A new confectionary and gelato shop just opened in the Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood of North Vancouver. Owned by Liana Gerber she. started making chocolates while she was at home during the pandemic, she loved it so much that she decided to drop out of interior design school and pursue learning all about chocolate making and then set her sight on opening her own shop making chocolates. She then spent a month in Italy learning how to make gelato. This all started 2 years ago when she found a location in North Van and began the long process of designing and getting her shop set up, she has now fulfilled that dream as she is now 22 years old.
The beautiful bright shop is colourful and did a great job with their branding. They have 18 flavours of gelato and many of those flavours are vegan (all the cookies, cakes and everything else that goes into the gelato is made from scratch in-house), they also have a large selection of colourful artisanal chocolates (which I must try next time), there are chocolate and nut snack packs which are great to take to the beach, on a hike or just to snack on while you walk down the street. To top that off they have beautiful gelato cakes that you can order for a special occasion.
Their gelato is made with Canadian Avalon organic milk, organic fresh fruit and stone ground nuts. They use chocolate from Luker Chocolate, a family owned buisness based in Colombia that produces the highest quality chocolate with focus on fair trade and sustainability; they also only use real fruit purees, high quality nuts, and no oils, syrups, or artificial flavorings.
I visited and tried all of the 18 flavours that were available that day and then I got a 3 flavour cone with my favourite of the gelato flavours from the current line-up, all 3 of these were very good; Chocolate Chip cookie on the bottom, topped with Colombian chocolate and crowned with Birthday cake.
Make sure you ask for a sample or two of the gelato when you are in to decide which flavour (s) tempt you the most.
Life is Sweet Confections is located at 175 West 3rd Avenue in North Vancouver. You can follow them on Instagram @lifeissweet.confectionary
By: Richard Wolak