Taste Your Way Through the Victoria International Wine Festival

A decades-loved Broughton Street sushi bar where two counter seats and the word 'omakase' is all the plan you need.

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.

Steak frites and French red by candlelight in a Chinatown schoolhouse that doesn't take reservations for two, so arrive early.

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.

Victoria's tiny Indian-spiced seafood room on Fort Street, where vindaloo mussels and French technique share a table at 4.6.

Peter and Jo have run Zambri's for 25 years and the hand-rolled pasta has earned every one of them.

Established 1855, a heritage roadhouse with a deck over the Gorge, scratch-baked bread and 22 local taps.

A 112-year-old James Bay house, a Genova-born owner cooking your pasta personally, and herbs from the garden out back.

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

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

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

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

Tiered scones, clotted cream, lavender-kissed preserves and 21 loose-leaf teas under the Empress chandeliers: pinkie-out grandeur, done properly.

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