Shuck Oysters at Shuck Taylor's

Fort Street's Italian-leaning West Coast institution: house salumi, 300 bottles of wine and a room that makes three hours vanish.

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

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

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

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

Modern Pacific Northwest tasting menus with fresh Fanny Bay oysters, in a Magnolia Hotel room that genuinely glows.

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

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

Fort Street's beloved all day breakfast room since 1991, with art crammed onto every wall and a benny list that runs to double digits.

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

The hotel restaurant exception: Chef Peter Kim's seafood-forward Inner Harbour room where locals actually fight for a table.

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.

Tasting flights of award-winning organic cider on a ten-acre Saanich Peninsula orchard above the water, reservations required on weekends.

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