Dinner at Zambri's

A candlelit brick courtyard down a Victoria back alley, doing wood-oven Italian for 35 years and not sorry about it.

A 112-year-old James Bay house, a Genova-born owner cooking your pasta personally, and herbs from the garden out back.

Fort Street Korean tapas and cocktails: low-lit, late-running, and serving a 'Squid Game' gochujang dish with the world's most appropriate name.

Fort Street's Italian-leaning West Coast institution: house salumi, 300 bottles of wine and a room that makes three hours vanish.

Beacon Avenue runs out at the water and Riva is what is there: seafood tagliatelle, a sweeping ocean patio and local jazz from 6pm Thursday to Saturday.

Walk-in BC oysters shucked to order on Blanshard Street, with all-day Sunday happy hour and a 4.8 you can actually trust.

Downtown Victoria's 4.6-rated Korean grillhouse where you cook for each other and emerge smelling faintly of garlic-soy triumph.

Steak frites and French red by candlelight in a Chinatown schoolhouse that doesn't take reservations for two, so arrive early.

Brad Holmes rewrites the menu weekly in a tiny, loud Chinatown room, so come curious and ready to share everything.

Tiered scones, clotted cream, lavender-kissed preserves and 21 loose-leaf teas under the Empress chandeliers: pinkie-out grandeur, done properly.

Victoria's long-running Ethiopian-Eritrean room, where dinner is one shared platter by hand and the closing act is a from-scratch coffee ceremony.

A Langford pizzeria whose oak oven was handmade in Naples from Vesuvius brick, turning out organic Neapolitan pies daily.

Victoria's neon-lit Korean pocha pub, where you pile the table with tteokbokki and pour each other rounds of soju all night.

A decades-loved Broughton Street sushi bar where two counter seats and the word 'omakase' is all the plan you need.