Stephanie Mathis combines warm hospitality with deep knowledge

Sommelier Stephanie Mathis is a constant at the Fairmont Pacific Rim. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Mathis

Stephanie Mathis is one of the greats in the Vancouver hospitality scene. If you don’t know her already, please let me introduce you.

Stephanie is a true wine nerd. She is quick-witted, hardworking and, in a world where ego sells, she leaves hers at the door.

I am simultaneously delighted, and baffled when I see Stephanie at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel. On the one hand, I’m thrilled that I get to catch up on the latest industry tea, chat wine and spend the evening being taken care of. On the other, I’m genuinely baffled that, despite the years passing, Stephanie is still a constant here.

After trying to do the math, I finally asked her, “How long have you been with Fairmont?” Her answer: 20 years in total, starting with the Fairmont Château Laurier in the nation’s capital, Ottawa, and then 16 years with the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver.

In an industry where change is the name of the game, Stephanie has firmly put down her roots. And not only has she grown immensely herself, but she has also helped her team grow.

After spending a few years working with the team at the Pac Rim’s original fine-dining restaurant, Oru, Stephanie helped it transition to the award-winning Botanist restaurant. Then, during COVID, she continued evolving by joining the Lobby Lounge to lead its wine team. If you haven’t been to the Lobby Lounge recently, it is a beast unto itself, with so many moving parts.

But that’s not all. Let’s take a step back and realize that we live in Vancouver, where having one job is no longer the option and everyone has to have a few side hustles. So when Stephanie isn’t pouring wine in the evening, she is working with her partner, Paul Bwengye, who is the CEO of the animation company Pixel Arcadia. Together, they are in the early days of creating an animated wine education platform.

A Vocation in Wine

So how exactly did all of this happen? How did wine become an integral part of Stephanie’s life?

Well, it turns out hospitality runs deep in the family. Stephanie’s late father Alexandre Faster, who migrated from France to Canada, had a deep love for hospitality as he worked in the hospitality industry himself. He shared a perspective that we don’t often see in North America, which is that working in the front of the house can actually be a career and not just a layover.

I think this is what baffled me about Stephanie: She treats hospitality as a vocation.

I love hospitality, and it has been my life. However, I can’t trust that it will be my only life because I simply can’t afford it. I know that systematically the structures are not in place to allow me to grow old in the industry and retire comfortably from it.

Thus, in my mind, it is a radical notion that Stephanie is doing what I would love to do, which is to treat hospitality as a vocation and put down roots in one place.

So where does the radical Stephanie Mathis go to look for inspiration within her community? To This Is Wine School, a school run by local sommeliers Kelcie Jones, Jenna Briscoe and Maude Renaud-Brisson. The trio have changed what wine education can look like, making it approachable, fun and diverse.

And when Stephanie needs to find inspiration in a glass, you can find her at Provence Marinaside. “I love that they have a list that’s not actually a list,” she says. The restaurant’s sommelier, Josh Carlson, has a truly shocking amount of cool wine in the building, and much of it isn’t listed. He has the rare ability to collect wine for the restaurant and allow it to cellar for years. Oftentimes Stephanie will go down the rabbit hole of a specific grape varietal and its many clones and allow Josh to curate a special blind tasting to learn more.

If you haven’t figured it out, Stephanie is a wine nerd and we all love her for it.

So the next time you are feeling thirsty and want to turn to someone with seriously deep wine knowledge, who will always make you feel at home, pay a visit to one of the greats in Vancouver hospitality, Stephanie Mathis at the Lobby Lounge. More likely than not, as I have learned over the last 16 years, she will be there.

Shiva Reddy