Take a trip to an excellent Parisian bistro by way of the city’s beachside Kitsilano neighborhood, where up-and-comer chef Dan McGee and team are whipping up French standards with B.C.’s finest produce. The stunning custom-made bar comes from France, and even the serving staff are mostly French, although with the happy addition of Canadian manners. With buttery croissants in the morning, gooey croque-monsieur at lunch, and juicy entrecôte-frites with a mouthwatering crisp char at dinner, anytime is a good time for Au Comptoir.

Nothing says sunshine and good times like a crisp sugar waffle cone piled high with creamy ice cream from Rain or Shine, whose truck parks seasonally near the Inukshuk on English Bay. Everything is made Philadelphia-style (no eggs) with plenty of vegan (coconut or cashew milk base) and gluten-free options. Locally sourced ingredients such as raw honey from the North Okanagan and lavender from neighboring Maple Ridge pair perfectly with the delicious dairy from Birchwood Farm in Abbotsford. Indulge in the time-honored tradition of dithering over what flavor you want before repairing to one of the logs on the beach to savor pure frozen heaven.

It’s late and you have a craving for heaping plates of barbecue and strong whisky cocktails. There’s only one place to go: Buckstop, a tiny, genial bar (in a city known for its frosty reception)  in the lively West End neighborhood. Burger Monday creations (often featuring pork patties, tempura-fried toppings like cheese curds, and copious cheeses and sauces) are switched up weekly, with a limited quantity available starting at 4:30 p.m. Among your choices of barbecue treats, the deep-fried pickles and hush puppies with honey butter are nonnegotiable orders.

Sure the aisles are packed with wide-eyed Instagrammers at this popular tourist destination, but there are some jewels to be found here to assemble a superb picnic for watching the boats and paddle boarders on False Creek. Take your pick from delights such as pickled headcheese, succulent mortadella, and punchy salami at the Oyama Sausage Co, then head to Terra Bread to pick up some focaccia or baguettes before stocking up on local Salt Spring Island cheeses at Benton Brothers and fresh doughnuts at Lee’s.

​​One of Vancouver’s original izakayas, Guu with Garlic sits in the “ramen triangle” on Robson Street, surrounded by three blocks of Asian food spots. Stop by for a set teishoku lunch (go for the superb pork cutlet), served with pickles, miso, and rice, then come back for dinner for izakaya classics such as garlic beef tongue, takoyaki (crispy octopus balls), and una-meshi, barbecued eel with rice served in a hot stone bowl. Whatever you order, wash it down with a Calpico cocktail, fresh junmai sake, or a Sapporo.

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 sister 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. Hang out on the sun-trap patio and watch the world race past on Burrard Street, or settle into a comfy booth and graze your way from day to night.

Sashimiya opened in 2020, tucked away on the bottom of Hornby Street. The ultra-casual, entirely sustainable, grab-and-go sushi and sashimi shop is sushi master chef Taka Omi’s first solo spot after leaving the Fairmont Pacific Rim’s RawBar. Fish can be sliced to order for sashimi from the chillers, and a host of Japanese grocery goodies are on offer too. There are no seats, so take your exquisitely made party trays, platters, and bentos down to the waterfront to enjoy picnic-style, or order for delivery.

Few walk the sustainable walk like chef Welbert Choi and his team, who conjure up menus full of locally farmed, seasonal, and foraged ingredients paired with all-B.C. wine, beer, and cocktails. The kitchen’s energy-efficient gizmos and zero-waste practices are impressive, but so are eco-friendly, locavore treats such as duck breast smoked with foraged grand fir tree needles or the bison board (available in limited quantities from Friday to Sunday) featuring anything from cured bison to braised bison risotto and bison heart tartare. There’s also a killer weekend brunch with house-made preserves and a fantastic take on Nutella.

Old-school white linens; fresh, local, and sustainable Ocean Wise ingredients; and top-notch friendly service go hand in hand with outstanding value at Joe’s. An unpretentious choice for lunch, dinner, or weekend brunch, the restaurant treats guests to fresh-shucked B.C. oysters, piled-high bowls of crispy fried calamari, and buttery, miso-marinated sablefish. Dining on a budget? The daily blue-plate lunch special clocks in at 13 Canadian dollars, and there are great dinner deals too. Join the locals for afternoon and evening happy-hour oysters and sliders on the suntrap rooftop patio.

There are hotel restaurants and there are restaurants in hotels, and Boulevard is definitely the latter. Pedigreed chef Alex Chen and team’s inventive take on West Coast seafood brings diners into some excitingly experimental territory, but never strays far from harmony and balance. It’s a bright, beautiful room to enjoy crowd-pleasing seafood towers or steak frites, while the service, cocktails, and wine list are all on point. There’s also a great daily happy hour from 3 to 5 p.m. with cocktails on tap, oysters, and crispy chicken wings with fish sauce caramel and sambal chili.

Some of the best Italian food in the world can be found in Vancouver (no hyperbole intended). The shelves of Cioppino’s positively groan with honors and awards such as the prestigious Order of the Star of Italy (a knighthood conferred by the Italian president for representing Italian culture abroad), a “three forks” rating from Gambero Rosso, and a place on the 50 Top Italy list. Take the hint and book a table at chef Pino Posteraro’s exceptional restaurant to discover his modernist Pacific Northwest take on Italian cuisine. Dishes include juicy and tender Pacific octopus with Tuscan white beans, delicate gnocchi cacio e pepe, and decadent Atlantic lobster-stuffed linguine all’aragosta. For the full experience, splurge for the chef’s menu and let the wonder of it all wash over you.

Raw from the sushi bar or cooked from the open kitchen, seafood is the star at this Yaletown institution. Widely acknowledged as one of Canada’s leaders in responsible seafood, chef Frank Pabst and team push the culinary envelope a little each February with their Unsung Heroes festival, which celebrates lesser-loved species, encouraging diners to broaden their palates and try more sustainable seafood such as poached periwinkles and red sea urchin trifle. Year-round, the service is superb, the wine list dizzyingly wonderful, and the British Columbian seafood towers a splurge meal you’ll adore.

Tucked away in a courtyard in the Cathedral Building downtown, ex-Top Chef contestant Felix Zhou’s cafe offers up the city’s fluffiest scrambled egg toast sandwiches on pillowy brioche. Try local torched wagyu striped with Kewpie mayo, the pork floss with crispy seaweed, or the butter udon with house-cured salmon and sous-vide egg. Zhou also offers a “traditional” menu of basic breakfast faves including bagels, parfaits, and BLTs, but why be traditional when you can dive into their wildly Instagrammable boxes of egg toast?

It’s been a while since Vancouver had such a pretty place to see and be seen, and since opening in April 2017, Botanist at the Fairmont Pacific Rim has been consistently busy. The Champagne lounge bubbles over with excellent options, and the wine list features a raft of exclusive terroir-driven picks from B.C. and beyond. Definitely stop for cocktails at the Lab — where drinks come with theatrical drifts of dry ice and other high-concept presentations — before diving into the wildly photogenic food of chef Hector Laguna (formerly of Hawksworth), airy dishes with whisper-light but flavor-dense foams, made with locally sourced delights.

It would be easy to miss Bacaro, tucked away on the ground floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel behind Giovane café. But head to the back of the room and you’ll be rewarded with a thrilling menu of gloriously cheffy and surprisingly affordable aperitivo snacks. Drawing inspiration from Venice’s bacari and cicchetti bars, which serve wine and small plates, the restaurant offers several items for $4 and under, like anchovy and chive butter crostini or whipped salt cod and grilled polenta. There are also superb pastas (the flower-like sbocciare is both Instagrammable and unmissable), house-made and imported salumi, seafood, and a comprehensive vermouth menu, plus a spritz-heavy cocktail list. Plus it’s a stone’s throw from many of the city’s primo attractions and the waterfront, and open all day from 11:30 a.m.

Born in French Guiana and raised in a Chinese family, chef Remi Ho’s business began as a pop-up in 2019 and has blossomed through enthusiastic industry word-of-mouth to a sleekly stylish tiny Asian-French patisserie just a few steps from the bustle of Cambie Street. Make sure you arrive early or order online for pick-up to ensure you secure popular treats, such as the to-die-for, buttery, crispy salted egg yolk financier and the pillow-soft black sesame-stuffed mochi.

You no longer need to head to the ‘burbs of Riley Park to check out the latest from chef Lucais Syme (ex-La Quercia, La Pentola). The Italian food maestro has expanded on the first Autostrada, located way up on Main, with a downtown location in the space where Syme’s sublime Cinara used to be, and an outpost in the futuristic Bjarke Ingels-designed Vancouver House tower. This is everyday Italian with well-executed pasta mains, excellent meatballs, and rich, creamy desserts. Cocktail fans will love the different takes on the Negroni, but everyone will appreciate the friendly service.

After a stint at the Savoy in London, cooking for Mick Jagger, Prince, and a host of other glitzy celebs, Belgian chef Nico Schuermans has created the archetypal casual fine dining restaurant in Vancouver. Chambar offers an elegant room, faultless service, and a no-nonsense menu of French-/Belgian-influenced classics made with Pacific Northwest ingredients, which you’d be more than welcome to enjoy coming straight from yoga class still in your Lululemons.

Pidgin seamlessly blends the bounty of the Pacific Northwest with French techniques and Asian influences. Although the place is perfect for bar snacks — the gochujang chicken wings are the best in the city — and genuinely thrilling for creative cocktails with ingredients such as toasted rice rum and gunpowder tea gomme, go with the prix fixe, which offers exceptional value with seven inventive mini courses 85 Canadian dollars (about $66) per person. Whisky and sake fans will love the selection, and the wine list offers global gems too.

The sister restaurant to Acorn, which has won awards for its vegetarian and vegan fine dining, Arbor has neatly swooped in to cover another side of the market: vegetable-focused comfort food. Pretty much every item on the menu can be made gluten-free if it isn’t already, and there’s plenty for vegans to feast upon too. Check out the hidden patio garden at the back or drop by for a battered, Southern-fried artichoke sandwich with eggplant “bacon” for take-out. They’re open late every day and have a very cool wine list heavy on small B.C. producers.

Andrea Carlson’s resume reads like a rundown of every restaurant that helped shape Vancouver’s fresh, local, and sustainable style: C, Raincity Grill, Sooke Harbour House, Bishop’s — she’s worked at them all. You’ll find a shining example of British Columbia-based casual fine dining in Burdock & Co’s locavore tasting menus, which pair perfectly with the tight, natural-leaning wine list. Seasonal favorites come and go on the five-course set menus, but look out for the fan-favorite buttermilk fried chicken among the optional additions, or go big with an order of sustainably sourced Northern Divine sturgeon caviar with tater tots and a shot of aquavit.

Industry veterans opened this much-anticipated, neighborhood tapas bar to rave reviews in late 2018, bagging the coveted No. 2 spot on Air Canada enRoute’s Best New Restaurant of the Year list in 2019, along with every local award going. It’s no wonder, given Cómo delivers a truly delicious experience including on-tap vermouth and bone-dry fino sherry, free tapas at the bar during happy hour with a drink purchase (4-5 p.m.), superb hard cheeses, and crisp patatas bravas striped with mayo and spicy tomato sauce. The room is loud and friendly, with efficient cheery service, and although you can make reservations for the rest of the room, the patio is open first come, first served. Enjoy a brief trip to Spain at the handsome bar before heading back out to Vancouver.

You could book three months out for a meal at Published on Main, which recently scored the No. 1 spot on the prestigious Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants list. Or you could head to casual sister wine bar Susu, where a quarter of the tables are reserved for walk-ins. The bar began as a pop-up, but looks set to permanently become one of the city’s low-key favorites. Chef Ash Kurt has created a playful menu with items like decadent duck liver parfait honey crullers, hash browns with “mc’chicken sauce,” and pitch-perfect smoked lamb belly, along with an ever-changing array of delicious low-intervention wines, amari, cocktails, and vermouth for the city’s cork dorks. The late-night weekend menu ensures a regular crowd of off-work hospitality staffers crowing over foie gras, chicken drumsticks, and natural wines.

Part of legendary local chef Angus An’s innovative empire of superb eateries (including Thai standard Maenam), this casual pan-Asian spot takes inspiration from chef An’s travels and childhood. There are five different kinds of noodles (including gluten-free and vegan options), sourced from Tak Fung on nearby Victoria Drive, to mix and match with soups, broths, and curries, plus bright, aromatic salads and small plates. The $5 roti with curry sauce is the best deal in the city, especially if you lick your plate when you’re through.

Take part in a Vancouver tradition and join the queues outside this well-priced Vietnamese-Cambodian spot in Chinatown. The menu is enormous, so save yourself from the agonies of choice and order up the deep-fried crunchy chicken wings (with their amazing dipping sauce), the Instagram-ready platter of thit bò butter beef, and the beef lúc lắc with egg and rice. And yeah, okay, maybe some garlic squid too. 

Since opening in summer 2017 under the experienced hand of chef J.C. Poirier, an alum of Montreal’s Toqué, St Lawrence in Japantown has been one of the city’s toughest reservations to score. Stepping through the velvet curtain into the small dining room, you leave behind Vancouver and its passion for clean, fresh, lean cuisine, and dive into a delicious butter-hosed world where old-school French technique meets Québecois cuisine. The music, wine list, and staff are (mostly) French, and the menu groans with decadent treats. Choose from their set three-course classics menu ($85) or go off-piste with a la carte selections that explore a different regional French cuisine each month. Over-order and hang the consequences, and always make room for the exquisite salted caramel rice pudding.

The gritty Powell block in Railtown may not seem like the place to find some of the city’s most exciting, globally inspired food, but it has been since 2015 with the arrival of the Mackenzie Room. In a small dining room decked out with hipstery brass chandeliers, distressed walls, and an ever-changing chalkboard menu, chef Sean Reeve and team use ingredients from the Pacific Northwest to reimagine classic dishes and create bold new creations with witty names like “Corn Porn” and “A Tripe Called Quest.” Opt for “I Want It All” to eat your way around the whole menu and definitely check out the off-menu selection of natural wines. 

Innovative chef Dave Gunawan’s CV includes many of Vancouver’s big hitters, such as the now-shuttered West and Wildebeest, and the critically acclaimed ultra-locavore Farmer’s Apprentice. This small cafe in the Fraserhood community seemed a puzzling fit at first, but it’s actually oh-so very Gunawan. Behold Ubuntu Canteen, with its in-house heirloom grain bakery and bread subscription program, the city’s best bone broth, and thoughtfully cheffy sandwiches, such as open-faced beef tongue sandwich with sauce gribiche and salad on grilled sourdough. Evening service (Wed-Sat) brings a chance for the team to flex with an ever-changing menu of superb local and seasonal ingredients.