A foodie’s guide to Vancouver: Fine dining, casual bites and more

Eating out in Vancouver is a sport of its own. With access to fresh seafood, local farms, and global influences, chefs here push boundaries while honouring tradition. The result? A vibrant dining landscape where every bite reflects the city’s rich culinary identity.

HAWKSWORTH

Hawksworth Restaurant, located inside the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, is often ranked among the best fine dining restaurants in Vancouver. Led by Canadian chef David Hawksworth, the restaurant is celebrated for its elegant take on West Coast cuisine using seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. Standout dishes include wagyu beef carpaccio with parsley, manchego and puffed beef tendon, and caramelised gnocchi with parsley root, chorizo, madeira and parmesan. Trained in Michelin-starred kitchens including Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, L’Escargot and The Square, Hawksworth delivers one of the top Vancouver dining experiences in a refined Art Deco setting.

801 West Georgia Street, Vancouver

NIGHTINGALE

Part of the acclaimed Hawksworth Group, Nightingale is a stylish downtown Coal Harbour restaurant that’s equally suited to business lunches, after-work drinks or special occasions. The menu celebrates seasonal, locally sourced produce, seafood and meats, with standout choices ranging from fresh salads and Neapolitan-style pizzas to handmade pastas and wood-fired proteins. An extensive wine list and attentive service complete the experience, but it’s the signature Buttermilk Fried Chicken — drizzled with spiced maple syrup, sumac and pickles — that keeps Nightingale among the top Vancouver restaurants for modern Canadian dining.

1017 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

PUBLISHED ON MAIN

Consistently ranked among Canada’s top restaurants, Published on Main is a leader in modern West Coast fine dining. Chef Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson’s menu celebrates British Columbia’s farmers, foragers, and fishers with dishes that evolve weekly to reflect the best of the season. Highlights include spot prawns with sea asparagus and seared duck breast with foraged mushrooms and huckleberries. A minimalist dining room and an acclaimed natural wine list round out one of Vancouver’s most celebrated culinary experiences.

3593 Main Street, Vancouver

BOTANIST

With its lush, sunlit design and vibrant atmosphere, Botanist is one of Vancouver’s most stylish dining destinations. Executive chef Hector Laguna celebrates Pacific Northwest cuisine with seasonal seafood and local produce, from hand-cut tagliatelle with foraged mushrooms to pan-seared sablefish with smoked butter. The bar is equally renowned, serving playful West Coast-inspired cocktails, and don’t miss the bubbly brunch menu – it’s a steal.

1038 Canada Place, Vancouver 

L’ABATTOIR

For French-inspired cuisine, head to L’Abattoir. Set in a former jailhouse just a stone’s throw from Blood Alley, the city’s once meatpacking district, executive chef (and Vancouver native) Jasper Cruickshank oversees a menu of delicious dishes such as baked Pacific oysters with whipped garlic butter and black truffle, Tandoori style sablefish with Dungeness crab, duck breast with beet tart, and Black Angus beef ribeye with bone marrow, gem lettuce and rosti fries. Try the Chef’s Menu to get a taste of everything and order one of its specialty craft cocktails with your meal.

217 Carrall Street, Vancouver

MINAMI

Minami, the sister restaurant to Vancouver’s iconic Miku, brings Aburi-style sushi to trendy Yaletown. The menu blends Pacific Northwest ingredients with Japanese flavours, from melt-in-your-mouth pressed sushi to creative small plates. Happy hour is popular for bites like ebi fritters and Brussels sprouts chips paired with sake or spritzes, while the full tasting menu offers the complete Minami experience.

1118 Mainland St, Vancouver

KISSA TANTO

Inspired by jazz cafes in Tokyo during the 1960s, Kissa Tanto serves a blend of Japanese and Italian cuisine. Highlights include burrata salad with fermented ginger dressing, charcoal udon with Dungeness crab, prawns, squid and Calabrian chili butter, and bluefin tuna with mixed mushroom kelp. The restaurant was imagined as a “secret hideaway” by its owners, so no surprise it’s extremely popular for date nights.

263 East Pender Street, Vancouver

MAENAM

Open since 2009, Maenam, located in the heart of Vancouver’s hippest neighbourhood Kitsilano, is known for its inventive and tasty Thai cuisine. Chef Angus An is passionate about sourcing seasonal ingredients from local suppliers to create dishes. Standouts include hot and sour manila clam soup, Pacific halibut green curry with baby corn, sweet peppers, grachai, Thai eggplant and Thai basil, and clay pot with a hearty serving of lobster cooked with crispy pork jowl and vermicelli. Not sure what to order? The multi-course chef’s menu is perfect for sharing, family style.

1938 West 4th Ave, Vancouver

DYNASTY SEAFOOD

Vancouver’s vibrant Hong Kong community makes dim sum a must-try, and Dynasty Seafood is among the best. Known for its banquet-style Cantonese cuisine and signature ‘wok hei’ flavour, it serves classics like shrimp dumplings, egg tarts and spring rolls. The showstopper, however, is the crispy typhoon shelter Dungeness crab with sticky rice — one of the city’s most photographed dishes.

108-777 West Broadway, Vancouver

PHNOM PENH

Open since 1985, Phnom Penh draws crowds for its no-frills menu of Vietnamese and Cambodian comfort food. With more than 100 rice, noodle and soup dishes on offer, these few items are legendary: fried chicken wings coated in butter, salt, lemon, garlic and pepper; green papaya salad with prawns and beef jerky; and butter beef carpaccio topped with cilantro, fried garlic and a dark sweet-and-sour sauce. Expect to wait but it’s worth it.

244 East Georgia Street, Vancouver

THE LUNCH LADY

Mrs Nguyen Thi Thanh’s humble eatery in Saigon gained international fame after being featured on Anthony Bourdain’s TV show No Reservations in 2008. And to celebrate their friendship, Bourdain picked the moniker The Lunch Lady for her. Today, her recipes have made their way to Vancouver in a restaurant called The Lunch Lady, owned by Michael Tran, a Vancouver native of Vietnamese heritage. Highlights at this restaurant include garlic fried noodles in XO sauce, a char-grilled pork tomahawk with pineapple and blistered shishito peppers, and bo luc lac — shaking beef reimagined as a steak seasoned with bold Vietnamese flavours.

1046 Commercial Drive, Vancouver

VIJ’S

Mick Jagger, Tom Cruise, and even Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have all dined at Vij’s — a Vancouver institution since 1994, renowned for its creative Indian cuisine. Helmed by Indian-born Canadian chef, cookbook author and TV personality Vikram Vij, the Michelin-recommended restaurant is best known for dishes like wine-marinated lamb popsicles, Bombay smashed potatoes, gunpowder pork, and coriander-spiced jackfruit.

3106 Cambie Street, Vancouver 

MEDINA CAFE

For a memorable brunch and the best waffles in town, Medina is hard to beat. Fresh, chewy and authentically Liege-style, their waffles come studded with pearl sugar and are reason enough to visit. Located in downtown Vancouver, the cafe also serves Mediterranean-inspired bistro fare like a Harissa burger and tagine, best paired with coffee, mimosas or a cocktail. With happy hour running daily from 9am to 11am, what’s not to like?

780 Richards St, Vancouver

THE VANCOUVER FISH COMPANY

With the ocean just at its doorstep, you can’t visit Vancouver without trying the local seafood. At The Vancouver Fish Company in Granville Island, you’ll find fresh seafood platters and mains featuring wild salmon, halibut, sablefish, scallops, and lobster, alongside striploin and Tomahawk steak for meat-lovers. Their signature Halibut ‘n’ Chips are fried to golden perfection with thick, flaky fish in a crisp batter, while maple walnut prawns with yuzu mayo make the perfect starter.

1517 Anderson Street, Vancouver 

RED WAGON CAFE

If it’s pancakes you’re after – topped with a melting slab of butter and real Canadian maple syrup, of course – Red Wagon Cafe has some of the fluffiest in town. Stick with the original over blueberry, and pair them with buttered toast, eggs and coffee for a laidback brunch in Vancouver – flannel shirts, optional. 

2128 East Hastings Street, Vancouver