The Best Places in Beltline & around

You start with a phone call from a white handset in a hotel lobby, then follow someone through a maintenance corridor to a gilded parlour for cocktails, then slip through a hidden door to eight counter seats facing an open kitchen. That is the whole restaurant. Darren MacLean runs a Japanese-influenced tasting menu of around twenty courses built on hyper-seasonal Canadian ingredients, and photographs are forbidden. It holds a spot on North America's 50 Best Restaurants list.

1. The 50 #2 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
2. Canada's 100 Best #9 · Best Restaurants
3. The 50 Highest New Entry Award 2026 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants

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.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Canada's 100 Best #42 · Best Restaurants

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2016 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants
3. Air Canada 2023 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2023 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2022 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Canada

1. Canada's 100 Best #74 · Best Restaurants

Six seats wrap an omakase bar where 17 to 20 courses lean on sustainably sourced, mostly Canadian fish and produce some of it grown on the chef's own farm. Darren MacLean runs Japanese technique through an unmistakably Canadian larder, and the daikon "steak" alone makes a case for taking vegetables seriously. The sake list is long and thoughtful, the cocktails herbaceous. Canada's 100 Best puts it at number 75 in the country.

1. Canada's 100 Best #75 · Best Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2023 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2019 · Finalist · Best New Restaurants

The old Model Milk Dairy building on 17th gives this lively restaurant its name and its bones, with an open, industrial feel softened by a genuinely buzzy room. The menu changes every couple of weeks, pulling from local and regional producers, so there's no such thing as a regular order. Desserts lean into the building's dairy past with ice cream making an appearance. The wine and cocktail list is well considered.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Air Canada 2012 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants

1. AAA Three Diamonds

A stylish Mediterranean small-plates restaurant where the mezze menu is designed for mixing, matching, and ordering one more round before you've decided you're done. The room leans into cool lighting and a central bar that keeps things lively, and the cocktail list holds its own alongside the food. The crowd skews toward people who know how to split a bill twelve ways without drama.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. Canada's 100 Best Recommends

1. AAA Approved

Down a staircase beneath a Chinatown restaurant, red lanterns mark this below-street Vietnamese cocktail bar as something worth finding. The drinks lean tropical but take detours, like a Vietnamese iced coffee built with cold brew, condensed milk, and coconut. Small plates of bánh mì and shaken beef have a way of appearing at tables where nobody ordered food. It landed on Canada's 100 Best Bars list, which tracks, given how often people seem to lose track of time here.

1. Canada's 100 Best #33 · Best Bars
2. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. Air Canada 2015 · #1 · Best New Restaurants

1. Air Canada 2010 · Top 10 · Best New Restaurants