Vancouver Eats
Tour the city’s wild and worldly culinary landscape
It may be winter elsewhere, but in Vancouver it’s always warm enough to explore the city’s great outdoors — and restaurant hop. From ramen and sushi joints to taco stands, juice pop ups, vegan Vietnamese and seaweedgarnished hotdogs, you’ll find an exciting mix of cuisines on every corner — and peek-a-boo views of snow-flecked mountains, coastal rainforest and shimmering ocean.
Food Crawl
Sampling the wide range of regional ingredients and dishes is easy during the annual Dine Out Vancouver Festival, whether you’re after molecular gastronomy-inspired desserts or elk sliders on traditional Indigenous-made bannock. More than 100,000 food and drink lovers converge at 300plus restaurants offering prixfixe menus over 17 days from January 17 to February 2, 2020. It’s an opportunity to experience top-ranked spots and experiment with the flavours of Vancouver – from Pacific Northwest fare at AnnaLena one night to the Indigenous at Salmon n’ Bannock the next. The city’s food trucks also gather around Vancouver Art Gallery as part of Dine Out for an even easier foodie crawl called Street Food City.
Raise a Glass
When night falls, the taste tour shifts to Vancouver’s handcrafted spirits and brews. Start in Chinatown at one of the city’s craft-cocktail hotspots, Juniper, which gets it name from ginforward concoctions like a G&T infused with coastal botanicals. Then check out the booming craft brewery scene of South Main or SoMa, where Main Street Brewing’s tasting room has revived a heritage industrial building and local favourite Naked Fox IPA is on tap. Another 10 microbreweries are concentrated here around Brewery Creek, which once fed breweries in Vancouver’s frontier days and has long since been paved over by Main Street. Now it’s the revived heart of a craft-brewing revolution. Stroll between the trendy tasting rooms for beer flights that are as varied as any food menu, and then refuel at a whole new set of culinary stops.
Pleasant Ville
South Main is part of Mount Pleasant, an up-and-coming neighbourhood showcasing Vancouver’s hipster side with veggie restaurants (must-try: beer-battered halloumi at The Acorn, named one of the world’s best vegan restaurants), funky donuts and ice cream (try Cartems’ Canadian Whisky Bacon and Earnest Ice Cream’s beer-infused collaboration, 33 Acres of Malt) and off-beat bars (from The Cascade Room, a modern take on the classic UK pub, to the Shameful Tiki Room, which is just as it sounds). And that’s just round one. As one top restaurant critic puts it, Vancouver is a “culinary thrill-ride, each turn bringing you into contact with exciting flavours, from fresh crab and prime rib to lacquered quails and fish tacos.” Come take a walk in this wild and worldly culinary landscape – and bring your appetite.