We first meet Edwin’s favourite café in the Cession in episode 2.6 My 3 Dads. Tally and Raelle are waiting outside the café and discussing the noticeboard while waiting for Edwin.
In the Cession, the café is called Nimaamaa’s kitchen. Nimaamaa is an Ojibwe word, meaning Mother or My Mother. Essentially it is Mother’s kitchen. The name both pays homage to the languages of the people of the Great River in the Cession and acknowledges that this is Motherland.
Once Tally, Raelle and Edwin are inside the café, we see them sitting at a booth by the window. There are no curtains in the café and the surveillance van with army personnel can be seen through the window.
Edwin visits this café again in episode 2.9 Mother of All, Mother of None. This time it is Scylla who is sat with him in the booth, while Quinn is also there with Tiffany. Quinn is introducing Tiffany to the dodger family who will take care of her. Edwin and Scylla are sitting in exactly the same booth that Raelle and Tally used earlier.
Although it is the same café, there is one significant difference now, there are curtains at the windows. If those curtains had been there 3 episodes earlier, we would not have been able to see the surveillance van parked outside. I can’t work out whether the curtains were removed for episode 2.6 or were added specially for episode 2.9.
In both episodes where this café was used as a filming location, they also filmed at City Hall, Port Coquitlam. Raelle and Tally walk through it in episode 2.6 and it is the site of the Morrigan’s Whisper dance in episode 2.9. So it was reasonable to assume that the two locations were very close together. In fact they are down the street and round the corner from each other.
Then I found a new Behind The Scenes photo of Edwin.
There are curtains in the windows here.
Once I had a name, I could find a better image of the real café online. This image gives a better view of the curtains.
The real café is Matteo’s Gelato. The address is 2615 Mary Hill Rd, Port Coquitlam, BC V3C 3A9. The street number 2615 can be seen to the right of the door in the second photo above.
On the map below, the City Hall location is marked in red. Matteo’s Gelato is round the corner on Mary Hill Road.
Having found these and other interesting locations, the next step is to plan the trip to Vancouver to visit these places for myself. I want an ice cream from this café and I want to eat it sitting in that same booth. Vancouver Pilgrimage!
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