MICHELIN Guide honours eight Vancouver restaurants with a Star
The inaugural local selections also include 40 Recommended eateries, 12 “Bib Gourmands”, and three special awards
Published on Main. Photo by Sarah Annand
IT’S THE NEWS the local food scene has been dying to hear for months: selections for Vancouver’s first MICHELIN Guide have been announced.
Eight Vancouver restaurants were honoured with a one-MICHELIN-star distinction at an evening ceremony on October 27 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The MICHELIN team also announced 12 “Bib Gourmands”, 40 Recommended restaurants, and three special awards, for a total of 60 dining spots receiving recognition and 19 types of cuisine represented.
A Michelin Star is awarded to restaurants offering outstanding cooking and is based on five universal criteria: “the quality of the ingredients, the harmony of flavours, the mastery of techniques, the personality of the chef as expressed through their cuisine and, just as importantly, consistency both across the entire menu and over time”.
Masayoshi. Photo by Leila Kwok
Vancouver’s new One-MICHELIN-star restaurants are:
AnnaLena (Contemporary cuisine)
Barbara (Contemporary cuisine)
Burdock & Co (Contemporary cuisine) -
iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House (Chinese cuisine)
Kissa Tanto (Japanese cuisine)
Masayoshi (Japanese cuisine)
Published on Main (Contemporary cuisine)
St. Lawrence (French cuisine)
AnnaLena. Photo by Allison_Kuhl
Bib Gourmands
The Bib Gourmand designation recognizes “great food at a great value”, meaning places where a diner could have two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for less than $60.
Anh and Chi (Vietnamese)
Chupito (Mexican)
Fable Kitchen (Contemporary)
Fiorino, Italian Street Food (Italian)
Kin Kao Song (Thai)
Little Bird Dim Sum + Craft Beer (Chinese)
Lunch Lady (Vietnamese)
Nightshade (Vegetarian)
Oca Pastificio (Contemporary)
Phnom Penh (Vietnamese)
Say Mercy! (Contemporary)
Vij’s (Indian)
Kissa Tanto. Photo by Mark Yammine
Recommended restaurants
The 40 dining destinations below come “Recommended” by MICHELIN judges:
¿CóMO? Taperia (Spanish)
acquafarina (Italian)
Arike (African)
Ask for Luigi (Italian)
bacaro (Italian)
Bacchus (Contemporary)
Bar Gobo (Contemporary)
Bar Susu (Contemporary)
Bonjour Vietnam Bistro (Vietnamese)
Botanist (Contemporary)
Café Medina (Contemporary)
Carlino (Italian)
Chang'An (Chinese)
Chef's Choice Chinese Cuisine (Chinese)
Cioppino's (Italian)
Delara (Persian)
Dynasty Seafood (Cantonese)
Elephant (Contemporary)
Fanny Bay Oyster Bar (Seafood)
Hawksworth Restaurant (Contemporary)
Homer St. Café (Contemporary)
L'Abattoir (Contemporary)
Lobby Lounge & RawBar (Japanese)
Maenam (Thai)
Miku (Asian)
Nammos Estiatorio (Greek)
Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant (Cantonese)
New Mandarin Seafood Restaurant (Chinese)
Nightingale (Contemporary)
Ophelía (Mexican)
Osteria Savio Volpe (Italian)
per se Social Corner (Italian)
PiDGiN (Contemporary)
Riley's Fish & Steak (Steakhouse)
Sushi Bar Maumi (Japanese)
The Acorn (Vegetarian)
The Mackenzie Room (Contemporary)
Torafuku (Asian)
Ubuntu Canteen (Contemporary)
Yuwa (Japanese)
Burdock & Co. Photo by Janis Nicolay
Special Awards
The Guide announced three special awards at the ceremony:
Michelin Sommelier Award: Jayton Paul, wine director at Published on Main
Michelin Service Award presented by Air Canada: GM Justin Isidro & team at Kissa Tanto
Michelin Exceptional Cocktails Award: Botanist creative beverage director Grant Sceney and head bartender Jeff Savage
iDen & Quan Ju De Beijing Duck House. Photo by Ken Huang
More on the Stars
The style of a restaurant and its degree of formality or informality have no bearing whatsoever on the award. Service doesn’t factor into the judging process, either. “It’s entirely up to the restaurant to decide what style of service it wants to offer – and that has no bearing on a Michelin Star”, the guide states.
“One of the great misconceptions about our guide is that we have a preference for more formal restaurants,” the guide says. “This is simply not true. It’s probably a hangover from 30-40 years ago when, in most European cities, the best cooking was often found in formal restaurants. Thankfully we now have Stars in all different styles of restaurant and the hospitality industry is all the better for it.”
Barbara. Photo by Patrick Hennessy
One MICHELIN Star is awarded to restaurants using top quality ingredients, where dishes with distinct flavours are prepared to a consistently high standard.
Two MICHELIN Stars are awarded when the personality and talent of the chef are evident in their expertly crafted dishes; their food is refined and inspired.
Three MICHELIN Stars is our highest award, given for the superlative cooking of chefs at the peak of their profession; their cooking is elevated to an art form and some of their dishes are destined to become classics.
St. Lawrence. Photo by JC Poirier
Below are excerpts from inspector notes of Vancouver’s MICHELIN Starred restaurants. (Full inspector comments are available the MICHELIN Guide website):
AnnaLena (Contemporary cuisine)
Don’t be fooled by AnnaLena’s unassuming atmosphere, as dining at Chef Mike Robbins’ restaurant is a polished experience from top to bottom. Beginning with the graceful service and carrying through to the impeccably prepared dishes, this is a restaurant that aims to impress — sans the fuss.
Barbara (Contemporary cuisine)
Chef Patrick Hennessy spent time at many top spots, including Eleven Madison Park in New York, but he is clearly at home at Barbara. The kitchen feels like a stage, with guests perched at the L-shaped bar watching with bated breath as he performs culinary magic.
Burdock & Co (Contemporary cuisine)
This Mount Pleasant charmer straddles a corner of Main Street in an area rich with top spots, but Burdock & Co stands out with its rustic appeal and Chef Andrea Carlson’s farm-to-table cooking. The concise menu highlights the best of the season.
iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House (Chinese cuisine)
It has a pedigree that traces back to Beijing from 1864, but the latest outpost in Vancouver proves that QuanJuDe hasn’t lost any of its luster. It is best known for its superlatively crispy and juicy duck. Delicious as the signature fowl may be, there is plenty more from Chef Allen Ren: A bevy of other delicacies are on offer, including bird’s nest, sea cucumber and even a whole king crab if you’re up for a splurge.
Kissa Tanto (Japanese cuisine)
Inspired by the jazz cafes of 1960s Tokyo, Kissa Tanto seduces with a moody vibe complete with white mosaic floors, antique Japanese panels and steely colored walls loaded with artwork and photos. There is a definitive laid-back vibe here, but Chef Joël Watanabe’s ambitious kitchen pulls no punches with its mingling of Japanese and Italian cuisine.
Masayoshi (Japanese cuisine)
Chef Masayoshi Baba brings Japan’s luxurious, jewel-box sushi counters to Vancouver with this eponymous restaurant. The best seats are always at the counter, and guests seated there are in for a treat as the chef ceremoniously crafts each course. Chef Baba lets British Columbia’s bounty guide this omakase, spotlighting locally sourced fish in his Edomae-style nigiri.
Published on Main (Contemporary cuisine)
Timing is everything, but Chef Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson and his team have a preternatural ability for sensing when produce is at its peak. Whether showcasing it on the plate or pickling and preserving it (those jars even double as decor), they’re sourcing and foraging from local farms and forests. The contemporary fare bears the chef’s distinct imprimatur. This is food that is at once familiar and surprising.
St. Lawrence (French cuisine)
A hit ever since opening, this charming Québécois bistro shares a true sense of place — it’s even named for the region’s mighty river. Sit close enough to Chef/owner Jean- Christophe Poirier’s kitchen to experience the heady aromas of his rustic and hearty French-Canadian cooking.
Fiorino talian Street Food. Photo by Lawrence Lu
“Our teams of inspectors genuinely savored their dining experiences in Vancouver,” Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the MICHELIN Guides, said in a release. “They were very impressed with the city’s gastronomic dynamism. The selection – from Stars to Bib Gourmands to the Recommended spots – are all appealing in their own authentic DNA, and very diverse offers. They all can be very proud of their entry in the MICHELIN Guide family, as we’re pleased to highlight them to our community of foodies and travelers.”
The restaurants join the MICHELIN Guide selection of hotels, which includes The Douglas, Loden Hotel, Opus Hotel, Fairmont Pacific Rim, Shangri-La, Rosewood Hotel Georgia, L’Hermitage, and the Exchange.
Phnom Penh.
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