This Michelin-recommended wine bar serves inventive Korean-style fusion dinners and snacks while sommelier Peter Van de Reep focuses on natural wines and smaller producers. Chef Jiwon Seo’s menu rotates every six weeks, but a recent prix fixe menu featured terrine of pork and perilla leaves, soy-braised beef shank with ricotta gnudi, and elderflower pavlova. Chambar alumna Tannis Ling combined forces with chef Joël Watanabe, who brings his Corsican-Japanese heritage to this popular Chinatown restaurant.
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Renowned for its fresh seafood, the restaurant highlights local ingredients like sea urchin (uni) and crispy salmon skin in its signature king B.C. Sushi enthusiasts will also savor specialties such as the bluefin tuna, oyster motoyaki, and king salmon roll. This Mount Pleasant establishment is one of the best Vancouver restaurants for sushi lovers, earning recognition on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list and Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list. When looking into the best restaurants in Vancouver, it’s clear that natural beauty and diverse culinary traditions are the not-so-secret recipe to this city’s one-of-a-kind food scene. Surrounded by stunning landscapes, from soaring mountains to the Pacific Ocean, Vancouver is home to some of the freshest seafood in the world. Its rich East Asian food culture, shaped by a large immigrant population, also adds depth and variety to the city’s extensive dining options.
Zabu Chicken
It’s wildly popular, and queues are known to form for the daily happy hour (4 – 6 p.m.) on Fridays and Saturdays. Serving up excellent daily brunch, happy hour, and dinner menus, Maxine’s has been doing a roaring trade with locals since opening in 2021. The sibling restaurant to Homer Street and Tableau has already established itself as part of the Westender dining canon, as the weekend queues attest. Crowds come for generously portioned smoked salmon rosti, a gloriously messy smash burger, and the on-point cocktail and wine list.
I stuck to my seafood theme of this West Coast trip and ordered the Spaghetti Allo Scoglio. It was full of scallops, tiger prawns, calamari mussels, and clams in a tomato base – YUM. I also convinced Dan to let me try his Pappardelle “Rosche Rosche”, which was a family ragu recipe and did not disappoint! Somehow we left room for dessert and needed a post-dinner walk to ease our full bellies.
Try classics like the foie gras éclair and pâté en croûte du jour, and make sure you save time later in the day to go lie down somewhere. The family that owns this plant-filled contemporary Vietnamese restaurant has deep roots in the community, having run a pho shop here for more than 30 years. Now that the next generation is in charge, they’ve outfitted the dining room with glossy inlaid wood tables and introduced a menu with new interpretations of traditional dishes. Try the cá kho tộ (caramelized sablefish with black pepper, fish sauce, fried shallots, and bird’s eye chili) or the bò lúc lắc (shaking beef paired with locally grown watercress and kale). Vegetarians have plenty of options, too, from whole grilled eggplant to tofu coconut curry and vegetable phở.
The mood of this restaurant extends throughout all three floors and even to their street patio with their welcoming staff ensuring you will have a great experience. A few blocks from Canada Place you will find some of the best Greek food in the city. Located inside the EXchange Tower atrium, this is a great restaurant for lunch, dinner, or drinks. Hydra Estiatorio serves up a wide variety of food from lamb and roast chicken to oysters and lobster. With large portion sizes, friendly staff, and inviting Mediterranean decor, it is no wonder this restaurant is so popular.
If you like eatingvancouver.ca congee, try their mixed seafood version, full of flaky fish, prawns, and scallops. Finish it all off with a custardy egg tart before you head down the hill for a walk on the Seawall. Chambar is one of our favorite brunch spots to talk somebody’s ear off. If it’s nice out, sit on the sunny patio and gossip over a plate of lamb tagine or ricotta gnocchi with duck confit. There’s not much we’d rather be doing than eating seafood with all our fanciest friends in one of Boulevard’s big, semicircular booths.
Spring (and its evil twin, false spring), with its rush of tiny snowdrops mixed with blazing blue sky days, brings the first chance to enjoy briny oysters from Vancouver Island on patios overlooking the ocean, washed down with local sparkling wines. It’s a joyous time — even if it comes with the disconcerting reminder that Canadians live just north of a reckless, irascible neighbor. As a war of words and trade heats up with the U.S., Canadian maple pride has exploded from coast to coast to coast.
- Whether upscale restaurants, casual joints, or food trucks, Vancouver’s best restaurants skillfully combine techniques from all corners of the world with the bountiful harvests of British Columbia’s lands.
- Pair with a glass of French wine, then finish with Calvados and rice pudding with salted caramel.
- You can pick up and drop off the car at specific checkpoints around the city and the best part is they get lots of free parking.
- The selection changes with the seasons but options have included wild nettle gomae, roasted halibut in a buttery broth, fresh cheese agnolotti, and merguez-wrapped lamb saddle.
So if you’re craving a plate, hop over to their sister restaurant Ask For Luigi. I recommend the Robson location (by the library) for when you want to grab and go, and the cozier Bidwell location for when you’ve just started dating someone and you’re deep in that phase of «all we do is eat together and cuddle». (Comes about 6 months before the «I looked at your following, who is she?!» phase). Perfection because it is still rich without being heavy —and now, whenever I’m in a different city craving ramen, chicken broth is all I’ll look for.
