Grill It Yourselves at Gyubee

West Broadway's papier-mache-and-neon sushi institution since 1983, with 50-plus rolls that have never once cared about tradition.

Seventeen seats, one sitting, Edo-style nigiri piece by piece, and your phone face-down all night. Michelin-recommended and books out fast.

A 38-seat binchotan counter where the chef hands the roll straight across, still warm, and the nori is still crackling.

The Broadway institution where chef Hidekazu Tojo, credited with inventing the California Roll, runs a legendary seasonal omakase counter.

Smokeless Shinpo grills, fifteen free-refill banchan, and a Golden Plates Best Korean Restaurant win, plus you leave smelling exactly as you arrived.

Flame-kissed aburi sushi by Burrard Inlet, where the salmon oshi arrives, gets photographed, and makes the table go silent.

Run by the actual Fanny Bay farm, this is Vancouver's only tide-to-table oyster bar, and the marble counter is yours.

Sumu grand opened in August in the old Sala Thai space, 130 seats of blackened steel and hand blown glass flowers, with binchotan yakitori mostly under $4 a skewer.

Fukuoka-style tonkotsu you customize on a little order sheet, plus a queue that counts as your best first-date warmup.

Surrey's decade-old Korean grillhouse hands you tongs, never empties the banchan, and earns a 4.6 from more than 2,000 regulars.

A calm Newport Village sushi room with soft jazz and private curtained tables you can pull closed and slip your shoes off at.

The Kitsilano sushi counter whose omakase regulars guard like state secrets, and whose uni and bluefin prove them right.

Chef Hawksworth's two-storey heritage hall for wood-fired pizza, buttermilk fried chicken, and the share-everything format that actually works.

Robson St Korean with tabletop grills, banchan aplenty, and the universal icebreaker of shouting 'is that done yet?'