{"id":814649,"date":"2026-07-20T18:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/814649\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T18:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T18:08:14","slug":"east-vancouvers-nero-tondo-keeps-it-tight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/814649\/","title":{"rendered":"East Vancouver’s Nero Tondo keeps it tight"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The first time I met Lucas Johnston and Devon Latt\u00e9, I was not interviewing them. I had tagged along for a shoot with What\u2019s Good?! Vancouver<\/a>\u2014the video series hosted by local Oll Farrell. I was mostly there to be a fly on the wall as the two chefs cooked, joked, and tried to explain what exactly they were building inside their tiny Powell Street restaurant, Nero Tondo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At one point, Farrell asked how the \u201cdream team\u201d came together.<\/p>\n

\u201cDream team?\u201d the two chefs laughed at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of degenerates,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n

It was a funny line, but also a revealing one. Johnston and Latt\u00e9 do not take themselves too seriously. What they do take seriously, though, is Nero Tondo\u2019s mandate: to celebrate local ingredients with a level of commitment that goes far beyond the usual restaurant language about seasonality.<\/p>\n

At Nero Tondo, \u201clocal\u201d is not a decorative word on the menu. It\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

The 18-seat restaurant opened in February 2025 in the former Elephant (RIP) space on Powell Street in a bustling stretch of East Vancouver. It\u2019s small and intimate, with most guests seated at the counter, close enough to watch Johnston and Latt\u00e9\u2014co-chefs and co-owners\u2014cook directly in front of them.<\/p>\n

For Latt\u00e9, that was key from the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of a non-negotiable for the space that we were looking for,\u201d he tells the Straight later. \u201cWe were sick of being behind a wall, nobody seeing us, nobody seeing what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want [diners] to feel like they\u2019re sitting in our kitchen,\u201d he adds. The restaurant is small enough that dinner becomes part meal, part conversation, part show.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to champion local food,\u201d Latt\u00e9 had said during the shoot.<\/p>\n

That means produce, seafood, and most of what comes through the kitchen is from B.C. The idea is not new to the pair. Johnston and Latt\u00e9 met at Main Street\u2019s The Acorn nearly a decade ago, during a period when that restaurant helped push Vancouver\u2019s vegetable-forward cooking into more ambitious territory.<\/p>\n

Nero Tondo feels like the next evolution of that work; think veg-forward (but not exclusively plant-based), inventive, and tied to the region. But here, the commitment extends across the entire experience, with seafood from providers such as Goodfish and Fanny Bay Oysters; produce from farms including Cropthorne, Local Harvest, Klippers Organics, and Glorious Organics; and a B.C.-focused wine list and bar program.<\/p>\n

The point is not just to buy local. It is to know local.<\/p>\n

Latt\u00e9 talked during the shoot about visiting farms and getting their hands in the soil. Trips to farmers markets have become part work, part social outing\u2014a place to pick up ingredients for a restaurant with very little storage, but also a place to see people they now consider friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a whole lot of restaurants out there that are spewing that kind of, \u2018We\u2019re using local\u2019, and a lot of them say \u2018as much as possible,\u2019\u200a\u201d he said. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot that\u2019s possible, and we\u2019re showing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

B.C., after all, has a bounty of delicious resources at its disposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s possible in British Columbia, compared to a lot of other areas in Canada, is astronomical,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re just putting that on display.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnston, for example, lit up talking about Nero Tondo\u2019s citrus program\u2014something that might seem counterintuitive in a restaurant so committed to B.C. sourcing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe citrus program we have here is pretty special,\u201d he continued during the shoot, pointing to growers including the Garden on Salt Spring Island and Local Harvest in the Fraser Valley.<\/p>\n

Those ingredients do not stop at the kitchen. Citrus, wildflowers, and other local products move through the beverage program as well, which is led by GM and sommelier Meghan McDowell Johnston, with assistant GM and sommelier Alex Nicassio helping carry the room\u2019s wine and service experience.<\/p>\n

The kitchen is not doing one thing while the bar does another. Everyone\u2019s guided by the same set of values. And in a room this small, that kind of ambition only works if the whole team is aligned.<\/p>\n

Later, when I press Latt\u00e9 on a favourite local supplier right now, he brings up Richmond\u2019s Flower Day Wine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really encapsulates what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he says, pointing to the way the wine sits naturally alongside Nero Tondo\u2019s food. \u201cEverything\u2019s growing so close to each other that you reach back to that \u2018what grows together goes together\u2019 thing. It\u2019s a match made in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past year, tariffs and import uncertainty have only sharpened the points Johnston and Latte are making around local produce and forced everyone to keep a question top of mind: what if we paid closer attention to what is already here?<\/p>\n

Five years ago, Latt\u00e9 suggests today, that might have felt like a harder sell\u2014more of a chef\u2019s agenda. Now, guests seem to understand it more intuitively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the majority of people that come in know what they\u2019re coming for,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Nero Tondo has already earned national attention, including a place on Air Canada\u2019s Best New Restaurants list and a Michelin Recommended designation. But inside, the room still feels disarmingly small and unpolished in the best possible way.<\/p>\n

There are jokes, banter, and the occasional self-deprecating aside. There is no grandstanding.<\/p>\n

But beneath the looseness is a serious, almost obsessive commitment to place. That might be what makes Nero Tondo so compelling.<\/p>\n

It is not trying to make local food feel virtuous or rigid. It is trying to make it feel alive: funny, seasonal, intimate, unpredictable, tied to the people who grow, catch, forage, pour, and cook in British Columbia.<\/p>\n

A couple of degenerates, maybe. But ones with a very clear idea of what a Vancouver restaurant can be.<\/p>\n

Nero Tondo is located at 1879 Powell Street.<\/p>\n