On Nelson’s downtown Baker Street you’re equally likely to run into a gaggle of foreign-exchange students or some grizzled locals heading to the co-op. This secluded mountain town, long synonymous with dropping out of the rat race, is slowly letting the outside world in on its hidden secret: sophistication. The citizenry are still keeping it real—they’re just doing it while eating manchego with quince jam.

EAT
People who like to chill (and Nelson has no shortage of them) spend a disproportionate amount of time obsessing over the perfect coffee. Local caffeine ground zero, Oso Negro (604 Ward St., 250-352-7661, osonegrocoffee.com), punches above its small-town weight class, making it the joint for a phenomenal cup of the dark stuff.
In the last few years, it seems like a chef a month has traded some hot-shot urban restaurant for the slower pace—and ultimate skiing and biking—of Nelson. At 13 years old, the All Seasons Café (620 Herridge Lane, 250-352-0101, allseasonscafe.com) is already the elder statesman of local restaurants, but more than a decade has allowed it to settle into a comfortable style of cooking: think pan-kissed sea scallops and saffron- dressed fennel with cauliflower cream and salmon roe. It has also amassed the area’s best wine list, with gems like a 1999 Château Musar, the great wine of Lebanon.

Stay
The Hume Hotel (422 Vernon St., 250-352-5331, humehotel.com) was hopping at the start of the 20th century, when folks here were riding a wave of mining prosperity, but it recent years had become more of a nostalgic artifact than a memorable place to stay. Renovations have restored the hotel to its 1898 grandeur and boosted the basement with the ultra-modern Spiritbar cocktail lounge. That gives the resident ghosts (there are rumoured to be a few) a nice choice of locales to haunt.
Or drop your bags at the Mountain Hound Inn (621 Baker St., 866-452-6490, mountainhound.com) which has done the boutique hotel thing—flat-screen TVs, rooms painted the faintest shade of grey—without jacking up its rates as though it were the W Nelson.

PLAY
The anti-establishment capital of Canada has always had an uneasy relationship with that most establishment of pursuits: golf. As a result it has largely been left out of the course-building boom that hit every other Interior B.C. town. The good news is that the old course just across the lake, Kokanee Springs (Crawford Bay, 800-979-7999, kokaneesprings.com), is one of Canada’s hidden gems, with a classic waterfront layout.
An even more iconic Nelson pastime is getting up into the mountains, either on foot or by wheels. For the former, try a Sproule Creek hike or the Kootenay Canal trail just west of town. For gearheads, stop by Sacred Ride (213B Baker St., 250-354-3831, sacredride.ca), where the cooler-than-thou pro-rider employees may share their knowledge on the best places to peddle. Find more activity ideas for Nelson and environs at discovernelson.com or hellobc.com (Kootenay
Rockies region).