Intimate Tasting at Atelier

Down Trounce Alley in Victoria, a snug tapas bar where the sherry list is one of the biggest in Canada.

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

Climb above a Victoria bar to find Spanish tapas since 2014 and a happy hour with 50% off the wine list.

A tiny face-to-face bouchon in Oak Bay where the wine list has won awards and the elbow room has been intentionally omitted.

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 properly small room on Herald Street pouring funky low-intervention bottles and chef Billy Nguyen's seasonal plates, worth every booking.

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

The 130-year-old tea house where choosing between a hundred loose-leaf options and the pastry case somehow becomes the whole, happy date.

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

A space-themed speakeasy behind a bookshelf on Johnson Street, 450-plus bottles, and the shared satisfaction of finding the door.

Vancouver Island's best-known brewery pours its whole range in a bright sixty-seat lounge with a patio the same size again.

Thirty seats in Sidney, chef Matt Jackson's French-technique hyper-local cooking, and a 4.7 that explains why those seats go fast.

Downtown raclette scraped tableside, gourmet cheese boards, an international wine list, and staff who know exactly what you should be drinking.

Victoria's Chinatown tasting menu that critics keep whispering 'Michelin' about, with just enough seats to feel like a genuine secret.