representations—but they are still top of mind for most Vancouverites when they think of the neighbourhood.

And though Metro Vancouver’s present 75,000 or so residents of Italian heritage are widely scattered, about 15 percent of them are still grouped in a broad band along Hastings west of Renfrew.

So it’s probably no coincidence that two of our Golden Plates’ three winners in the deli category are either on the Drive itself or close by and were founded by Italian immigrants, with the third’s family being of European origin.

What follows is a brief introduction to the top three—Bosa Foods, La Grotta Del Formaggio, and Santa Barbara Market—in celebration of the East Van district’s “Little Italy” legacy.

Bosa Foods

In the 1940s, Augusto Bosa started importing Italian specialty items for immigrant mining and forestry workers in Powell River before moving to Vancouver and a small store on the corner of Victoria Drive and Turner Street in 1957.

Despite its size, Bosa was known for its wide assortment of authentic and often hard-to-find Italian food products, especially olive oils, vinegars, canned and jarred vegetables, meats, pastas, and cheeses.

The family’s third generation opened an immensely larger flagship retail outlet on nearby Kootenay Street in 2006, one that shares space with a food-distribution centre for its expanding import/distribution/wholesale operations. If you can’t find that Italian specialty item you’re looking for in those 54,000 square feet, odds are that you will probably not find it anywhere else in B.C.

Meanwhile, the entire Victoria Drive block that contained the original Bosa Foods has been redeveloped with Bosa as its anchor tenant. Though all product stocks are expanded, the biggest growth is in the formerly tiny meats and cheeses deli counter. Sleek and capacious glass and stainless-steel showcases full of olives, cheeses, hams, sausages, salads, and other ready-to-eat (or heat) Italian food items now stretch down almost the large store’s whole east wall and half the north one.

Best of all, most of Bosa’s meats, cheeses, olives, and antipasti can be combined in deli platters, available for preorder and pickup, that serve up to 25 people each. Summer saviours.

La Grotta Del Formaggio

Fortunato Bruzzese immigrated to Canada from Italy’s Mammola, in Reggio Calabria, in 1963 and opened La Grotta Del Formaggio in 1977.

This 45-year-old destination for specialty cheeses and authentic Italian products (especially balsamic reductions, olive oils, and pasta) is presently undergoing renovations but should be open and serving it’s in-demand Italian sandwiches again by the end of June.

Its location, snug between two of the Drive’s popular businesses—Fratelli Bakery and the Murdocco family’s Calabria Cafe—makes that street’s 1700 block a must-visit for any East Van expedition.

As with Bosa, the family has expanded from its Drive presence over the years (starting in 2005 by supplying its products to local hotels and restaurants) to embrace the specialty-imports and distribution side of things.

Santa Barbara Market

Francisco “Paco” Celador Triguero founded Commercial Drive’s Santa Barbara Market in 1981, and he added the locally famous deli to its extensive produce (indoors and outside), pasta, and other grocery selections in 1989. (Paco died in 2016, at age 76.)

The high deli counter runs the entire length of the store’s north wall, and its numerous cheeses, sausages, salamis, and other cured meats are the cause of the establishment’s well-known deli traffic jam on weekends and other busy times.