Taste Your Way Through the Victoria International Wine Festival

Oceanfront fire pits, a Wine Spectator wine list, and wood-fired pizza named The Spicy Beast, all at Oak Bay Beach Hotel.

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

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.

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

Victoria's original neighbourhood pub since 1954, with Mount Baker in the window and a fireplace for the days it isn't.

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

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.