Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Food & Drink
The height of fine dining in Vancouver used to be an overdone steak with
exotic prawn cocktail starter. But the past decade has seen a culinary sea
change. It began when international influences imported by immigrants
from around the world swept across the restaurant scene. The next devel-
opment was closer to home: Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia
(BC) is currently undergoing a golden age of farm-to-table cuisine, trans-
forming local restaurant menus with a taste-bud-popping cornucopia of
unique regional flavors.
What Is West Coast Dining?
Eating local used to be about cheapskates growing produce in their own backyards, but
now you'll find restaurants at the highest levels eager to boast that their ingredients
come from just down the road. The movement has even transformed the 'West Coast
dining' label itself. Once lazily applied to humdrum salmon dinners available at innu-
merable restaurants, it's been revitalized as a dining category and now signifies amazing
dishes showcasing the rich variety of ingredients grown, foraged, fished and raised
around the province. Finally, West Coast dining is something worth drooling over. But
what does the label actually mean?
West Coast dining is the Canadian arm of the Pacific Northwest dining scene, which
covers Oregon, Washington and BC. Vancouverites generally don't call what they eat
'Pacific Northwest dining' because they consider themselves West Coast Canadians
rather than citizens of the Pacific Northwest, which is more often regarded as a US re-
gion. The key point, though, is that Pacific Northwest and West Coast Canadian cuisine
take the same approach: local dishes that celebrate the region's natural bounty.
In Vancouver this bounty typically includes seafood and shellfish, as well as duck,
chicken, lamb and pork raised at farms around the Lower Mainland and beyond. In the
way of vegetables, West Coast dishes often include seasonal local favorites such as for-
aged mushrooms and locally farmed potatoes, squash and heirloom tomatoes. Many of
Vancouver's West Coast restaurants include international influences in their dishes - sal-
mon with a miso-flavored sauce, for example - while typical West Coast ingredients on
tables around the city include juicy halibut from Haida Gwaii, velvet-soft lamb shank
from Salt Spring Island and free-range duck or chicken from the Fraser Valley. Desserts
often feature seasonal local fruit including cherries, peaches, blueberries and apples, and
