Ray Loy, the owner of Gastown’s now closed Bambudda, and chef Benjamin Ho, formerly of Yaletown’s La Pentola, have just picked up the recently shuttered Escobar space in the Fraserhood and have plans to open a new brunch restaurant called Egg & Co. in its place.

It will be a relatively quick turnaround for the 1,400 sqft space, which will see some 60 seats in operation from 8am to 3pm, Tuesday through Sunday (also open on stat Mondays). Ray tells me he and Benjamin are aiming to throw open the doors to the new concept before the end of July.

I haven’t seen a menu yet but I trust it will be a mix of the interesting and the familiar. The chef has worked in some pretty fancy digs over his career in cities like London, Las Vegas and especially Hong Kong, where he clocked in at Lupa by Mario Batali as a sous and at Al Molo by Michael White and the Mandarin Grill at the Mandarin Oriental as a stagiaire. I don’t think you come back from that with just French Toast and Eggs Benedict, but we’ll see. (Ray says they’ll occasionally open the restaurant up in the evenings for special dinners as well.)

Ray was born in Hong Kong and raised in Strathcona/Chinatown. Over the span of his front of house career he worked at Vancouver restaurants such as “C”, Joe Fortes, Bacchus at the Wedgewood and Market in the Shangri-La before striking out on his own with Bambudda, his “Nouveau Dim Sum” concept at 99 Powell St. that lasted from 2013-2017.

Designing the interior and managing the front of house at Egg & Co. is Sammy Fawcett, an industry veteran from North Vancouver who has worked as far afield as New Zealand.

Egg & Co.

Neighbourhood: Fraserhood

4245 Fraser St.

WEBSITE