Fable Diner reimagines Main Street with a 1950s flair.

Opened in early July, Fable Diner, a spin-off of Kitsilano’s Fable Restaurant, brings an upscale diner experience while maintaining the integrity of a movie-style diner: wooden tables, forest green leather booths, modern white tile, and retro prints. The service was friendly and genuine, even throughout the busy lunch hour.  

There is an extensive array of comfort food featuring interesting ingredients (kimchi, cola onions, and gochujang), but the dishes clearly show how hard Fable Diner tried to think outside of the box. There is little room for error when it comes to changing popular dishes, and while their ideas are original, some of them missed the mark.

The mac and cheese had an amazing sauce but was topped with tooth-breakingly hard corn nuts and strong goat cheese. The veggie BLT replaced the “B” with rubbery shiitake mushrooms. The FD burger took a chance with a medium-well burger patty which, despite being ground in-house and perfectly safe to eat, left us feeling kind of squeamish after we left the restaurant.

Hiding amidst these misses was the delicious tomato soup, which put Campbell’s to shame. If nothing else, have a bowl of this soup when you go. It is the perfect blend of cream and slightly tangy tomato coming together in light and delicious harmony.

As Fable Diner’s customer base continues to grow, the chefs at the restaurant continue to experiment with different ingredients and bolder flavours to stay true to their unique, upscale diner experience. The creative dishes that appear on the ever-expanding menu will have us coming back even if the dishes weren’t that great this time.