The Vancouver List
Ten editorial picks, ranked by the only filter that matters: why you are dining.
Hawksworth
David Hawksworth's Rosewood Hotel Georgia dining room — Vancouver's most polished hotel-French since 2011 and the room every visiting British Columbia premier has hosted in.
Published on Main
Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson's Mt Pleasant tasting room — #28 on North America's 50 Best Restaurants list, Michelin-starred, and the most-watched chef-driven Vancouver opening since 2018.
Botanist
The Fairmont Pacific Rim's modern French dining room — picture-window views of Coal Harbour, Hector Laguna's serious Pacific Coast cooking, and the most architecturally generous fine-dining room in downtown Vancouver.
Kissa Tanto
Joël Watanabe's Chinatown counter — Japanese-Italian fusion in a dim, jazz-soundtracked dining room above a Pender Street Chinese bakery. The most-photographed counter in Strathcona and one of the most-cited Vancouver restaurants.
St. Lawrence
Jean-Christophe Poirier's Railtown room — Quebec heritage cooking in a converted Strathcona warehouse, with a tourtière, a rabbit-with-mustard, and the most architecturally distinctive dining room in East Vancouver.
AnnaLena
Mike Robbins's Kitsilano flagship — modern Canadian cooking with a serious vegetable programme, named for the chef's grandmothers, and the most quietly polished neighbourhood-tasting room in Kits.
Boulevard
Alex Chen's Sutton Place steakhouse — Pacific Coast seafood, dry-aged ribeye, and the most polished hotel-steakhouse experience in downtown Vancouver since Hawksworth.
Burdock & Co
Andrea Carlson's Mt Pleasant plant-forward kitchen — the most ambitious vegetable programme in Vancouver, with serious BC sourcing and a tasting-menu format that has held the Main Street booking since 2013.
Maenam
Angus An's Kitsilano Thai room — modern Thai cooking from the chef who put Vancouver Thai on the international map, with a serious sourcing programme and a tasting-menu format that has held the Kits booking since 2009.
Pidgin
The Crosstown chef-driven counter — Asian-influenced modern Canadian cooking in a converted Carrall Street storefront, with the most ambitious cocktail programme in the Vancouver Asian fusion scene.
The Top Ten in Vancouver
Ranked against a single question: if you had one night in Vancouver, where would you go?
Hawksworth
David Hawksworth's Rosewood Hotel Georgia dining room — Vancouver's most polished hotel-French since 2011 and the room every visiting British Columbia premier has hosted in.
Published on Main
Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson's Mt Pleasant tasting room — #28 on North America's 50 Best Restaurants list, Michelin-starred, and the most-watched chef-driven Vancouver opening since 2018.
Botanist
The Fairmont Pacific Rim's modern French dining room — picture-window views of Coal Harbour, Hector Laguna's serious Pacific Coast cooking, and the most architecturally generous fine-dining room in downtown Vancouver.
Kissa Tanto
Joël Watanabe's Chinatown counter — Japanese-Italian fusion in a dim, jazz-soundtracked dining room above a Pender Street Chinese bakery. The most-photographed counter in Strathcona and one of the most-cited Vancouver restaurants.
St. Lawrence
Jean-Christophe Poirier's Railtown room — Quebec heritage cooking in a converted Strathcona warehouse, with a tourtière, a rabbit-with-mustard, and the most architecturally distinctive dining room in East Vancouver.
AnnaLena
Mike Robbins's Kitsilano flagship — modern Canadian cooking with a serious vegetable programme, named for the chef's grandmothers, and the most quietly polished neighbourhood-tasting room in Kits.
Boulevard
Alex Chen's Sutton Place steakhouse — Pacific Coast seafood, dry-aged ribeye, and the most polished hotel-steakhouse experience in downtown Vancouver since Hawksworth.
Burdock & Co
Andrea Carlson's Mt Pleasant plant-forward kitchen — the most ambitious vegetable programme in Vancouver, with serious BC sourcing and a tasting-menu format that has held the Main Street booking since 2013.
Maenam
Angus An's Kitsilano Thai room — modern Thai cooking from the chef who put Vancouver Thai on the international map, with a serious sourcing programme and a tasting-menu format that has held the Kits booking since 2009.
Pidgin
The Crosstown chef-driven counter — Asian-influenced modern Canadian cooking in a converted Carrall Street storefront, with the most ambitious cocktail programme in the Vancouver Asian fusion scene.
The Vancouver Dining Guide
Vancouver runs the most ingredient-forward dining scene in Canada and arguably North America. The Pacific Coast pantry — wild salmon, BC spot prawns, Dungeness crab, sea urchin from the Strait, Okanagan stone fruit, Fraser Valley vegetables — sits at the foundation of every serious kitchen, and the Asian populations of the city have built a depth of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese cooking that no other city outside Los Angeles or Honolulu matches. The Michelin Guide arrived in 2022 and twelve restaurants now hold stars in the 2025 selection. Published on Main reaches #28 on North America's 50 Best Restaurants list — the highest-ranked Canadian restaurant on the list — and the chef-driven Mt Pleasant and Chinatown scenes have become destinations in their own right.
The pantry is uncompromising: Lummi Island sablefish, Haida Gwaii halibut, BC spot prawns in their three-week May window, Sechelt mussels, Salt Spring lamb, Pemberton potatoes, Cawston cherries and apricots, Naramata pinot noir and Okanagan riesling. Asian ingredient depth runs deeper than anywhere outside the Pacific Rim itself: serious omakase, broth-led ramen, Sichuan, Cantonese seafood, regional Vietnamese, modern Korean. Wine programmes lead with BC and Oregon, lean naturally into Burgundy and the New World, and the coffee scene is third-wave excellent.
Neighbourhoods
Reservations & Practical Notes
For deeper editorial coverage, see our Editorial column — including pieces on Impress Clients, First Date and Proposal dining.