Wine and Small Plates at Stage

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

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

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.

Quadra Street Afghan-Persian home cooking: mantu dumplings, qabuli palaw and hospitality so warm that ordering too much is practically required.

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.

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

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

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

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 Korean spot for crispy three-glaze fried chicken, a bubbling army stew with cheese, and a 4.5 that keeps the room packed late.

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

A bright, clattering Mexican brunch room inside Market Square, where the benny lands on a potato pancake under pulled pork.

Family-run Thai on Fort Street's antique row, where Mama and Papa Sookjai make the green curry Victorians won't stop raving about.