Coffee and Baking at the Brentwood Bay Village Empourium

A neighbourhood pub on the Saanichton corner that has been an inn since 1859, and the only room out here that runs to midnight.

The Chateau Victoria's hotel bar, Canada-nominated, with rare vintage spirits and leather banquettes built for slow, low-lit evenings.

A moody Bastion Square wine bar with oysters, blankets in the back courtyard, and wines that reward asking questions.

A working single-malt distillery and craft brewery under one roof, where a 45-minute tour ends in a tasting flight.

A 1909 bank vault of a bookshop on Government Street, on every world's-best-bookshop list, and it costs nothing to wander.

The quieter, candlelit alternative to the Empress: Victorian afternoon tea in an 1890s mansion, five minutes from the Inner Harbour.

An Uptown cocktail bar with an award-nodded drink list and Indian small plates built for lingering over a second round.

Two blocks from the Inner Harbour, the Magnolia's Canada-nominated bar where craft cocktails and Pacific Northwest bites quietly become the whole evening.

A 30-seat art-filled room in Sidney for French-inspired Peninsula cooking and a smoke-and-rum cocktail worth making the drive for.

A brick basement off Yates Street with old-book niches, lamplight, and cocktails consistently ranked among the city's best.

Belly up to Chinatown's tea tasting bar, argue over blends, then disappear into a spa for two.

A tiny, nature-obsessed cocktail bar ranked Top 100 in North America, where the drinks menu reads like a naturalist's field guide.

A rum-forward tropical cocktail bar on North America's 50 Best Bars list, now in a bigger home on Trounce Alley with its first ever food menu.

A Sidney fromagerie by day and wine bar by evening, owned by two wine-shop refugees who cut 150-plus cheeses to order.