The Best Thing I Ate All Week: Happy Hour at Gusto Di Quattro

Gusto Di Quattro joins a select few with a happy hour that excites and exceeds more than the perennial chicken wings and batter-laden calamari.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m always one to enjoy the typical pub fare of wings and calamari during happy hour. That being said, I also love pasta and I’m more than happy to choose the latter option as a… batter-free alternative. A recent visit to Gusto Di Quattro wowed me with a $10 pasta happy hour that stole my heart (or more accurately, my stomach).The Spaghetti Quattro is their most popular offering, served aglio e olio (a traditional blend of extra virgin olive oil, chilli, parsley and garlic), with the addition of ground chicken breast and black bean. I’m a huge fan of anything spicy, and for a dish that seemed so simple, there was such a pleasing amount of flavour in the garlic and chilli. Photo by: Gusto Di QuattroTheir happy hour menu also features the standard house beer and wine for $5. While their house red was no Stag’s Hollow, I was pleasantly surprised by the lighter-body and aromatic mixture (and after fighting through downtown Vancouver traffic and realizing it was only a Tuesday, it was more than enough).While I don’t feel the need to compare Quattro to other players in Vancouver’s Italian fare (Ask for Luigi, Savio Volpe and the rest) I will say this: a wide selection of pasta at a ridiculously cheap price makes Quattro well worth the visit. In a landscape that often sees diners venturing to downtown Vancouver for their dining experiences, Quattro is a heavy favourite for the North Vancouver area.

More from “The Best Thing I Ate All Week” series:

Gnocchi from Stable House Bistro

Butter-Roasted Cabbage at Royal Dinette

Queso Fundido at La Mezcaleria

Acai Bowl at Kokomo