Mix Your Own Gin Flight at Victoria Distillers

A boutique downtown spa whose signature ritual ends in a 62-jet hydrotherapy tub, inside the Magnolia Hotel on Courtney Street.

A Turkish-craft studio on Broad Street where you press coloured glass into a lamp for a couple of hours, then take the glowing thing home.

Sidney's teal boothed diner on Beacon Avenue, turning out stuffed Belgian waffles and five different hashes three blocks from the sea.

Victoria Film Festival's single-screen cinema on Douglas, where beer is served, most screenings are 19+, and the film has actual soul.

Three heated adults-only mineral pools at the Boathouse Spa, a eucalyptus steam room, a stargazing sauna, and Mount Baker filling the horizon across the strait.

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.

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

An 1889 heritage house in James Bay where the cooking is vegetable forward, the light is good and nothing is in a hurry.

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

Handmade roti, all-day curry, scotch bonnet heat: the buss-up-shut that tells you everything about who you're with.

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

Cook Street Village's 4.6-rated cult chicken joint: double-fried, shatteringly crispy, and almost impossible to leave without a Megan croffle.

The West Shore branch of Victoria's pink diner, where you can hand the menu back, say Mahoney, and let the kitchen decide for you.