Marco Ovies
Marco Ovies tracks fast-moving food news, focusing on new restaurants, closures, and buzzy dining experiences for Dished Vancouver at Daily Hive. His coverage blends hyperlocal openings and changes on the restaurant scene with service-minded guides and personality-driven stories from the city’s food culture. He brings a lifestyle and music-journalism background to a beat that leans heavily on trends, pop culture, and the way people actually eat out.
Food news, openings, and closures
Ovies’ core work is rapid, headline-driven food news about restaurant openings, expansions, and shutdowns across the local dining scene. He regularly reports on new spots, from Thai and Vietnamese restaurants with robot baristas to bakeries specializing in French bread, coffee shops inside bookstores, and quiet-night-out destinations chosen by readers.
Chain activity is a recurring focus, with coverage of popular Alberta pub brands opening new locations, global tea shops expanding, and sandwich and hot pot concepts growing across the region.
Closures are treated with the same urgency, as he tracks much-loved cafes and restaurants shuttering after years or decades in business, often grouped into roundups of notable recent closures. His headlines lean into emotion and momentum - using language about heartbreak, hype, and “can’t-miss” venues - to frame the restaurant beat as an always-moving circuit of places to try before they disappear.
Guides, lists, and service coverage
Beyond straight news, Ovies produces service pieces that help readers decide where to eat and what events to attend. He assembles lists of recently opened restaurants “we can’t wait to try,” guides to outdoor dining destinations, and roundups of the most hyped openings in and around the city.
Food events and pop-ups feature heavily, including schedules of clam chowder pop-ups, tequila and agave festivals, and monthly or weekly “can’t-miss” food events. He also writes practical guides such as where to go if you don’t want to cook Thanksgiving dinner and where to grab quick to-go eats while in line for major warehouse sales. Reader input and social buzz enter the mix through pieces built around audience recommendations or viral threads on awkward tipping experiences.
Taste-test reviews of new products and menu items - like McDonald’s McShaker Fries, Crumbl Cookies, and Kraft Dinner’s mac and cheesecake - extend his service angle into product-focused content that balances curiosity with straightforward verdicts.
Celebrity dining and Michelin culture
Ovies regularly intersects food coverage with entertainment and celebrity culture, turning restaurant visits into stories about visibility and cachet.
His work in the celebrities vertical includes tracking where the cast of “Shogun” dines, profiling reality TV stars’ favourite spots, and documenting how new restaurants quickly become hot destinations for television personalities. He follows local celebrity habits, including Michael Bublé’s birthday meals, shoutouts to restaurants favoured by Ryan Reynolds, and Cobie Smulders’ enthusiasm for longstanding neighbourhood institutions.
This focus on who eats where is complemented by attention to the Michelin ecosystem, such as predictions for upcoming Michelin Guide ceremonies and coverage of restaurants connected to Michelin-recognized chefs and concepts. Together, these stories position him at the junction of food, entertainment, and prestige, where the value of a restaurant is shaped as much by cultural narrative as by the menu.
National food trends and lifestyle background
Although much of his work is anchored in one city’s dining scene, Ovies also covers national food trends and brand news, including plant-based products returning to grocery shelves and collaborations like A&W introducing Pret A Manger items in stores across the country. His beat extends to viral coffee pop-ups, ice cream shops with dozens of flavours, and large-format markets with multiple vendors, reflecting an interest in experiences that feel new, photogenic, or conversational.
Outside Daily Hive, he has a broader portfolio as a content creator and journalist, with bylines in outlets such as The Georgia Straight, Burnaby Beacon, This Magazine, EARMILK, and Surrey604.
He specializes in lifestyle and music journalism and serves as founder and editor-in-chief of Attuned Media, bringing a sensibility tuned to culture, trends, and storytelling into his food reporting. That background shapes a tone that favours accessible language, cultural references, and stories that connect dining to how people spend their time and attention.
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