Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter.

For the past month, I had been hearing very good things about Amber, the new listening lounge in Gastown where food and music are supposed to receive equal billing.

I needed to check it out. But because apparently one listening lounge wasn’t enough for a Saturday evening, I decided to stop at two others—Union Street's Bar Gobo and Gore Avenue's Bleach—on my way there.

What followed was a three-stop crawl through three dramatically different rooms. Despite all falling under the increasingly fashionable “listening lounge” label, they hardly seem to be competing with one another.

Here’s how the evening unfolded—and how each spot graded for sound, snacks, sips, and scene.

First stop: Bar Gobo

I started at Bar Gobo around 7pm, taking a seat at the bar and asking what the kitchen’s favourite dish was at that particular moment.

The answer was the beef tartare, so that was an easy decision.

It arrived with youtiao—a fried dough stick that might best be described as a long, salted doughnut—along with tonnato, chilli crisp, and cilantro. The dish was rich and packed with flavour, but still precise enough that the beef remained at its centre.

Bar Gobo was the only one of the three places I had visited before, but this was my first time returning since the room was remade around a custom-built analogue sound system.

Of all three lounges, this was the one that appeared to take the act of listening most seriously. The music sounded remarkably clear, yet I never had to strain to hear the people around me. The system wasn’t simply an expensive piece of equipment sitting in the corner; the entire room seemed calibrated around it.

The room itself is small, clean, and refined without feeling overly formal. It also felt unmistakably like a neighbourhood spot. Many of the guests appeared to be locals, some of whom knew the staff, and the crowd generally skewed older than those at my next stop.

Before leaving, I chatted with Bar Gobo’s general manager and music manager, Paul McCloskey, about the room—and about Bleach and Amber, the two places I was about to visit.

The grades

Sound: A+
The most serious listening experience of the three.

Snacks: A-
One dish is a small sample size, but the beef tartare was excellent.

Sips: A-
A thoughtful pairing that complemented rather than overpowered the food.

Scene: B+
Low-key, intimate, and distinctly local. This is where you settle in rather than make an entrance.

Second stop: Bleach

From Bar Gobo, I walked over to Bleach and entered what felt like a completely different version of the same basic idea.

Bleach is similarly small, but that is about where the resemblance ends. One wall opens almost completely onto the sidewalk, with a few tables along the opening and a long communal table occupying much of the room inside.

Where Bar Gobo feels polished and acoustically precise, Bleach is more raw and casual. The unfinished quality of the room appears intentional, aligning with the wider design and cultural project behind Bleach Studios.

The crowd was also noticeably younger—mostly people who looked to be in their late 20s or early 30s. I had a difficult time imagining many of them spending the first part of their evening at Bar Gobo, just as I couldn’t picture many of Bar Gobo’s regulars migrating here afterward.

It's not necessarily a criticism; it's what made the crawl interesting.

Bleach has a pretty mixed menu of small plates, snacks, and desserts, including bara with tomato chutney, eggplant tempura, and harissa-roasted cauliflower. Once again, I asked for a recommendation and was directed toward the prawn toast.

It was good, although rich enough that finishing the whole serving by myself became a bit of a project. It seemed better suited to sharing, which is probably the point in a room built around communal tables and connection.

I took the staff’s suggestion of a sparkling wine alongside it. Both were enjoyable, but at Bleach, the food and drink felt secondary to the identity of the room and the people occupying it. Of the three stops, it felt the most like a self-contained creative scene—one that happened to serve small plates and natural wine.

The grades

Sound: B+
Clearly important to the room, although it didn’t command my attention quite like Bar Gobo’s system.

Snacks: C+
The prawn toast was decent, but bring someone willing to share it. Seemed unclear what the menu was trying to achieve until I found this line on their website: "SHIT OUR MOMS COOK. SMALL PLATES INSPIRED BY MIDDLE EASTERN, SOUTH ASIAN AND SOUTH EAST ASIAN CUISINES." Okay.

Sips: B-
Intriguing wine options that weren't really explain. I had a pleasant pairing, although not the part of the experience that lingered most.

Scene: B
Young, raw, creative, and very specific. You will know quickly whether it is your room. Also, I know Bleach is the name of the associated studio, but it's just not a good name for a place to eat and drink.

Final stop: Amber

My final stop was Amber, a new listening lounge stretching all the way through the Anchor Building from Powell Street to Alexander Street.

You can tell that its owners, Thomas Eleizegui, Anthony Crane, and Juniper Tang, invested heavily in realizing a very particular vision. Eleizegui was previously behind Isetta and the now-closed Musette, while Crane grew up in New York’s East Village and later lived in Tribeca. Amber feels as though it is attempting to bring some of that New York energy into Vancouver.

And somehow, it works.

The restaurant was busy when I arrived, but there was one place available at the three-seat raw bar. Sitting there gave me an immediate view into the kitchen and an excuse to start talking to the chefs and bartenders.

I asked one of the chefs what I should order and, to my considerable skepticism, he suggested the Mocha Martini, made with organic cocoa-infused Ketel One, Kahlúa, and fresh espresso.

I had to eat my words. It was delicious.

The raw bar’s rotating scallop crudo was outstanding, as were the six small East Coast oysters that followed. Later, I tried the house Amber Martini, a maximalist combination of Grey Goose Le Citron, The Botanist Gin, Noilly Prat, limoncello, and a Sauvignon Blanc saline solution.

The sound was loud and full, but the room had clearly been tuned so that conversation remained possible. That matters because Amber is surprisingly large. From the Powell Street entrance, the long, narrow space extends through distinct areas before opening into a larger lounge near Alexander Street, where a DJ is spinning tracks.

Make sure you walk all the way through. Otherwise, you haven’t really seen the place.

More than the food, drinks, or physical room, however, what stayed with me was its social energy. I chatted for close to an hour with a couple beside me who were visiting from Fort Lauderdale and Washington, DC, and celebrating their anniversary before heading to Whistler. I talked with chefs and one of the owners. Several people I knew from Vancouver came through, while another local community builder was seated behind me.

Everyone seemed to be talking to everyone else.

That is not always a particularly Vancouver thing. Amber’s contagious energy—and its ability to make strangers feel comfortable speaking to one another—made the room feel like it existed somewhere outside the city.

That is one of my favourite benchmarks for a restaurant: does it briefly transport you somewhere else?

Amber does.

The grades

Sound: A-
Big, energetic, and thoughtfully controlled, even when the room is busy.

Snacks: A+
The crudo and oysters made the raw bar one of the best seats in the room.

Sips: A
Both house drinks exceeded expectations.

Scene: A+
The clear standout. Amber doesn’t merely attract a crowd; it gets that crowd interacting.

So, which listening lounge wins?

If the priority is pure sound, Bar Gobo takes it. Its intimate room and carefully calibrated system produce the strongest listening experience.

If you want something younger and closely connected to Vancouver’s creative community, Bleach is the choice.

But for the best overall night out—the combination of sound, food, energy, and the possibility of meeting someone interesting—Amber comes out on top.

That ranking is almost beside the point, though. What became clear over the course of the evening is that these three rooms aren’t really competing. Each has taken the listening-lounge concept and built something for an entirely different crowd.

The real winner might simply be Vancouver, which suddenly has several very different answers to the question of what a listening lounge can be.

Bar Gobo is located 237 Union Street. Bleach is located 611 Gore Avenue. Amber is located at 99 Powell Street.