Mezcal & Tacos at Cafe Mexico

A bright, clattering Mexican brunch room inside Market Square, where the benny lands on a potato pancake under pulled pork.

Chinatown tortilleria where heirloom corn gets nixtamalized overnight and pressed into tacos that embarrass every other taco in Victoria.

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

Air Canada Best New Restaurants longlisted Kerala cooking with a patio pointing straight at Victoria Harbour.

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.

A 50-seat Fernwood wine bar in a charmingly creaky heritage building, built for daily-changing small plates and old-world wine.

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.

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

Quadra Street Afghan-Persian home cooking: mantu dumplings, qabuli palaw and hospitality so warm that ordering too much is practically required.

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

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

Victoria's Korean spot for crispy three-glaze fried chicken, a bubbling army stew with cheese, and a 4.5 that keeps the room packed late.

Fort Street's oven-roasted Korean chicken spot where the lighter, juicier alternative to deep-fry has a near-perfect 4.7 to back it up.