![]() After sorting out kids and a few work items, we planned our trip to hit Malibu Rapids at the entrance to Princess Louisa at slack tide. Now, normally we might take more time getting organized, but on this quickdraw occasion, time was fleeting and hustle was key. My wife and I set departure for the next morning and planned three nights on anchor with a chance to squeeze in a final paddle trip. In addition, a warm forecast and nothing but sunny skies was in place for the South and Sunshine coasts. ![]() The new marine forecast was on hand: winds light for three days solid. To make Chatterbox our reality, the time to rally arrived. In spring, up to 60 waterfalls adorn the inlet’s steep granite, but Chatterbox, at 40 metres tall, is the grandaddy of them all. A few more campsites are available on nearby MacDonald Island. There’s a public dock, wilderness campsites, a shelter and pit toilets. A majestic waterfall located at the inlet’s head, Chatterbox tumbles down toward saltwater, spraying those who venture a hike up its boardwalks and flank. While Princess Louisa’s magic is indisputable and world class, Chatterbox Falls is the crown jewel. Accessible only by boat or air, Princess Louisa is reached from the Strait of Georgia via scenic Jervis Inlet. Located 180 kilometres north of Vancouver, the inlet is a mere eight kilometres long and never wider than about 1.5 kilometres. Princess Louisa Inlet isn’t that far, hidden away in traditional territory of the shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. A close friend had suggested Chatterbox Falls and Princess Louisa several times, noting it romantic and magical. We were looking for one last trip to cap British Columbia boating and paddling season before tougher inhospitable weather arrived. and Michael, who help run the show.More luck than good planning landed my wife Jennifer and I in the middle of nowhere up the Sunshine Coast. “My dad was a very creative man, and if the plate wasn’t perfect, he threw the pan at me,” he laughs, adding he never tosses cookware at his two sons, Joe Jr. In this new Chatterbox iteration, just off the main drag in Pleasantville, Joseph, the owner, proffers classic Italian food influenced by “the north, the south, all of Italy,” via recipes he gleaned while cooking professionally alongside his father for 29 years. From there, the Pandolfos opened Bel Paese, of more recent memory, in Port Chester and Hawthorne, followed by Chatterbox 54 in Briarcliff Manor, which was unable to withstand the industry-wide challenges of COVID. Yet Enrico Pandolfo’s homestyle “peasant food” helped put Dominick’s on the map and gave him the cred he needed to launch his own restaurant (Valentino’s) in Yonkers, where Joseph began learning his way around a kitchen. “He said he’d do the cooking because he was a chef from Italy, which he wasn’t.” “My father went to Dominick’s on Arthur Avenue, which was only a bar back then, and suggested that the place be divided to make a restaurant,” says Joseph Pandolfo, a veritable force in his family’s restaurant business. However, it all began over the border, in the Bronx’s Little Italy, when a confident and ambitious Italian immigrant gently stretched the truth like a hunk of melted mozzarella. Having owned and operated four successful Italian restaurants in Westchester over nearly four decades, the Pandolfo family is arguably a local institution in Italian dining. ![]() Photos by Michelle Gillan Larkin Led by the Pandolfo family, Chatterbox delights with classic Italian dishes and ingredients sourced from Arthur Avenue. ![]()
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