The Best Places to Eat and Do in Canada

A five-course seasonal restaurant in Rimouski that looks like a forest cabin and cooks like a Paris address that takes itself seriously. The chef is a devoted steward of the Saint Lawrence Lowlands, working with small local producers and foraged ingredients on a menu that shifts every month. Everyone sits down and eats together, which either sounds charming or alarming depending on your mood.

A drive-in fast food joint housed inside a giant orange the size of a small building, which is either architecture or a very committed fruit stand. The menu runs on hot dogs, fries, and the house orange drink, whose recipe stays locked away like state secrets. Prices are pocket change, no dress code applies, and the line moves fast, partly because everyone already knows what they want.

This seafood restaurant in Percé started life as a youth hostel for hippies and beatniks, and a few of the era's more radical guests left graffiti that's still on the ceiling. These days the revolution mostly involves splitting a seafood platter or a pizza on the terrace, with Rocher Percé sitting right there like a very large, very patient waiter. It's a casual, sit-down spot, and the view does a lot of the heavy lifting.

The panzerotti here is a golden, deep-fried pocket that weighs close to two pounds, stuffed with mozzarella and pepperoni until it barely holds together. This no-frills Richmond Hill pizza joint has been around forever, and the regulars know to keep it simple. Wings and kitchen-sink salads round out the menu, but the panzerotti is the reason the place has a reputation that reaches well past the suburbs.

The fridges here run deep with natural, low-intervention, and unfiltered wines from B.C. and further afield, and the staff will pop a cork in your direction before you've even settled in. Bar Tartare is a wine bar tucked inside the Birds and the Beets cafe on Alexander, with a short food menu anchored by the tartare the name promises. Guest chefs rotate through on nights, so the kitchen is never quite the same twice.

A cheese vault holding a million dollars' worth of age-ripened wheels is the main character here, and yes, you can tour it. This west-end fromagerie and gourmet grocery has grown into a sprawling emporium stocked with over 500 varieties of cheese alongside charcuterie, truffles, olive oils, and prepared foods. A wine bar sits upstairs for when the tasting gets serious. The kind of place where you arrive for one wedge and leave needing a second bag.

Low-intervention wines and sake anchor the menu at this Hastings-Sunrise wine bar, where small plates shift with the seasons and the bottle shop keeps locals dropping by even when they're not staying for dinner. The patio fills up in summer, the room pulls everyone back in come fall, and next door the team runs a shop selling homewares and beef fat from their sibling restaurant, which is exactly the kind of neighborhood ecosystem this stretch of East Hastings deserves.

The croissants here leave evidence, buttery and flaky enough that you'll be picking debris off your shirt for the rest of the morning. This Harbord Street bakery has built a following around laminated pastry and long-fermented sourdough, with savory Saturday specials that rotate weekly and draw a line of regulars who planned their whole day around it.

The chef here prefers "thoughtfully remixed" to "Asian fusion," which is fair enough given that his scrambled eggs hide scallops and tiger prawns in the curds. This progressive restaurant in Thornhill runs a modernist, jade-toned room that pulls in a genuinely mixed crowd, from scruffy Gen Z to Birkin-toting regulars. The fried chicken between black sesame waffles with honey butter is the kind of dish that makes you stop mid-sentence.

A covered public market on the waterfront where the gap between tourist trap and excellent picnic is navigable if you know where to look. Oyama Sausage Co does mortadella and cured meats worth the detour; Terra Bread handles the carbs; Benton Brothers has the Salt Spring Island cheese. Grab Lee's doughnuts, find a bench on False Creek, and watch the paddleboarders while pretending you had a plan all along.

A hot dog topped with teriyaki sauce, Japanese mayo, and a strip of seaweed is either a very good idea or a very weird one, and Japadog has spent years proving it's the former. The original Burrard and Smithe cart is the one to visit, though the small chain has since grown to multiple trucks and storefronts across the city. Anthony Bourdain stopped by for the No Reservations Vancouver episode and left a convert.

A kopitiam and cheese shop sharing one address on College Street, which is either a very specific vision or a beautiful accident. The Singaporean-Malaysian menu runs deep, the kind of cooking that earns Michelle Yeoh as a fan without making a fuss about it. Roti prata comes flaky and dip-ready, and the stacked lunchbox format means you can cover a lot of ground in one sitting.

Haitian poutine made with plantains and lobster tells you most of what you need to know about Kwizinn. It's a bright, casual Haitian restaurant in Verdun, the neighborhood southwest of downtown that's quietly become one of the more interesting places to eat in the city. Slow-cooked meats, spicy sauces, and recipes passed down through the chef's family form the backbone of the menu. Save room for the house-made donuts with mascarpone banana cream.

Pastel walls and squeaky vinyl banquettes set the tone at this retro Cuban diner on Ossington, where everything from the bread to the desserts comes out of the kitchen from scratch. The barbecue beef short ribs get a long braise and a guava glaze, and the Cubano runs on slow-roasted pork and house-made baguette. The kind of comfort food that doesn't apologize for being exactly what it is.

Cold noodles made from scratch with sweet potato starch imported from South Korea set the tone before the charcoal even lights. Piggy's is an a la carte Korean BBQ spot in Thornhill that leans into sourcing and culinary culture rather than the all-you-can-eat race to the bottom. The pork ribs are aged in-house and cooked over Korean oak charcoal, and the room fills quickly with people who already know what they're ordering.

Named for the fiery Haitian pickled condiment that shows up on every table back home, this warm Caribbean restaurant in Saint-Henri covers the walls with island paintings and small-framed photographs that feel more like a family archive than décor. The brothers behind it grew up between Montreal and Haiti, and the menu moves between the two places accordingly: Québécois poutine gets a creole riff, and the slow-braised goat practically dissolves on the fork.

A by-the-slice shop on Dovercourt where the dough gets a three-day ferment before it sees any heat, which explains the audible snap when you bite in. The crust lands somewhere between New York and Neapolitan, with a flakiness that has no business being that good in a slice shop. The roster rotates, but regulars come with a preference already locked in and argue about it on the way out.

The highest praise a plant-based restaurant can get is when carnivores leave quietly impressed, and Planta in Yorkville has built a reputation around exactly that. The chef behind it trained in Michelin-starred kitchens and applies that technique to a globe-spanning menu where cashew mozzarella goes on vodka pizza and mushroom "bacon" turns up in the carbonara. Hedonistic is the right word, not virtuous.

A slow-cooked beef broth that takes days to build is the reason chefs have been quietly directing people here for years. This tiny Vietnamese spot sits just off Leslieville's Old Chinatown, the kind of room where the pho does the talking. The broth runs earthy and aromatic, almost medicinal in the best sense, and the bowl arrives ready to customize with chiles, sprouts, and fresh lime.

Weekend brunch in Rosemont, far from the Plateau's self-consciousness, where the line forms early and nobody seems to mind. Régine is a lively neighborhood café doing French-inflected brunch, meaning croissants and pastries alongside things like corn waffles with confit duck or salmon croquettes with poached egg and green pea purée. The menu covers carnivores and vegans without making a fuss about it, which is rarer than it sounds.

A grab-and-go sushi and sashimi shop where the fish is sliced to order straight from the chiller, Sashimiya is the solo project of Taka Omi, who spent years behind the counter at the Fairmont Pacific Rim's RawBar. There are no seats, which the waterfront a short walk away quietly solves. Party trays, bentos, and platters are the move, and the shop stocks Japanese grocery finds alongside the fish for good measure.

The thin, crispy crust is the whole argument here, and the toppings are generous enough that you won't feel nickeled. Straight Brooklyn Pizza is a New York-style slice shop with several locations around the city, spinning off from the team behind Via Tevere. Order two slices and a free house-made dip comes with them, the pesto being the one to get. Good to know if you're pre-gaming Rogers Arena or BC Place and need something fast that doesn't feel like a compromise.

Finding the 515 Bar involves navigating through a youth hostel and a sports bar, which is either an adventure or a nuisance depending on how your night is going. Once inside, this cocktail bar settles into a European mood, with an indie retro playlist and cheese and charcuterie from Les Amis du Fromage anchoring the room. The cocktails run strong, the bathroom quest grows more interesting after a few, and a line forms for happy hour on Friday and Saturday.

A natural wine bar on Bayview with over 120 organic and low-intervention bottles, plus a bottle shop if you want to keep the evening going at home. The food runs tapas-style: shared plates, charcuterie, and seasonal small bites that skew Mediterranean. The room is quiet and minimalist, which makes the wine list feel like the main event, because it is.

Fried chicken is the whole point at this snug 26-seat comfort food spot in Kensington Market, and chef Jerome Robinson has been making that case since a 2018 pop-up built a following before there was even a proper dining room. The mac and cheese arrives buried under deep-fried thighs in Carolina butter sauce, which covers two food groups if you're generous about it. The '90s hip-hop energy from the old Dundas West location made the move intact.

A blue pond-glazed crème brûlée with a chocolate rubber duck floating in it tells you everything about this Fairview cafe. The pastry team drops new creations every few weeks, leaning hard into theatrical presentation, and the coffee keeps pace with seasonally inspired latte art. The kind of place where the dessert case stops people mid-stride, and the igloo cakes shaped after Nanaimo bars are not even the weirdest thing on offer.

The rice field crab hot pot arrives with a broth so layered it borders on suspicious, built from noodles imported from the chef's hometown in northern Vietnam. This is a bustling, no-frills Vietnamese restaurant on Kingsway where the room runs loud and the food runs bold. Vancouver Magazine gave it the gold for Best Vietnamese, and the kitchen has since expanded to two more locations without the original losing any of its momentum.

The rigatoni boscaiola has a following serious enough that regulars debate whether to bother with the specials. They should bother with the specials. This casual Italian spot on Denman runs multiple locations around Vancouver, each with its own daily menu alongside the pasta and pizza standards, which is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds. Vancouver Magazine has given it gold for Best Chain three years running.