The Best Places in Canada

Stacks of firewood against the dark brick walls signal what this small-plates Mediterranean spot is actually about: wood-fired proteins and serious cooking from the Alo Food Group, Patrick Kriss's team. The room inside the Ace Hotel runs dark and sleek, with big windows cutting the mood just enough. The menu ranges from carpaccio to roast chicken and lamb, and regulars know to save room for the coconut cream pie if it's on.

The brisket here is cooked low and slow over oak until the smoke does exactly as much work as it should, no more. This is a Central Texas-style BBQ shop in Toronto, with all the markers: smoked meats by the pound, saucy sandwiches, and weekly specials that tend toward the Flintstones end of the portion scale. The pitmaster brought the method up from Dallas, and the regulars who've figured out the beef rib schedule consider that a personal win.

Icebergs drift past the window while you eat, which sets an immediate bar for the drama of dinner. This remote destination restaurant inside Fogo Island Inn leans hard into its subarctic address, pulling edible plants from the shoreline and vegetables from local growers to build contemporary plates that taste like the Labrador Current actually means something. A zero-waste kitchen runs underneath it all, quietly, the way confident kitchens do.

Perpetual tropics in downtown Montreal, regardless of what February is doing outside. Le Mal Nécessaire is a sprawling cocktail bar with tall pillars, soaring ceilings, and a long polished bar that commits hard to the urban-equatorial bit. Drinks split neatly between breezy coconut-and-rum constructions and more serious, grown-up pours, so the crowd tends to contain both people unwinding and people who actually read the back of an amaro bottle.

Dried leaves hang from the ceiling, carved masks line the walls, and the pink lighting will make you look either very healthy or very unwell, depending on how many barrels deep you are. This Parkdale tiki bar runs a barrel-rating system on its cocktail menu, and nothing clocks in below two out of five, which tells you something about the room's general intentions. Rum is the obvious throughline, served in every vessel short of a fishbowl.

Wind Cries Mary is a red-brick cocktail bar on Bastion Square where the menu is laid out like a forest, so you pick a drink by whether you want leaves (floral) or roots (earthy). It has made a Spirited Awards regional top ten for international restaurant bars in Canada. The kitchen is serious about its fried chicken, which makes this a good first stop that tends to become the whole night.

Thirty suites on the shores of Lake Tremblant, each running at least 700 square feet, with wood-burning fireplaces and soaking tubs deep enough to disappear into for a weekend. This boutique ski hotel takes its aesthetic cues from the Swiss Alps, which sounds like a cliché until you're inside and stop caring. The slopes are a short walk away, the spa runs year-round, and the restaurant punches well above its address. One Michelin Key.

Most of the seating wraps around a Tetris-shaped open kitchen, which tells you immediately what kind of place this is: a snack bar built for watching the cooks, not lingering over a bottle. The palette runs aqua and salmon, the vibe is tropical without trying too hard, and the food is Nikkei Peruvian, meaning Japanese technique folded into Peruvian flavors. Small plates, bold colors, a lively crowd, and a tiradito that earned the restaurant its name.

Floor-to-ceiling windows and rainfall showers in a hotel that has quietly decided fuss isn't the point. Alt is a modern, no-frills business hotel in Ottawa's downtown core, and the rooms are bright, well-equipped, and easy to live in for a few days. The in-house café and bar runs all day and turns out coffee that surprises. Parliament Hill and the Rideau Canal are a short walk away, and so is the light rail.

Oak walls and polished concrete set the tone in the lobby, where the furniture arrangements shift to suit co-working or a quiet sit-down. It's a design-forward hotel in Calgary's University District, built to LEED standards and stocked with Canadian-made furnishings throughout the guest rooms. Large windows and bold graphics keep things lively without tipping into try-hard. The Rockies are a reasonable drive out, and the neighbourhood handles most other needs on foot.

The Gray Collection brought a Montreal boutique sensibility to downtown Ottawa, and the Metcalfe sits in quiet contrast to the corporate hotels around it. Rooms run loft-inspired with good light, the Living Room shifts from morning coffee to evening cocktails without missing a beat, and Cocotte Bistro handles French bistro cooking with a local lean. It's the kind of hotel that makes you feel slightly smug about not staying at the Marriott next door.

The glacial lake it overlooks is an almost implausible shade of turquoise, and the hotel's scale matches the landscape rather than fighting it. This is a grand railway-era resort in the Canadian Rockies, the kind that draws guests who want wilderness close enough to admire but a proper bed waiting when they're done. It holds a Michelin Key, and the Rockies do the heavy lifting on atmosphere from the moment you arrive.

The weathered redwood building that houses this 17-room lodge also holds the community's general store and post office, which sets the tone. Sea Ranch was a 1960s experiment in low-impact coastal living, and the lodge keeps that spirit intact while quietly upgrading the comfort level. Miles of rocky Sonoma coastline sit just outside, and the restaurant and bar give you a reason to stay in. Michelin awarded it a Key.

A red-roofed log lodge on the Icefields Parkway, this Michelin Key property sits deep in Rocky Mountain wilderness with Bow Lake out front and not much else for miles. The log construction looks rustic and means it, but the rooms are quietly modern inside. Every evening, guests gather for a four-course set dinner in the Elkhorn Dining Room, which makes it feel less like a hotel and more like a very scenic house party.

The room on Kingsway could pass for somewhere in Milan, white marble and warm tiles, the kind of osteria that doesn't need to tell you it has good taste. Savio Volpe has been holding its corner of East Vancouver for a good while now, turning out contemporary Italian that leans on regional tradition without getting museum-y about it. The wine list has a little nerve to it, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice.

Tealights flickering against brassware and the low pulse of Moroccan music set the tone before you've ordered a thing. This intimate Yaletown restaurant tucks diners into nooks so cozy that a full house still feels like a private dinner, and the kitchen makes it hard to rush: flambéed dishes arrive tableside, belly dancers appear on weekends, and the chicken pastilla, crisp phyllo dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar, keeps drawing people back.

Geothermal heating and floor-to-ceiling windows in the heart of Winnipeg's SHED district, right across from the Canada Life Centre. This Green Key certified hotel keeps rooms bright and minimal, with bold color blocking and local art on the walls. The lounge fills with pre-game crowds and post-show regulars, which tells you something about the location. A Michelin Selected Hotel.

Château-style turrets rising above Broadway have made this grand railway hotel a fixture of the Winnipeg skyline for longer than anyone working the front desk can remember. The rooms keep the high ceilings, dark woodwork, and vintage bones while sneaking in comfortable modern finishes. The domed Palm Room hosts live jazz and a menu that leans on Manitoba's seasons. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Sitting at Portage and Main, one of those intersections Canadians actually argue about, this Fairmont is a full-service downtown hotel with rooms done in soft neutrals and warm woods, some with views over the Red River, others toward the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. House-made chocolates on arrival, staff who anticipate things. The Velvet Glove restaurant leans hard into Manitoba ingredients, which in this province is not a small commitment.

The JW Marriott sits inside Edmonton's Ice District, where Rogers Place anchors a neighborhood built around the city's near-religious devotion to the Oilers. It's a luxury hotel with enough Alberta in it to feel grounded, natural textures and local art woven through spaces that could otherwise read as any upscale property anywhere. Braven handles high-end chophouse duties, while the Alchemy cocktail bar handles urban glamour. The Michelin Guide has it in their Selected Hotels list.

The tallest building in Surrey puts every room well above the low-rise sprawl, with views stretching to the North Shore mountains that most Vancouver hotels can only hint at. This Autograph Collection hotel keeps the rooms crisp and minimalist, the service professional. Downstairs, Dominion Bar & Kitchen handles New Canadian cooking while Prado Cafe covers the morning coffee crowd. A solid base for exploring the wider metro without fighting downtown Vancouver for a parking spot.

Aged white cheddar popovers land on your table minutes after you sit down, and coffee cake muffins follow you home. That's the bookend philosophy at this sleek, upscale steakhouse in CIBC Square, where the real business is a dry-ageing programme serious enough to earn a spot on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list. Cuts come from Canada, Japan, Australia, and beyond, and the Burgundy-heavy wine list is ready to make any of them expensive.

Whitewashed walls, bare wood tables, and azures accents that make Fraser Street feel briefly like a ferry ride away. Nammos is a sit-down Greek restaurant where the kitchen sticks to the classics without treating them as an afterthought. Spanakopita arrives with properly shatteringly phyllo, the seafood is the thing to order, and loukoumades come drizzled in honey and walnut at the end. The Michelin Guide has it on their list.

The boat noodles here, a funky, aromatic beef broth thick with meatballs and tripe, tell you right away that Zab Bite is more interested in northeastern Thai cooking than in playing it safe. Pad Thai is on the menu because it has to be, but the grilled pork jowl with toasted rice and nam jaew is the reason regulars come back. A casual, cheerful Fraser Street spot where requesting extra spice is treated as a reasonable life choice.

Half the plants are fake, but the tropical-greenhouse-meets-nightclub decor on Fraser Street pulls it off anyway. This Vietnamese bistro draws a fashion-forward crowd with soul-warming pho, lemongrass skewers, and bun bo hue, every dish paired with a vegetarian counterpart. The vibe is energetic and the service disarmingly warm, which makes the whole place feel more West Hollywood than East Vancouver. A Michelin Selected pick.

The curved banquettes, low ceiling, and candlelight will convince you it's a cocktail bar, and the drinks are sharp enough to let you believe that as long as you like. The Alo Food Group's French-leaning restaurant in Yorkville leans hard on a charcoal grill and whatever came off a boat, with a wedge salad and banana cream pie showing up like old friends. The room hums with the particular contentment of people who've already ordered a second round.

An olive oil negroni greets you before the Italian food even begins, which tells you something about how this restaurant on Saint-Denis thinks. The menu runs from crispy arancini and house-made pasta to scallop crudo with fennel granita, traditional instincts with a restless edge. The wine list is carefully chosen, the service warm without being theatrical, and the room feels like somewhere the chef actually wants you to enjoy yourself.

Torafuku anchors itself around an open kitchen in a concrete-heavy room that's going for industrial and mostly gets there. The cooking pulls from Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, then drifts toward Europe at dinner in ways that sound odd and land well, duck rillette sitting comfortably alongside tuna tataki. Lunch is rice bowls and quick turns; evenings run longer and stranger. A Michelin Selected Restaurant, it draws a crowd happy to share the communal table with strangers.

Sitting directly on the Lake Ontario waterfront in Burlington, The Pearle is a luxury hotel where most of the 151 rooms face the water and the palette runs to pale wood and warm neutrals, the kind of calm that makes you forget you have a phone. The in-house restaurant draws from the hotel's own farm, and the spa runs to a Hammam, an indoor pool, and a full treatment menu, which is a serious offering for a city this size.

Dumplings shaped like flowers and rice pressed into jewel-colored mounds set the tone at Kiin, a Royal Thai restaurant on Adelaide where the food looks almost too considered to eat. Chef Nuit Regular takes familiar markers like khao soi, larb, and hot and sour beef soup and reframes them through a courtly lens, everything arriving in petite bowls with an attention to presentation that stops just short of theater. The Michelin Guide has it listed among selected restaurants in Toronto.

White-and-orange tile, vintage posters, and a bar long enough to mean business set the tone at this narrow Italian wine bar on Dundas West. The kitchen is barely the size of a coat closet, which makes the from-scratch pastas and focaccia all the more baffling. Half the room is here for the surprisingly deep Italian wine list and has no intention of eating. The other half ordered the ricotta-stuffed cacio e pepe coil and isn't sharing.

A lakeside resort just outside Quebec City where the activity list runs from paddle-boarding in summer to snowshoeing in winter, with a spa and private beach for the days you'd rather do nothing at all. Rooms lean into natural materials and warm tones, many with balconies over Lac-Beauport. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks: it handles both the slow weekend and the corporate retreat without feeling like it's trying too hard for either.

A mid-century downtown motel in the Rockies, renovated into a boutique hotel with worn leather, reclaimed wood, and just enough Scandinavian restraint to feel intentional rather than precious. Rooms come with Nespresso machines and Bluetooth speakers, there's a shared hot tub, and Canmore's whole walkable downtown, cafés, wine bars, taverns and all, is right outside. No restaurant, but the neighborhood handles that just fine.

A mounted deer keeps watch over the exposed brick and forest-scene walls at this snug Little Portugal restaurant, which is either on-brand or very on-the-nose, depending on your mood. The chef built the menu around locally sourced game, so Ontario venison shows up alongside foraged and seasonal produce. The room is cozy and chef-driven, the kind of place where the hunting ethos runs from the decor all the way to the plate.

The wine list runs entirely to natural and biodynamic bottles, which tells you everything about what Little Burgundy bistro Le Vin Papillon is going for. It's a sharing-plates spot from the Joe Beef team next door, with a menu that shifts on the chefs' whims. The room is lively and genuinely welcoming, the kind of place where the Michelin Guide has taken notice without anyone seeming to have dressed up for the occasion.

Pork secreto with a honey and apple cider reduction is the kind of thing that makes you stop talking mid-sentence at this Spanish taverna on College Street. Grant van Gameren keeps the tapas menu rustic and unadorned, which takes more discipline than it sounds. Half portions mean you can cover a lot of ground, a useful feature when the sherry cocktails are this easy to keep ordering.

A boutique lodge on the edge of Banff National Park where breakfast shows up at your door and a sauna is waiting when you drag yourself back from the trail. Rooms are stylish without being precious, so hiking boots are welcome, and some have gas fireplaces; the Micro Suite adds a kitchen for longer stays. Cruiser bikes are available in summer to poke around Canmore, which is exactly the kind of town you'd want to poke around.

The line outside on weekend mornings is its own kind of landmark, and the smell of Belgian waffles from the kitchen doesn't help anyone's patience. Café Medina is a brunch spot with a Mediterranean lean, the sort of place where regulars shuffle to the counter without looking at the menu. Egg dishes carry the morning, and the orzo paella with chorizo and a fried egg on top has a way of ending the debate over what to order.

Fanny Bay runs its own shellfish farms, so the oysters on your tray were in the water embarrassingly recently. It's a seafood restaurant and raw bar on Cambie, a short walk from the stadiums, which explains why it fills up fast on game days. Sit at the bar and let the shucker guide you, or go for the grilled oysters, hot and bubbling with Creole butter. The Michelin Guide has it listed as a selected restaurant.

Jean-Luc Boulay, a familiar face from the Canadian cooking show Les Chefs, runs this warm bistro in Old Quebec with chef Arnaud Marchand, and the pair have made boreal cuisine their whole project. Lunches are short-menu and easy on the wallet; evenings go longer and richer, leaning into Quebec beef and foraged northern spices. The room feels like a French bistro that wandered north and decided to stay.

The menu at this seafood restaurant on Avenue du Mont-Royal shifts with whatever came off the boat, so the kitchen is essentially never cooking the same thing twice. The room fills fast and stays loud, which makes it feel more like a dinner party than a reservation. Counter seats are worth grabbing if you're solo. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected Montreal restaurants.

A skybridge connects this Germain Hotels property directly to Ottawa's terminal, so an early departure means rolling out of bed rather than into a cab. The 178 rooms are clean and functional, with king rooms facing the runways for light sleepers who have made their peace with that. Sosta! Pizzeria does wood-fired pizza in the lobby when you'd rather not eat at the gate. The gym runs all night, because airport hotels attract that kind of person.

Each of the 49 suites at this slope-side boutique hotel comes with a full kitchen, a gas fireplace, and, in some, a private outdoor hot tub. Sundial sits steps from the Whistler and Blackcomb gondolas, yet still small enough that the concierge will arrange grocery delivery so you never have to leave. Village dining and nightlife are right outside when you do feel like it.

The pitch is a Ligurian villa somehow dropped onto a ridge above Saanich Inlet, with Vancouver Island's mountains filling every window. This resort north of Victoria has quietly shed its '80s Italianate kitsch for something more considered, and the Tuscan Spa keeps pace with the rooms. The restaurant, Alpina, runs on European technique learned in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, applied to local British Columbia ingredients, which is a stranger and more compelling idea than it sounds.

The wood-burning ovens looming above the dining room are a clue to this upscale Italian restaurant's origin story: it was meant to be a pizzeria. The pivot to fine dining came later, and the room never quite forgot its roots, which suits everyone fine. Friendly servers keep things from getting stiff, the kitchen leans into simple preparations done well, and the enclosed patio splits the difference between a proper night out and a relaxed one.

Six seats at the bar and two small tables make the math on reservations here pretty unforgiving. Sushi Jin is a quiet omakase counter that a lot of Vancouver hasn't found yet, which is either a shame or a favor depending on how you feel about crowds. The chef works in a traditional Japanese register with a personal edge, and the nigiri runs from delicate hirame to fatty otoro topped with Hokkaido uni. The Michelin Guide has it listed.

A regional Indian restaurant on Wellington that hopscotches the subcontinent, from Chennai's deep-fried chicken 65 to the fiery vindaloos of Goa. The dining room is quiet and a little sleepy, which makes the kitchen's ambition feel like a pleasant surprise. The chef adds decorative swirls to the plates, a habit the food doesn't need but survives with its dignity intact. An old-school institution that keeps filling tables without making a fuss about it.

Hand-carved furniture, turmeric-colored booths, and archways that glow like something out of a Mughal painting make this Indian dining room in Yorkville feel pleasantly over-the-top in the best way. The kitchen matches the ambition, moving through dishes from across India with real precision, from clay-oven kebabs to a chicken biryani baked under puff pastry that has no interest in playing it safe. Dress accordingly; the room expects a little effort.

A tasting menu of a dozen small plates to share anchors this modern restaurant in Sainte-Foy, a neighborhood away from the old city's tourist traffic. The kitchen commits hard to Quebec terroir, and the all-Quebec wine list follows the same logic with no apologies. The room is simple, the welcome is not, and the overall effect is the kind of unhurried dinner that makes the drive out feel obvious in retrospect.

Palestinian and Jordanian cooking in a Roncesvalles dining room where the menu runs à la carte or prix fixe and the bar pours only mocktails. The kitchen pulls from both family tradition and refined technique, so brined lamb chops and sea bass wrapped in grilled grape leaves sit alongside an Angus short rib built for assembling into flatbread handhelds. Dessert ends on sticky date with cinnamon ice cream. No wine list, but nobody seems to miss it.

Southern Italian cooking in a relaxed Old Toronto room, ARDO draws from Sicily and points south without making a fuss about it. The menu runs from chickpea fritters and arancini through orecchiette with sausage and rapini, and the seafood is handled with a light touch. Cannoli show up at the end, and they're the right call. A neighborhood place that happens to repay the trip from wherever you're coming from.

The menu arrives as a leather-bound storybook, its chapters narrated by the kitchen team in a candlelit stone building that dates back forever. Asteur is a single-set-menu fine dining room where chef Olivier Robillard works exclusively with Quebec ingredients, weaving personal memory into each course. Old beams, midnight-blue walls, white tablecloths, and a sommelier who clearly has opinions make the whole evening feel rather deliberately unhurried.

A tufted banquette, honeyed lighting, and a bar planted dead center set the tone at this Danforth Avenue tasting menu restaurant. The kitchen leans Mediterranean but follows the seasons, with locally foraged ingredients arranged like the chef has a point to prove about presentation. Esoteric wines and gin-forward cocktails fill out the evening nicely. The crowd across from the music hall tends to settle in and stay a while, which is rather the idea.

The banana cake with salted caramel ice cream lands on your table like the place knows it's having the last word. Bar Banane on Ossington is a cocktail bar that shades into a full dinner, with a raw bar, wagyu, and enough truffle and foie gras to make the room feel deliberate about its own excess. Rich colors, loud music, and a crowd dressed like they know someone on set keep the energy high all night.

The appam arrives loaded with fresh white crab meat, which sets the tone for what Bar Goa is doing: a Goan Indian cocktail bar on Toronto Street that takes the food as seriously as the drinks. The menu leans toward Goa's coastal cooking but wanders happily into Punjabi territory too, and the kitchen has a light enough touch to pull off the occasional whimsical plate without losing the plot. A seven-course tasting menu is available for the committed.

The cooking comes out of a kitchenette tucked behind the bar, which tells you everything about Bar Gobo's priorities. It's a natural wine bar on Union Street where the pours run exclusively from small, hip producers and the room is about as fussy as its namesake root vegetable. A short prix fixe rotates with the seasons, and the flavors land with more clarity than the setting would suggest. No attitude from the staff, despite the very correct wine list.

Snowshoes, a canoe, and a rifle on the walls set the tone at this rustic bistro inside Manoir Hovey, where the decor reads less "hunting lodge theme" and more genuinely accumulated. The kitchen leans into traditional Quebec cooking with enough twists to stay interesting, turning out bison tartare and seared scallops with cauliflower and gingerbread crumble. Casual enough for après-ski, serious enough that the food holds the room on its own.

Tucked onto a terrace inside the Shangri-La Hotel, this elegant Northern Italian restaurant draws from the Friuli region, where the cooking carries a Germanic and Slavic undertow you don't expect. Freshly made pastas lead the way, including regional shapes rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic. The menu keeps things seasonal and unfussy, and at dinner you can hand the whole decision over to the kitchen, which suits anyone who finds menus exhausting.

Old photos of the original Mr. Rioux and Mr. Pettigrew still hang on the walls of this traditional Quebec dining room near the Old Port, wooden floorboards and exposed stone completing the picture. The kitchen leans into the province's terroir with hearty, familiar cooking that occasionally surprises. The kind of place where the room feels like it predates everyone in it, and the menu makes a decent argument for that being a good thing.

The wood-burning grill handles jerk chicken here, and the smoke from it is half the reason to walk through the door. This is an easygoing Jamaican spot where the cooking is homey and unpretentious, the classics run deep, and the gravy from the curry goat or oxtail stew can be ordered as a side, which is the kind of menu decision that earns a place lasting loyalty. The Michelin Guide has taken notice.

Linen-draped tables and walls hung with colorful fabric signal that this is a sit-down Northern Indian restaurant on Roncesvalles, not a quick takeout stop. The kitchen runs on Mughlai tradition, and the menu reads like someone's grandmother's repertoire done with real care. Roncy locals fill the room on weeknights, which probably says enough. The Michelin Guide has it on their list.

A red brick building on Queen East houses this upscale contemporary bistro, where the room mixes industrial bones with enough warmth that the patio fills up the moment the weather cooperates. The chef composes tasting menus of five, seven, or ten courses on the fly, which is either reassuring or terrifying depending on your temperament. Half-pour cocktails and small wine pours keep things measured for anyone pacing themselves.

A narrow Trinity Bellwoods room with herringbone floors and exposed white brick, Gia is a plant-forward Italian restaurant where the house-made pasta, not the absence of meat, is the point. The mushroom agnolotti in butter and Parmigiano is the kind of dish that makes you forget you were tracking anything. Walk-ins can grab a seat at the walnut bar when reservations run out, which they tend to.