Restaurateur Sean Heather and business partner/property owner Scott Hawthorn deserve credit just for being able to help rehabilitate Blood Alley, a once sketchy Gastown throughway that’s suddenly rife with trendy restaurants and shops. Apparently the specter of public executions and the stone path, once stained red with the blood of butchered animals, wasn’t enough to dissuade Vancouver’s hipsterati from flocking to places like Judas Goat and sister establishment Salt Tasting Room, which features global wines paired with locally cured meats, artisanal cheeses and condiments. Nor should it.

Inside the two-story, glass-fronted space, an L-shaped bar offers views of the prep area, Tintin and an espresso bar, which serves Heather’s coffee of choice, Stumptown. A 60-seat basement houses a glass-sided cellar filled with wine and hanging salumi. My seat was at a banquette by the front window, where I was joined by a fashionable pig statuette and manager Chad Gaskell.

Chef Alvin Pillay presides over blackboard menus touting columns of Cheese, Meat and Condiment. It can be a free for all, or trust your server’s suggested pairings, called Daily Plates ($15) They’ve got a Butcher Plate with choice of 3 meats and 3 condiments, Cheese Monger Plate or a Best of BC Plate, which features 3 locally produced items + 3 condiments. Or, do a full three course meal for $28, including choice of roasted beet or arugula salad, choice of Daily Plate, and choice of dessert from the blackboard.

My choice was the Best of BC Plate, 3 locally produced items + 3 condiments, which my server, Carrie, paired with three local wines. A fruit forward 2010 rosé joined Mike Vitow’s corned beef, made by a Bronx cabbie who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War and ended up in Coltice, near Squamish. He now owns shop on Granville Island after getting his start making meat for friends and family. It was good corned beef, pretty much the right balance of fat to lean, not too heavily spiced, served with somewhat spicy Guinness mustard made at sister establishment Irish Heather.

A crisp 2009 Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris blend joined Holsteiner, a German style salami seasoned with white and black pepper, cardamom and cinnamon, and tangy Piccalilli relish, cauliflower, cucumber and onion stained with turmeric and seasoned with cinnamon, sugar and vinegar, also made at Irish Heather.

A lightly carbonated 2009 Frizzante Chardonnay joined an ashy Camembert from Moonstruck on Salt Spring Island, which had a creamy, hazelnut-like nuttiness.

Pastry chef Paul Crotea filled puff pastry with organic yogurt mousse, topped it with rhubarb preserves and completed the plate with a thatch of orange zest. The dessert was fairly simple, in keeping with the theme, but probably too reliant on the crust, meaning the ratio was a little out of whack.

Salt Tasting Room offered a compelling mix-and-match concept that allows customers to be as involved as they want to be. In my case, after two other stops, the appropriate level was semi-involved, which worked out well.

Note: My meal at Salt Tasting Room was complimentary, as part of a tour hosted by Tourism Vancouver.