Occult Cocktails at Arcana Spirit Lounge

Minimal-intervention BC wine, lamb tartare, and a Gastown alley that does half the romantic heavy lifting.

Chinatown's apothecary bar where the cocktail menu is literally called Remedies and Cures.

A 1930s Shanghai parlour hidden behind a Chinatown dumpling shop's fridge door, accessed by code, reserved in advance.

Live piano four nights a week at the Wedgewood Hotel, where the lamplight is warm and the reservations are not a thing.

A shag-carpeted 1970s speakeasy hidden behind a fake accounting office, where the cocktails are far better than the decor suggests.

Float weightless in body-temperature saltwater side by side in W 4th's most serene, screen-free double room.

A tiny Commercial Drive room built on Italian aperitivo culture, amaro walls, and booths sized for exactly two.

A 25-seat Strathcona wine bar with an all-vinyl hi-fi setup and a Michelin Plate, because Tuesday needed an occasion.

Vancouver's first natural-wine bar, a tiny bare-bulb Kitsilano room built for organic pours, premium sake, and losing track of time.

Follow the single red light behind a Main Street furniture shop down a graffiti stairwell into Vancouver's most satisfying open secret.

Dim light, a sake flight, and small plates you have to negotiate over, which is how a low-key izakaya date runs three hours.

A Mount Pleasant urban winery fermenting natural BC wine in buried Georgian clay jars, with Saturday jazz and grocery-style cheese plates.

Off the Moda Hotel lobby on Seymour: low-lit, Italian small plates, marble bar, and a daily 2-to-5 happy hour worth knowing about.

A gloriously retro sunken circular bar a block off English Bay, where happy hour, low light, and the best free sunset in the city do all the work.