The Best Places to Eat and Drink in South Downtown

Upstairs in a Chinatown walkup, rose banquettes and antique Japanese panels recreate the jazz cafés of 1960s Tokyo, which is a strange and perfect setting for a Michelin-starred restaurant fusing Japanese and Italian cooking. The kitchen plays it straight: hand-cut pasta with miso-cured egg yolk and parmesan, tiramisu made with plum wine-soaked tofu. Cult Japanese whiskies share the drinks list with Italian amari, and the cocktails split the difference. Dress up a little.

1. Air Canada 2016 · #1 · Best New Restaurants
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The savory éclair filled with duck liver mousse has become something of a calling card here, and it explains a lot about the place. St. Lawrence is an elegant Québécois French tasting restaurant with a convivial front bar, a semi-open kitchen, and a Michelin star. The fixed menu rotates by season, sometimes leaning into sugar shack classics, sometimes into French bourgeois cooking, always with sauces that deserve more attention than they get.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. Air Canada 2018 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

A black curtain drops at the exact minute of your reservation, which tells you everything about what follows. This omakase counter imports nearly all its fish and produce directly from Japan, but the kitchen goes further with live music, Buddhist chanting, and bamboo leaf carving woven between courses. It holds a Michelin star and reads less like dinner than like a ceremony someone spent years choreographing. Dress accordingly.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Upscale

Hand-painted imported tile floors and marble-topped bars set the tone at this upscale seafood restaurant inside the Sutton Place Hotel on Burrard. The room is large but pulls together through chic lighting and buttery leather seating, and the menu matches the mood: baked oysters, house-made pasta loaded with Pacific shellfish, and a mixed shellfish platter that gets its own trio of sauces. Roger Ma took Vancouver Magazine's Chef of the Year in 2026.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Canada's 100 Best #59 · Best Restaurants
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Fine Dining

A grand piano sits in the corner like it's been there forever, and at Bacchus, inside the Wedgewood Hotel, that's more or less the point. This is a white-tablecloth hotel restaurant where the flower arrangements are serious and the chandelier means business. The kitchen turns out European-leaning classics with enough care to feel considered rather than comfortable. A spot on Canada's 100 Best list and a AAA Four Diamond rating confirm the room isn't just dressing.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Canada's 100 Best #67 · Best Restaurants
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The roast duck arrives at the table as a ceremony, sliced tableside and served with the kind of precision that makes you feel underdressed even if you aren't. This gold-accented fine dining room on Cambie is the Vancouver outpost of a centuries-old Beijing institution, and it holds a Michelin star. The menu runs from crispy duck to bird's nest and abalone, but simple stir-fried greens with garlic pull their weight just as quietly alongside the showpieces.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Chinese Restaurant Awards #15 · Elite 30 Canada
3. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Upscale Chinese

The basement of Hotel Georgia has cycled through a jazz bar, a techno club, and a medieval pub before landing here, which feels like an upgrade for everyone involved. Prophecy is a cocktail bar with serious intentions: drinks that look effortless and take months to develop, a mood-coded menu, and digital art shifting on the walls. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars list. Come dressed; this one earns the low lighting.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. The 50 #32 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Golden Owl Awards Winner · Best Cocktail Experience

Backlit anatomical illustrations and a menu titled "Prescriptions and Antidotes" set the tone at this Chinatown cocktail bar, where traditional Chinese medicine drives the drink program. Bamboo liqueur, motherwort, and tofu turn up alongside baijiu and rum in combinations that shouldn't work but do. The ice is carved in-house, the DJs are good, and North America's 50 Best Bars has it at number seven.

1. The 50 #7 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Cocktail Experience

A shimmering chandelier and a floor-to-ceiling wine wall set the scene at David Hawksworth's eponymous fine dining room inside the Rosewood Hotel Georgia. The crowd looks freshly styled, and the cooking matches the room's composure: contemporary and precise, built on simple luxuries done with care. You can enter through the hotel lobby or slip in directly from Georgia Street, which suits both the suits and everyone else.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Air Canada 2011 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

Sitting next to Blood Alley in Gastown, L'Abattoir leans into its address with a quasi-industrial room that somehow feels warm the moment you walk in. It's a relaxed fine dining spot built around French technique and local West Coast ingredients, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice. Grab a bar seat downstairs if you didn't book; the kitchen view is part of the deal. The team took Vancouver Magazine's Chef of the Year in 2024, and the cooking has kept pace since.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Air Canada 2011 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

The entrance is a horse-race bookie front, and you have to place a bet on King Louie to get through the door. Inside, this Indian-inspired cocktail bar has a barrel-shaped ceiling studded with horseshoes and palm-tree wallpaper that lands somewhere between Victorian colonial club and Jungle Book fever dream. The cocktails lean into the conceit, with spiced spirits, pistachio orgeat, and coconut ginger tea doing most of the convincing. North America's 50 Best Bars has it at 59.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. The 50 #59 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Cocktail Experience

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.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. World's 101 Best #32 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Restaurant Awards: Premier Crew · Hanna Flodström

The room arrives before the menu does: red-tinged lighting, curves everywhere, the kind of design that makes a Tuesday feel like an occasion. June is a French bistro and serious cocktail bar on Cambie that landed at number 17 on North America's 50 Best Bars and fourth on Canada's 100 Best new restaurants in the same year, which is a neat trick. The food runs to butter-heavy, comforting bistro standards; the drinks list is the other reason to come.

1. The 50 #17 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Canada's 100 Best #4 · Best New Restaurants
3. Air Canada 2025 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

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.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. VineRoutes Award of Distinction · Restaurant Awards
2. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Brunch Experience
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Vancouver

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.

1. Canada's 100 Best #26 · Best Restaurants
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Restaurant Awards: Hall of Fame · Michel Jacob
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best New

Burnt-orange carpets, vintage TV sets, and retro beer signs set the scene at this cocktail bar on Mount Pleasant's quieter side, where the decor reads like your grandparents' basement but the drinks are anything but. The bar landed on North America's 50 Best Bars list, and the cocktail program earns it, with clarified Greek yogurt turning up in tequila drinks and mezcal slushies arriving alongside tater tots in tin lunch boxes.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. The 50 #91 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada

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.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2013 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
3. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

1. Air Canada 2024 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best New
3. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Restaurant Awards: Bartender and Sommelier of the Year

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.

1. Canada's 100 Best #96 · Best Restaurants
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best New Restaurant
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Indian

The entry is a freezer door inside a Chinatown dumpling shop, and it only opens if you order dumpling No. 7. What's behind it is a speakeasy done up in teal and gold, channeling 1920s Shanghai with enough sincerity to pull it off. The bar carries over fifty baijiu bottlings, the largest selection in Canada, and the cocktails are built around the spirit rather than just gesturing at it. North America's 50 Best Bars has it at number 72.

1. The 50 #72 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Canada
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Canada

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.

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Restaurant Awards: Premier Crew · Nick Bertoia
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Brunch Experience

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Restaurant Awards: Premier Crew · Nick Bertoia
3. Golden Owl Awards Winner · Best Brunch Experience

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.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2010 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Seafood
3. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Seafood

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Restaurant Awards: Premier Crew · Bobby Copiak
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Restaurant Awards: Hall of Fame · Umberto Menghi

The Peking duck here requires a phone call to reserve, then arrives tableside in a cloud of flambéed rum, carved to order, with the carcass reborn as soup or a peppery stir-fry for the finale. This Shaanxi restaurant on Granville pairs that theater with biang biang noodles, roast lamb, and waterfront views. A Michelin Selected pick, it draws a crowd that planned ahead and dressed for the occasion.

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #2 · Elite 30 Canada
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Roast duck and char siu hang lacquered in the window on East Pender, which is all the sign Chinatown BBQ really needs. It's a casual Cantonese barbecue spot with vintage art on the walls, a lazy Susan in the middle of the table, and regulars who look like they've never once consulted the menu. The barbecue pork travels well in a takeout box, but the room has its own pull. The barbecue goose, a chef's recipe, requires two days' notice.

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #28 · Elite 30 Canada
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Restaurant Awards: Premier Crew · Jason Ye
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual

1. Air Canada 2024 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Golden Owl Awards Winner · New Venue of the Year
3. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Cocktail Experience

You reach Lala by walking through the brasserie upstairs and following the crowd toward the back, which is either mysterious or a fire-hazard joke depending on your mood. In the basement, a cocktail bar waits with velvet curves, a golden glow, and retro speakers that actually earn the decor. Vinyl DJs spin nightly, and the bar team turns out drinks with real invention, bottled cocktails and mezcal-spiked riffs among them. Ranked 19th on Canada's 100 Best Bars list.

1. Canada's 100 Best #19 · Best Bars

1. The 50 #64 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · New Venue of the Year
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best New

A 32-seat corner pasta spot in the Rail District that feels more like a borrowed cabin than a restaurant. The portions here are sized for sharing, which is good, because ordering one dish each and then making eyes at your neighbour's plate gets old fast. Pappardelle with duck ragu, bigoli with shellfish, meatballs that show up unannounced and dare you to finish everything else after. The Italian wine list is short and well-chosen.

1. Air Canada 2014 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Vancouver

A covered outdoor taqueria on Yukon Street that feels like someone smuggled a great Mexico City back-alley spot into a Vancouver residential neighbourhood. The Mexican cooking leans a little ambitious, and the cocktail program punches well above the taqueria average. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the kind of place regulars quietly hope you won't find out about.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Restaurant Awards: Bartender of the Year · Tara Davies
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Latin American

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards #4 · Elite 30 Canada
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Chinese

Lines form before the doors open at this cash-only Chinatown institution, which has been running Vietnamese and Cambodian food out of the same room forever. The menu stretches to nearly a hundred dishes, but regulars navigate straight to the beef luc lac, the salt-pepper-sugar wings, and a plate of thinly sliced raw beef in pineapple fish sauce that sounds odd until it arrives. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

You climb a flight of stairs off Cambie to find white tablecloths, chandeliers, and a wall of pristine fish tanks keeping watch over the room. It's an upscale dim sum shop drawing the kind of crowd that irons its shirts, but the Michelin Bib Gourmand signals the menu won't punish your wallet the way the setting implies. The kitchen plays dim sum mostly traditional, with occasional detours that actually make sense.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best New
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Chinese

Local artwork and soft industrial lighting set the tone at this city-chic fine dining room in Gastown, where the kitchen plays with combinations that have no business working as well as they do. The menu runs à la carte or as a tasting menu, with a vegetarian version available, and the cooking leans into unlikely pairings with enough confidence that the surprises land. A Michelin Selected restaurant, and one diners tend to return to.

1. Air Canada 2013 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

The blackboard menu changes with the season and the chefs' mood, which keeps the Powell Street regulars coming back to see what's new. This casual fine dining spot leans hard into local ingredients and pun-heavy dish names, so brace for something like "Straight Outta Kombu" before a plate that outpaces the joke. The cocktails are worth starting with. A Michelin Selected Restaurant doing real work in a neighborhood that doesn't demand it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Vancouver

Stunning murals and colorful carvings make Ophelía one of the more visually lively rooms in Olympic Village. It's a modern Mexican restaurant where the chef cooks pan-regional dishes rooted in family tradition, and the kitchen's Oaxacan mole blanco has a way of making a strong case for itself. Book ahead, because the place is always packed, and the outdoor patio fills fast on any decent evening.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

1. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Restaurant Awards: Premier Crew · Akiyo Lowey
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Japanese

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best African and Diaspora
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best African and Diaspora

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Editors’ Choice · Restaurant Awards: Best Patios
3. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Patio Experience

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.

1. AAA Approved
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Seafood

1. Golden Owl Awards Runner Up · Best Hotel Lounge Experience
2. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Nightclub of the Year
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Elizabeth Blau - Blau + Associates

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Elizabeth Blau - Blau + Associates
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Steakhouses

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.

1. Air Canada 2016 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Informal Contemporary

1. Chinese Restaurant Awards Top 50 Honourees · Elite 30 Canada

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC
2. Golden Owl Awards Runner Up · Best Pizza Experience

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Steakhouses

1. AAA Three Diamonds

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Golden Owl Awards Runner Up · Best Brunch Experience

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Upscale Italian

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A corner spot on Homer Street that slides easily between a quick tapa and a full pasta dinner depending on what you're after. The Italian menu wanders pleasantly, from generously portioned hummus with warm flatbread to lobster and crab ravioli in a chipotle coconut milk reduction, which sounds like a fever dream but turns up on tables constantly. Slide into a side booth and plan to spend longer than you meant to.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Upscale Japanese

1. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

The nham ngeaw, a tomato broth tangled with pork ribs, vermicelli, and dried red cotton tree flowers, is the kind of bowl that makes you question why you ever eat anything else. Fat Mao is a noodle shop in Chinatown serving Thai-style soups in a no-fuss room where the food does all the work. Chef Angus An keeps the menu tight and the broths deeply considered, which is a polite way of saying this place is far more serious than its vibe lets on.

1. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Elizabeth Blau - Blau + Associates

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar

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.

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Editors’ Choice · Restaurant Awards: Best Wine Bars
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

The coffee shop that bloomed from an architecture firm's rose-petal vision sits beside Emily Carr University, which tells you something about the crowd. Inside, birch plywood and a fabric fin installation dropping from the ceiling give it the feel of a gallery that also pulls excellent espresso. Beans are sourced from farms the team has visited in person, and pour-overs and lattes are brought to your table. The paved plaza out front fills up fast on sunny days.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

Copper pendant lights hang over the coffee bar, and the roastery sits right behind it, so you watch the whole operation while you order. Pallet is a bright, roomy coffee shop with high ceilings, exposed trusses, and enough varied seating that you can actually stay a while. The pastry case runs to things like raspberry lemon loaf. A long black with single-origin espresso is the move if you can't decide.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

Copper pendant lights hang above the espresso bar, and behind it sits a roaster big enough to make a point. Pallet is a coffee shop with several Vancouver locations; this one on Melville draws the laptop crowd and the lingerers alike into a high-ceilinged industrial room softened by trailing plants and blown-glass lights. Single-origin long blacks are the move, and the raspberry lemon loaf holds its own.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

The entrance is buried inside a concrete-and-rust cylinder on a busy street, which sets the tone: this coffee shop rewards the curious. Inside, moss-covered walls and mirror angles that suggest stalactites make it feel like a very good cave. The team roasts in small batches on four compact roasters behind the bar and tailors drink recommendations to your flavor preferences, so let them lead. Waffle donuts rotate through glazes like pistachio spice.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

The pain au chocolat in the glass case is close enough to the queue that resisting it becomes someone else's problem. This Yaletown coffee shop splits its identity evenly between serious cafe and in-house bakery, with pour-overs from Canadian roasters and bread baked on the premises. Wood beams, marble tables, and brass-rod geometry on the walls give it a look that earns its following of counter-sitters who never quite leave.

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

1. Sprudge The Sprudge Guide To Coffee Shops In Vancouver, BC

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

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.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

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.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

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.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Vancouver

Marble floors, a signature Indian jasmine scent piped through the air, and live music three times a day set the tone for this hotel lobby bar inside one of Vancouver's glossier addresses. It's the kind of place where the city's famously casual dressing meets conspicuous chandeliers and nobody seems bothered by the contradiction. On weekend nights after ten, the potted plants reportedly double as a dance floor, so plan accordingly if you came to drink seriously.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain
3. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain

A Douglas Fir bar that's been around forever runs nearly wall to wall, and the waistcoated bartenders working it keep classic cocktails moving at a clip that suggests they've never had a slow Tuesday. This Gastown cocktail bar pulls off a London pub atmosphere in a city that usually splits the difference between restaurant and lounge, with leather booths and deep couches upstairs for the chattier end of the crowd.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Zoomak calls itself a modern Korean tavern, which undersells the kitchen by a comfortable margin. The housemade kimchi alone earns its keep, showing up alongside crispy pork bossam and turning up again warm over steamed tofu. Korean fried chicken and pork belly fill out a menu where picking a favorite feels like a trap. The room is loose and friendly, the prices keep pace with the vibe, and nobody's making you feel bad for ordering another round.

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Korean
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Gold Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Korean
3. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Korean

1. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best New
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Editor’s Choice · Restaurant Awards: Best Date Night
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Mediterranean

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Latin American
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Latin American

1. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Editors’ Choice · Restaurant Awards: Best After-Work Hang
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain
3. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Chain

1. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Silver Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Latin American
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Latin American

1. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Japanese
2. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Japanese

1. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Bronze Medal · Restaurant Awards: Best Indian
2. Vancouver Magazine 2026 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Indian
3. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Indian

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The curvy white marble bar anchors one corner of a room that looks like it's been pleasantly roughed up by a century of good times, tiled floor and all. Clough Club is a cocktail bar with genuinely progressive drinks, which sets it apart from the group's other spots. Upholstered benches and club chairs line the walls, a tall marble table invites standing rounds in the middle, and the whole thing reads less like a design statement than a place people actually like drinking in.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Brick walls, Edison bulbs, and wooden shelves set the cocktail-bar mood, then the flat-screens and thumping house music cheerfully undermine the whole thing. The Granville Room sits on Vancouver's neon-lit strip and leans into it: twenty- and thirty-somethings come here to drink with intention, share some bar food, and not overthink it. Call it a party pub wearing a speakeasy costume, and you've got it about right.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A flight of stairs off Granville Street leads to a low-lit cocktail lounge where nearly everyone is sitting down, cocktail in hand, which sets the mood right away. The team makes their own syrups, vermouths, and preserves for drinks built around local ingredients, and a charcuterie-heavy menu keeps people at the table long enough to order another round. Communal tables and upbeat music give it a party-at-a-friend's-place feel.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Air Canada 2016 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
2. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Editors’ Choice · Restaurant Awards: Best Patio

1. Vancouver Magazine 2025 · Honourable Mention · Restaurant Awards: Best Casual

1. Golden Owl Awards Runner Up · Best Craft Brewery Experience

1. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Cocktail Experience

1. Golden Owl Awards Nominee · Best Craft Brewery Experience

1. Vancouver Magazine 2024 · Restaurant Awards: Hall of Fame · Cactus Club Cafe