Emerging Vancouver brunch spot expands with fresh dinner menu

PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) — After just a year of cementing itself as a trendy brunch spot, Vancouver eatery Cecilia also started to prove itself as a dinner mainstay.

Located on Columbia House Boulevard, the restaurant debuted in March 2023 with a menu featuring breakfast and lunch favorites like chilaquiles, chicken and waffles, and mimosas. It wasn’t until this April that the owners decided to open for dinner service.

Haleigh Haase — guest experience director for the Northwest Hospitality group including Cecilia, Amaro’s Table and Gustav’s — said customers had already been pushing for dinner, but the restaurant wanted to prioritize brunch.

Owners Genaro Zurita Amaro and Jesus Amaro Linares, and the rest of the team, then had a change of heart about eight months in.

“We’re sitting on this beautiful restaurant and we were looking for other restaurants to do a dinner concept in, and it was kind of just like, ‘Oh… what are we doing? We should just use what we have… This is really pretty at night, [it] turns out, and it would be fun to have a different outlet for our chef,’” Haase told KOIN 6.

Executive Chef Tim Conklin worked alongside the culinary team to develop the dinner menu.

Haase said the expansion has allowed Northwest Hospitality to offer more seasonal options, compared to the modern American spot Amaro’s Table — where the group wants people to “go in and know what they’re gonna get.”

Since Cecilia’s first dinner service on Apr. 1, the eatery has added dishes like baked spinach artichoke dip, prosciutto-wrapped chicken breast and a skillet cookie to its menu.

Dinner also includes a nightly cocktail hour from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., where cocktails like mojitos and palomas are as low as $8.

The business has already earned a spot as one of Yelp Portland’s top three hot and new restaurants of 2023, despite not actually being located in Portland.

This year’s dinner addition may be what takes the restaurant to the next level.

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