Vancouver Foodie's Guide - 13 Incredible Places to Eat in Vancouver

Sharing today all the places we ate at in Vancouver! The city is a foodie’s dream, it’s filled with so many restaurants and cuisines, that you could spent months eating your way through the city. When it comes to describing food in Vancouver, the words of our Granville Island Foodie Tour Guide come to mind: ‘seasonal, local, sustainable ingredients in the hands of many cultures’.

Here’s a list of all the places we tried in Vancouver. By the way, if you’re a small eater, do note that I personally found portion sizes in Vancouver rather generous compare to what I’m typically used to. So if after a few meals you start to notice a trend in large portion sizes too, then sharing could be a good option if you don’t eat too much!

HYDRA ESTIATORIO

Hydra Estiatorio is Vancouver’s newest Mediterranean Restaurant and serves delicious Mediterranean dishes and lots of seafood. If you’re dining in a group, it’s best to order share dishes here so that you can try more on the menu! We had lunch at Hydra and sampled some delicious entrees including grilled shrimp and flatbread, as well as a family style grilled whole fish platter to share and sides.

Granville Island Christmas Classics Foodie Tour

We had an ultra-fun time at Granville Island’s Christmas Classics Foodie Tour and spent a good two hours wandering around the public market and surrounding areas sampling some of the best produce and dishes. Some of my favourites include the artisan bread served at A Bread Affair, the delicious Christmas special cinnamon donut at Lee’s Donuts and yummy nuts at Nut Merchant - we ended up buying a few packs of the nuts to bring back as souvenirs for friends. By the end of the tour, I was so full - if you do do this tour I recommend coming with an empty stomach. Do also allocate some time to explore Granville Island on your own after the market - this little island is one of Canada’s most famous artisan districts with 300 makers, bakers, creatives and chefs.

OSTERIA SAVIO VOLPE

If you love Italian food, you’ll love checking out Osteria Savio Volpe - a homely and lively Italian restaurant. Here we let the chefs cook for us and decide on the five course meal with their Dine Alla Famiglia option. Our dinner started with the most delicious bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was here that I knew we were going to be in for a treat! Our first dish was prosciutto with apple which we loved. The chef in the middle then brought out some spicy prosciutto for us to try also. We then had a salad dish of brussel sprouts with mustard and vinegar dressing, followed by a pasta dish of vegan cavatelli. The main was a sirloin steak with roast potatoes (by this stage I was well and truly full) ending with a pomegranate sorbet and chocolate tart drizzled with olive oil and sea salt. All dishes were served sharing style and it everything was so delicious.

WILDEBEEST

Wildebeest is a contemporary cuisine restaurant offering locally-sourced farm-to-table dishes. Here, we ordered the omakase menu, again leaving our choices with the chef! We enjoyed a wonderful set menu including a charcuterie board, beetroot dish, bone marrow, steak and more. All dishes were served sharing style (it seems to be a thing in Vancouver!) and offered a host of unique and interesting flavours we hadn’t tried anywhere else.

MIKU

We had an amazing time at Miku - a Japanese restaurant that specialises in aburi sushi and Japanese fusion dishes. Japanese is my favourite cuisine so I was excited to try the various dishes on offer. We ordered all three of their signature aburi dishes, as well as two sushi dishes, albacore belly and hokkaido scallop sashimi and the sable fish entree. Everything was so tasty and fresh and their aburi and sushi dishes were really great also! The standout dish would definitely have to be the sablefish entree dish - the ingredients in this dish came together in a really unique way and was one of the best dishes I had all trip! If you come to Miku at lunch time, they also serve lunch sets which are really great value. The restaurant is situated on the waterfront making it extra special as well.

Oh yes, we finished our meal with the ‘green tea opera’ - their most popular dessert, and rightly so!

Honey Salt

We came to Honey Salt at Parq Vancouver for Christmas Eve dinner. The restaurant itself is really quirky and beautifully decorated and is situated in Parq Vancouver which is their casino complex. For Christmas Eve dinner, they were serving a buffet style offering with a curation of Christmas themed dishes. We had a wonderful time here and also got to try their famous society cake which was a massive slice of chocolate & banana cake served with banana ice-cream.

GLOWBAL

Glowbal is a classic steakhouse restaurant here in Vancouver so alongside the seafood platter we were eyeing, we also made sure to order a steak to check it out! Everything in Vancouver that we ate was delicious, and Glowbal was no exception. Everything was served super fresh, the steak was melt-in-your-mouth and the truffle chips were soo good and makes me want to put truffle salt on everything.

Nightingale

Nightingale was one of my favourites in Vancouver for its variety of dishes. They do seasonal Canadian cuisine here and their menu includes everything from pizza and pasta to salads and pork bely. We ordered a number of dishes to share including oysters served with lemon and horseradish, buttermilk fried chicken (you must order this - it was super tender and the mix of flavours worked so well), grilled cauliflower, pepperoni pizza, spaghetti marinara and pork belly (another must order!). We sat at a small booth which faced the upstairs kitchen and it was so cool watching the chefs and work - I noticed that the truffle pizza was a super popular dish to order based on how many they were making in front of us so definitely recommend checking that out also.

Buddha-full

I really wanted to check out the vegan cafes in Vancouver so we hopped across to North Vancouver to visit Buddha-full, a plant-based cafe in Northwoods Village. It was a little out of the way from the city but its gorgeous interiors and menu make it worth the trip! I did find the serving sizes here though huge! The smoothie was double the size I expected it to be and the mains off the menu were also very generous so if you are a small eater, definitely consider sharing! This cafe had gorgeous swings suspended from the ceiling and was so busy when we visited and definitely very photogenic.

BOTANIST

The stunning Botanist restaurant is situated inside Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel. It’s got beautiful natural light streaming through the windows and gorgeous interiors with blush pink and greenery accents - totally my kind of place! Come here for contemporary cuisine and sustainably sourced seafood and produce from local suppliers. Some of my favourite dishes we had at Botanist were the lobster risotto and grilled beet salad. If you like cocktails, then you also should check out the Cocktail Lab which offers a really unique experience in a forward-facing cocktail lab.

CHAMBAR

We headed to Chambar to try out their famous waffles which we ordered with salted caramel sauce - eeep the best waffle I’ve ever had and I don’t even like waffles normally! It’s a must-order dish and they’re only a few dollars each from memory. We also ordered two light breakfast dishes (as we popped by first thing in the morning!) which were hearty and filling! Mine was the tofu dish and Tom had the granola yoghurt dish.

Forage

Christmas brunch at Forage was bustling! We ordered a charcuterie board to share, as well as a breakfast dish each. I had the wild mushrooms which were deliciously cooked and topped with feta cheese. Tom had the eggs benedict with crispy potatoes. The restaurant specialises in farm-to-table fare which is so lovely and something I love seeing restaurants do!

Water street cafe

Our Christmas dinner was at Water Street Cafe which is situated right opposite the famous Gastown Steam Clock. Be sure to ask for a seat by the windows, its iconic location in Gastown makes for the perfect place for people watching. We had their special Christmas menu which was a five course menu with the standout dish being the lobster linguine (we just love seafood!).