The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Canada

The front door is frosted top to bottom, the curtains are drawn, and there's no signage to speak of, which is a choice for a French bistro on Harbord. Inside, the narrow townhouse room runs on dim lighting and Italo-disco, and the cooking is smart, seasonal, and indulgent in the way that only a chef with Joe Beef on his résumé can pull off. Pommes dauphines are a fixture; everything else shifts with the microseason. Listed in Canada's 100 Best and the Michelin Guide.

Daniel Boulud's fine dining room inside the Ritz-Carlton takes contemporary French cooking and runs it through a quietly New York sensibility, the kind of place that manages to feel grand without feeling stiff. The glass fireplace softens things considerably, and in summer the garden terrace pulls you far enough from Sherbrooke that the city politely disappears. Jackets are optional; the foie gras and pâté en croûte are not.

A below-ground Tuscan tavern where the kitchen leans into luxe ingredients without losing the rustic soul. The team behind it comes from fine-dining stock, and the pasta is made in-house, sauced simply. Grilled bread with whipped ricotta and pickled green tomatoes show up early and are hard to argue with. The wine list tilts Italian, and the room has a warmth that makes a two-hour dinner feel like a reasonable Tuesday. It landed on Canada's 100 Best list.

A custom wood-fired grill anchors the room at this Yaletown steakhouse and bar, open flame flickering against warm wood tones while the kitchen runs tartares alongside Canadian and wagyu cuts. The butcher shop next door feeds the kitchen's sourcing philosophy. It holds a spot on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list and took Vancouver Magazine's Restaurant of the Year. Dress up a little; the room expects it.

Seaweed pressings on deep blue walls and dried grasses set the coastal mood at this small, plant-forward restaurant in Kitsilano. The menu rotates around whatever vegetables the kitchen is currently obsessing over, and the cooking is the kind that makes omnivores forget to keep score. A no-tipping policy made headlines when it opened, but the food is what keeps people coming back. It holds a Michelin Guide selection.

A Syrian and Armenian mezze restaurant on Jean-Talon, run by two sisters whose family heritage shapes every dish on the table. Shared plates of labneh, hummus, and fattoush arrive with grilled pita, and the beef kebabs come seasoned with fléflé, a Syrian red pepper condiment that quietly runs the show. Save room for the mehalabié, a rosewater and orange blossom pudding that earns its place at the end. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

Lingcod Bourguignon, with bacon and pearl onions, is about as far from a typical sushi menu as you can get, which tells you something about what the kitchen is up to here. Marilena is a fine dining raw bar where the nigiri and sashimi lean on sustainable local seafood and the rest of the menu keeps the same restless energy. Vancouver Magazine gave it the gold for Best Victoria restaurant, which tracks.

The fish tanks near the entrance set the tone: this is a grand Cantonese seafood restaurant where the crab you're eyeing is still very much alive. The dining room runs to white tablecloths and banquet-scale celebrations, but the kitchen handles a casual dim sum lunch with equal care. Vancouver Magazine named it Restaurant of the Year, and it holds a Michelin Guide selection. Regulars know to call ahead for off-menu specials that never quite make it onto paper.

Three thousand live plants line almost every surface of this eco-luxury hotel in King West, which means the lobby smells like a greenhouse and that is entirely the point. Rooms run crisp and contemporary with organic textures doing the warmth-lifting, while Harriet's Rooftop handles sundowners above the neighborhood. The Michelin Guide awarded it one key, which suggests the whole sustainability-meets-pleasure argument lands.

Rob Feenie, the chef behind the beloved and long-mourned Lumière, took over this longstanding French fine dining institution and quietly made it new again. The bones remain, foie gras terrine, Dover sole, veal with morel sauce, Alsatian apple tart, but the sauces have lightened and Asian grace notes have crept in without the menu losing its French accent. The renovated room is warmer, blonder, and easier to love than before.

Closed weekends by design so the staff can have a life, Niwa is a small Japanese dining room on Powell Street where blonde wood, filmy lights, and a kitchen counter set a mood of deliberate calm. The chef, formerly of Le Crocodile and Farmer's Apprentice, runs a menu tied to whatever the Pacific Northwest offers right now. Pickles, rice bowls, mochi sourdough, sake, and clarified cocktails. Weekdays suddenly feel like a reward.

Dishes that look like small color-pop paintings arrive in a 36-seat French restaurant tucked into the Saint-Sauveur neighborhood, where the decor is sleek and the staff seem to enjoy themselves. The kitchen earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand and closes strong: the desserts are a genuine reason to pace yourself through dinner. Reservations are advised before someone else takes your table.

A working maple orchard an hour from Montreal, with a wood-fired evaporator doubling as the stove. Martin Picard and Vincent Dion-Lavallée run this cabane à sucre as a long, celebratory tasting experience, feeding groups of six to twenty-four through fifteen or more courses of Quebec terroir. Come winter, it's all tourtière and woodsmoke inside the heated cabin. By summer, the feast moves into the orchard under canvas, and the menu tilts toward the garden.

A tasting menu restaurant tucked into a small house on Clinton Street, where the kitchen channels years spent in Majorca and Venice into Spanish and Venetian cooking that leans heavily on seafood. The wine list chases obscure regions with evident purpose, and Sunday service slows down for family-style paella rounds. A spot on Canada's 100 Best keeps the room full of people who booked weeks ago and are pleased with themselves for doing so.

Lipstick-red banquettes and white tablecloths in Yorkville signal a Chinese restaurant with more polish than your usual regional spot. MIMI is the fancier sibling in its family of restaurants, leaning into refined technique and good ingredients rather than homestyle comfort. The menu moves across regional Chinese classics, and the four-foot belt noodles have a way of commanding the table. Groups do well here; portions are built for sharing.

A red-brick former mill on the Brome-Missisquoi wine route, this restaurant runs a single set menu built almost entirely from the kitchen garden just outside the window. Jean-Martin Fortier, celebrated in farming circles long before anyone plated his vegetables, grows over 40 varieties on site. The food is quietly serious, local to a degree that borders on a philosophy, and selected by the Michelin Guide.

A converted Victorian house in the quietly charming town of Dundas, Quatrefoil is the kind of upscale dinner spot where someone's parents are always celebrating something at the next table. The menu is short and unfussy, built around seared scallops, duck breast, and grilled tenderloin, with a team that runs the room like they've been doing it forever. A Michelin selected restaurant.

The house bread changes with whatever the chef has on hand, garlic scapes one week, sundried tomatoes the next, and it arrives crusty and worth slowing down for. FK is a neighborhood restaurant with a sun-filled room that reads more tearoom than bistro, and a market-driven menu that follows the season without making a fuss about it. Service moves at its own pace, but the kitchen's unhurried honesty tends to make that forgivable.

Handmade Arita pottery lands on the table before the food does, and that sets the tone for this Michelin-starred Kyō-kaiseki room tucked below Yorkville. The chef's multi-course menu is intricate and personal, each dish built from layered techniques rather than straightforward ingredients. The minimalist room keeps things quiet so the plates can do the talking, which, given the cooking, turns out to be a reasonable arrangement.

The kitchen is the room at this Michelin-starred fine dining counter on East Pender, where an L-shaped bar puts you close enough to watch every move the chef makes. Patrick Hennessy came up at Eleven Madison Park and carries that precision into cooking that reads simple on paper but lands as something more considered on the plate. Local sourcing is the quiet backbone of the menu, though the technique is doing most of the talking.

A wrap-around terrace and sliding patio doors make this fine dining room in downtown Oakville feel more like a smart summer evening than a white-tablecloth ordeal. The menu reads straightforward, beef tartare, oysters, pasta, but the kitchen turns each into something careful and considered. A Michelin star hangs over the whole thing, and the optional tasting menu is where the chef's ambitions come through most clearly.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look straight into the glass-walled kitchen, so the brigade becomes part of the spectacle before the first course arrives. This is fine dining on the grander end, with silver service, Magdalen Islands lobster, and Appalachian venison built around Quebec terroir and French classical technique. A Michelin star sits above the door. The maple pre-dessert and aperitif pork rinds read as nostalgia, which turns out to be a smart move in a room this polished.

A kaiseki restaurant tucked inside the Canadian Japanese Cultural Centre, reached through corridors that feel less like a hallway and more like a border crossing. Guests eat in fully private rooms, so the vibe is intimate rather than performative. The seasonal menu follows traditional kaiseki form with real conviction, and the sake list gets the same care as the food. It holds a Michelin star.

Across from St. Germain Cathedral and a short walk from the St. Lawrence, this intimate creative restaurant holds a Michelin star and a bring-your-own-wine policy, which together make for a very good evening. The open kitchen keeps things warm rather than formal, and the menu reads like a travel diary, pulling in techniques and references from Madeira to the Canary Islands while leaning on local Quebec producers for the raw material.

The hinoki counter running the length of the room sets the tone before anyone's poured water. This is Edomae omakase, so settle in and let the chef lead, whether that's the shorter introduction menu or the longer, more personal progression. The nigiri moves from delicate silvery kohada up through richer cuts in a deliberate arc. The rice blend is left uncolored, its acidity calibrated to the fish. A Michelin star for those keeping score.

Six seats tucked into the corner of an unrelated restaurant, accessed through a print shop, which tells you everything and nothing about what follows. This is a Michelin-starred omakase counter where the chef trained at a top Tokyo bar, and the room is so spare that the food has nowhere to hide. His wife runs hospitality with the kind of quiet attentiveness that makes a long tasting meal feel effortless rather than ceremonial.

The name nods to the old Canadian practice of hauling a canoe between two waterways, which turns out to be a decent metaphor for what the kitchen does: carry Newfoundland produce into unexpected territory. This convivial Water Street restaurant runs on local ingredients steered by Asian technique, so cod arrives under miso hollandaise and the vegetable section is quietly the most interesting thing on the menu. Ranked on Canada's 100 Best, and no reservations about the cod.

Vikram Vij built his reputation working the room personally, stopping at tables each night in a dining room that takes Indian cuisine seriously without taking itself too seriously. This is an elegant sit-down restaurant where the cocktail list is designed to hold its own against heavily spiced food, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand keeps showing up for a reason. The lamb popsicles in fenugreek sauce have their own devoted following.

Reservations for this tiny Italian trattoria's 24 seats vanish within minutes of dropping, and have for years, which tells you something. The Michelin Bib Gourmand goes to the kind of cooking where the ciabatta is grilled in-house, the cold cuts are made in-house, and the pasta and ice cream are too. Counter seats put you right at the action, the wine list leans Italy and France, and the whole room feels like someone's very good dinner party.

Sitting on a small island in the middle of the Bow River, surrounded by Prince's Island Park, this rustic dining room feels like a cabin that wandered into the city and decided to stay. Exposed wood, stone, and vintage fishing gear set the mood, and fireplace tables are fought over in winter with quiet desperation. The kitchen commits to Canadian and Albertan ingredients only, landing on Canada's 100 Best list. The patio, when weather allows, is the whole argument.

Marcus Samuelsson's Canadian debut sits inside the Four Seasons Montreal, but the terrace restaurant earns its own look. The menu moves from crudos and seafood towers to robata-grilled cuts and whole fish, the kind of progression that suits a long, leisurely dinner rather than a quick bite. Expense accounts are comfortable here; personal ones survive happiest at happy hour. AAA Four Diamonds.

A boutique hotel a block from the Inner Harbour, the Magnolia leans into Victoria's Victorian mood without becoming a museum piece. Sixty-four rooms keep the scale personal, soaking tubs anchor the bathrooms, and the team has a habit of noticing when guests mention a birthday online and quietly doing something about it. Silk Road tea at turndown, locally made chocolates, hot cider in the lobby when it's cold. It holds a Michelin Key.

A 20-seat fine dining room in Steveston Village, which is otherwise known for fish and chips and frozen yogurt, turns out to be an oddly perfect home for royal Thai cuisine. White-gloved servers bring each course of an 18-dish tasting menu to white-clothed tables overlooking the Fraser River. The chef trained privately with Bangkok cooks before opening this, having no restaurant background at all. Canada's 100 Best ranks it among the country's top 25.

The china on the afternoon tea service was a gift from the Queen in 1939, which tells you roughly everything about what kind of hotel this is. The Fairmont Empress is a grand railway-era property facing Victoria's Inner Harbour, all ivy-covered limestone and English pageantry in a city that takes its Englishness very seriously. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Key. Renovation has freshened it without sanding off the delightful self-importance.

Four days a week, the couple farm the land around their red-brick country home. The other three, they seat 16 guests across three rooms for a 10-course tasting menu shaped entirely by what's ready. It's an intimate farm dinner, two hours north of Toronto, with all-Canadian wines and a chef's counter close enough to overhear the cooking. The Michelin Guide has selected it, and Canada's 100 Best placed it 39th in 2026.

The name, "Salle Climatisée," is a straight lift from old French commercial signage, which tells you something about the sense of humor running this twenty-seat Little Italy bistro. Seven savory dishes, cheese, two desserts, on a slate board that changes with the seasons. The kitchen leans on Quebec producers and turns out the kind of food that's rustic without being careless. Low-intervention wines, G&Ts brightened with verjus, and a ceramicist's Calder-evoking mobile overhead.

Pine needles and deer lichen aren't typical pantry staples, but the chef at this modern Indian restaurant near Olympic Village uses foraged and hyper-local ingredients as the backbone of a daily-changing tasting menu. Whole spices are roasted and ground in-house, and the effect reads less as fusion than as a very specific argument about where Vancouver actually is. Canada's 100 Best listed it among the country's top restaurants for 2026.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous bed-in for peace here, which means this downtown Montreal hotel has been living off that story ever since, though a massive renovation has given it some new ones. The lobby pulls in local art and a genuinely urban energy, the rooms are warm rather than grand, and a 24-hour wellness center handles whatever the conference schedule did to you. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

About 20 seats wrap a circular counter where the chef cooks in full view, which sets the whole tone of this intimate contemporary restaurant. The menu moves with the seasons, leaning on fermented vegetables and bright, acidic vinaigrettes to give each plate its edge. The staff keeps things warm and loose, so a solo dinner here feels less like a reservation and more like someone let you into the kitchen.

A seven-course tasting menu that shifts with the season and the whims of local farmers makes Actinolite one of those fine-dining rooms where you genuinely don't know what's coming until it lands. The chef grew up foraging and hunting in rural Ontario, and that instinct runs through the cooking, which has a Nordic quietness to it. The garden out back supplies herbs in summer. Chefs often bring the plates out themselves, which either charms you or makes you feel mildly observed.

A mechanic shop turned coastal Italian osteria in Cambie Village, Elio Volpe does wood-fired pizza with a brunch version that gives people a reason to leave the house on a Sunday. The room has bar seating for solo meals and enough shared plates, including a whole grilled branzino, to make a group feel purposeful. Vancouver Magazine handed it gold for both Best New and Best Italian in the same year, which is the restaurant equivalent of a very good report card.

Arthur Erickson's twisting downtown skyscraper is an unlikely host for a hotel that seems determined to keep you out of your room. A lobby pool table, nightclub, high-end Chinese restaurant, and rooftop-adjacent lounge make the public floors feel like the whole point. The 147 rooms vary in shape because the building does too, but all get leather headboards, wood floors, and floor-to-ceiling city views. Forbes Four Star, if you want the shorthand.

A blue neon sign salvaged from the family restaurant that stood here for a generation anchors the bar of this sleek, midcentury-modern Vietnamese spot on Main Street. The brother-and-sister team behind it treat the menu as a love letter to Vietnam, running from pho to softshell crab salad to grilled prawn mousse with fresh herbs. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

The oyster mushroom souvlaki arrives with walnut skordalia and tarragon vinegar, which tells you pretty quickly that this isn't the whitewashed-walls-and-ouzo setup you've been to before. Selene is a fine-dining Greek restaurant in Hastings-Sunrise that takes the canon seriously enough to know exactly where to bend it. Vancouver Magazine gave it a Gold Medal for Best Mediterranean, and the room has earned the quiet confidence that comes with it.

Tagliatelle gets rolled fresh daily, and the menu drifts between English and Italian, but N.L. Ginzburg is doing something more specific than a trattoria. Named after anti-fascist Italian intellectuals, this College Street spot threads Italo-Jewish culinary history through hyper-seasonal Canadian ingredients: a liver toast that nods to both Tuscan fegatini and Jewish chopped liver, rugelach at dessert. Italian movie posters and terrazzo floors do the decorating.

An old-school institution on Avenue Laurier where the service is formal enough that you'll sit up a little straighter without quite knowing why. This French tasting restaurant offers both a multi-course menu and à la carte, so you're not locked into an evening-length commitment. The kitchen treats fine ingredients with a light hand, and the wine list has some genuinely adventurous choices tucked in among the classics.

Stone walls, wooden beams, and leather armchairs make this Old Montreal French restaurant feel like a private club where the membership requirements are a reservation and good taste in wine. The menu rotates with the seasons, leaning on local ingredients and the kind of sauces that remind you why French cooking got famous in the first place. The vibe is dim, intimate, and quietly romantic.

The kitchen grinds fresh masa from heirloom Mexican corn every day, which tells you something about the priorities here. Alma is a tasting-menu restaurant in Outremont where the chef threads his Tlaxcalan roots through Quebec seasonal produce, and the sommelier answers with a Catalan-leaning wine list. The result is modern Mexican cooking that doesn't ask for your permission to be unexpected. Canada's 100 Best ranks it 34th in the country.

The smallest room here is 500 square feet with a gas fireplace and a soaking tub, which tells you exactly what kind of ski resort this is. The Four Seasons sits a few minutes outside Whistler's main village, which is either a slight inconvenience or the whole point, depending on your tolerance for après-ski foot traffic. A shuttle runs to the mountain, where a ski concierge meets you with your gear already sorted. It holds 2 Michelin Keys and a Forbes Four Star.

The gilded logo on the window and a permanent haze of wood smoke inside tell you what this Griffintown restaurant is about before you've sat down. Deep gray walls, long bar, and shiny wood surfaces set a moody, modernist tone for wood-fired Mediterranean sharing plates. The kitchen leans heavily on local and plant-forward produce, with fire as the organizing principle. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

The charcoal grill in the open kitchen sets the tempo at this Syrian and pan-Ottoman restaurant in Outremont, where the bread comes straight from the fire and the lamb arrives in several forms. The team steers first-timers and regulars through the menu with equal care, and the room has the kind of noise level that means everyone is having a good time, whether they planned to or not.

Sunchoke with salal berry and burnt onion isn't a dish you'd find yourself ordering on instinct, which is part of the point at this creative vegetarian fine-dining room in Mount Pleasant. The kitchen names its organic BC suppliers on the menu and takes texture as seriously as flavor. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and first-timers tend to do well surrendering to the tasting menu rather than pretending they know what salal berry tastes like.

Most of the space is a working kitchen supplying pasta to other restaurants around the city, which tells you something about priorities. The pasta shop itself opens for lunch only, for a few hours, with two or so pasta dishes on offer that day and not much else. Diners line the sidewalk on an industrial strip of Dovercourt Village to claim one of the scarce tables. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and the limited menu is the whole point.

The rotisserie chicken here gets an overnight brine before it even sees heat, which tells you something about how seriously this neighborhood restaurant takes comfort food. Chairs hung as wall art and a lively patio give the room an easygoing, slightly offbeat feel. The Michelin Guide has it selected, and Vancouver Magazine named the crew among its premier picks. Order the chicken, add a biscuit, and leave room for the cheesecake.

The queue out front on St. Laurent is part of the deal at this old-school Jewish deli, which has been feeding Montreal on smoked meat since before anyone can remember. Beef brisket marinated in the house spice blend, smoked, steamed, and piled high on rye with yellow mustard is the reason strangers share tables without complaint. Order it medium-fat. Chase it with a cherry soda if you're doing this properly.

Stone turrets rising against the Canadian Rockies make the Fairmont Banff Springs look less like a hotel and more like something a railway baron commissioned to intimidate guests. This grand 724-room resort sits inside Banff National Park, with a golf course, a full-service spa, several restaurants, and enough seasonal outdoor activities to exhaust anyone who came to relax. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A stone building near Place Royale in Old Quebec, where the terrace tables go fast once the weather turns. This is a tasting-menu restaurant sharing its address with the more subterranean Tanière³ below. The chef's creative menu leans heavily on vegetables and local sourcing without making a religion of either, and a vegan version is always available. The Michelin Guide has selected it, and AAA gives it Four Diamonds.

Pendant lights warm up an otherwise industrial dining room at this French restaurant on Yonge, where the kitchen's glass partition lets you glimpse the brigade without quite committing to a chef's table. The menu reads classically Gallic with a contemporary lean, and even the cocktail list has a French accent, which feels either chic or on the nose depending on your mood. AAA Four Diamonds.

The aburi salmon oshi sushi has inspired fan art, which tells you something about how this fine dining Japanese restaurant on Vancouver Harbour operates. Miku folds French and Italian technique into a Japanese framework and takes sustainability seriously enough to mark Ocean Wise options across the menu. The harbour view is genuinely gorgeous, and the kitchen seems aware that coasting on it would be too easy.

Sticky rice is the organizing principle here, turning up beside papaya salad, tapioca dumplings, and Lao barbecue chicken across a menu rooted in Laotian cooking rather than the Thai-leaning stuff the team used to run across town. Lao Lao is a cocktail bar with a kitchen that takes the food seriously, tucked onto St Joseph in a way that rewards people who actually read menus before they go out.

Dim sum that never stayed in its lane sits at the center of this fusion restaurant on Spadina, where MasterChef Canada winner Eric Chong and his mentor Alvin Leung run a menu that pulls from French, Korean, and Chinese kitchens in the same breath. Bao stuffed with kimchi and galbi, flaky pastry hiding foie gras, butter-poached lobster over dashi, the whole thing feels like a cooking competition that nobody stopped. A Michelin Bib Gourmand.

Sitting at the edge of old Chinatown, Bao Bei is a Chinese brasserie where the menu reads like classic dishes that took a very interesting detour. The chef's approach leans playful rather than reverent: mantou buns packed with braised pork and miso-serrano aioli, fried rice built around bitter melon and masala-preserved mushrooms. Nothing here is trying to be traditional, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. The Michelin Guide has selected it.

Finding a seat at this perpetually packed Spanish tapas bar on East Seventh requires luck, persistence, or both. The room runs on the warm, slightly chaotic energy of a good Madrid bodega, with conservas lined up alongside the fritos and raciones. Rare Spanish wines are the move, and the servers know them well enough to steer you right. A Michelin Selected pick that draws a neighborhood crowd happy to wait.