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GuideUpdated July 15, 2026

12 Best Places for Butter Chicken in Vancouver

Where to find the best butter chicken in Vancouver — each restaurant rated 4.0★ or higher. Top-rated at 9.8★. Spanning burgers and indian kitchens. Curated by TastyPals.

The best places for butter chicken in Vancouver are Behind You, House of Dosas | Davie st, Nirvana - Indian restaurant, and more. Start with Behind You if you want the strongest overall first pick.

By Marcus Chen•11 ranked picks•Published July 15, 2026•Updated July 15, 2026
Methodology•Editorial team
Behind YouHouse of Dosas | Davie stNirvana - Indian restaurant
12 Best Places for Butter Chicken in Vancouver
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Top picks at a glance

#1Behind YouBurgers • Chinatown • value#2House of Dosas | Davie stIndian • West End • value#3Nirvana - Indian restaurantIndian • Vancouver • value

Who this guide is for

This guide covers the highest-rated spots for butter chicken in Vancouver. Whether you're a local hunting your next regular or visiting and want to eat well, these picks are sorted by quality and review depth.

Quick picks

Behind You
Burgers • Chinatown
Behind You is doing something genuinely unusual inside Historic Chinatown Plaza's food court on Keefer Street: running a scratch kitchen at fast-food prices in a neighborhood that's seen decades of…
House of Dosas | Davie st
Indian • West End
The Davie Street flagship of House of Dosas is the West End's answer to a very specific craving: authentic South Indian, and it's open 24/7, which means the paneer masala dosa is yours at 3 a.m.
Nirvana - Indian restaurant
Indian • Vancouver
Forty-plus years into feeding Vancouver, Nirvana has earned a kind of institutional loyalty that survives fires — literally.
Browse all Vancouver restaurantsBack to Vancouver hub
Editorial details
Author: Marcus Chen
Published: July 15, 2026
Last updated: July 15, 2026

On this page

  1. 1. Behind YouView →
  2. 2. House of Dosas | Davie stView →
  3. 3. Nirvana - Indian restaurantView →
  4. 4. Bahubali Biryani House DowntownView →
  5. 5. A&S FUSION RESTRO + BARView →
  6. 6. Dhamaka Indian Restaurant | VancouverView →
  7. 7. Krsma Indian RestaurantView →
  8. 8. AMRUT KITCHEN AND BAR - HYDERABADI INDIAN RESTAURANTView →
  9. 9. Sula Indian Restaurant, Commercial DriveView →
  10. 10. BurgooView →
  11. 11. Vij'sView →

How the restaurants compare

Behind You
Chinatown • Burgers
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
cheap eats
Mood
Chinatown
Editorial restaurant image stand-in for House of Dosas | Davie st
Google
House of Dosas | Davie st
West End • Indian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
dinner
Mood
West End
Nirvana - Indian restaurant
Vancouver • Indian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Indian comfort
Mood
Casual
Bahubali Biryani House Downtown
Vancouver • Indian
9.9/10
TastyPals Score
Price
value
Best for
Indian comfort
Mood
Casual

How we chose

We looked for restaurants that feel like a strong fit for the guide topic, not just the most obvious names in the city. The shortlist favors rooms with clear mood, dependable pacing, and enough distinction to help someone decide faster. Read our full methodology →

Room tone

Lighting, pace, and general energy all need to support the reason someone clicked this guide.

Food fit

We favored restaurants that feel best suited for the moment, not just restaurants with broad reputation.

Useful range

The final list tries to give readers enough variation in neighborhood, price, and style to compare real options.

11 ranked picks

Behind You — Behind You is doing something genuinely unusual inside Historic Chinatown Plaza's food court on Keefer Street: running a scratch kitchen at fast-food prices in a neighborhood that's seen decades of culinary identity politics. It's not a fusion experiment or a trend-chasing concept — it's an independent counter-service spot that has built its reputation on the kind of owner-operator attentiveness you rarely find in a food court setting, where the owners are consistently praised by diners for tailoring the experience to what people actually want. The Chinatown Plaza address puts it squarely in one of Vancouver's most historically layered neighborhoods, and Behind You leans into the value proposition of that real estate without cutting corners on the kitchen side. This is the spot for someone who wants a real meal — made from scratch — without the downtown markup. The menu pulls from a genuinely global range, which is either ambitious or chaotic depending on your perspective, but the dishes that keep regulars coming back suggest there's a through-line: comfort at a price point that makes daily visits plausible. The King of Keefer Burger is the signature that makes the most geographical sense — a burger named after the street it lives on, which tells you something about how the kitchen thinks about its neighborhood. The Butter Chicken and Chicken Masala Rice represent the South Asian thread in the menu and, per diner consensus, are among the more consistently praised plates. The Tofu Bowls and Seared Salmon Bowls round out the lineup for diners who want something lighter, and the kitchen's from-scratch commitment is the claim that anchors all of it — not just a marketing line, but a reputation that shows up repeatedly in how regulars talk about the food. The practical move here is to lean into the rice and bowl formats if you're going solo — the Seared Salmon Bowl and Chicken Masala Rice are the dishes diners mention most when they come back. No reservations needed at a food court counter, but the lunch window fills quickly given the value. Sit inside the plaza if you want the full Chinatown context; the King of Keefer Burger is the order if you want the dish most tied to this specific kitchen's identity. View restaurant →
House of Dosas | Davie st — The Davie Street flagship of House of Dosas is the West End's answer to a very specific craving: authentic South Indian, and it's open 24/7, which means the paneer masala dosa is yours at 3 a.m. as easily as at noon. That dosa is the reason to come — generous, crackly, rich enough to feed two if you're civilized about it. The Mysore masala dosa holds its own, and the butter chicken surprises with meat that's genuinely tender and juicy rather than an afterthought swimming in sauce. Order the Chicken 65 for the table; it's fragrant without the greasy heaviness that sinks lesser versions, and it sometimes comes buy-one-get-one. Save room for the pineapple dessert — buttery, sweet, and better than it has any right to be. The room's freshly refurbished, clean and roomy enough for a twelve-top, and Chef Ganish has been known to come out and walk you through the menu. Everything sits under CAN$30, with $5.99 dosas on Mondays. This is the kind of place a neighborhood keeps in rotation for years. View restaurant →
Nirvana - Indian restaurant — Forty-plus years into feeding Vancouver, Nirvana has earned a kind of institutional loyalty that survives fires — literally. After losing its original 2313 Main Street home to a devastating blaze, the family-run kitchen reopened in October 2023 at 6482 Victoria Drive, and the regulars followed. Co-owner Opi and her husband Ravi Bedi, who came to Canada from Punjab, run the room with their daughter-in-law Pavan, and that family-operation ethos shapes the entire proposition: Northern Indian cooking made from scratch, housemade breads, nothing frozen. Victoria Drive is a corridor that rewards exactly this kind of neighbourhood anchor — unpretentious, priced for repeat visits (price level 1), and rooted in the kind of cooking that doesn't need a rebrand every three years. The menu centers on classic Northern Indian preparations, and the dishes that diners and the owners themselves flag as essential tell you what the kitchen does best. The Malai Kofta — veggie spheres built with nuts and raisins, finished in a creamy gravy — is the kind of dish the Bedis highlight as a personal favourite, which usually means it's where the kitchen's care shows most. The Butter Chicken is consistently praised for its creamy tomato sauce and tandoori chicken; reviewers single it out specifically, not as a generic safety pick but as a version that justifies the category's reputation. Fish Pakoras round out the picture: a fried starter that diners return to for its flavor and quality, notable in a menu where the focus is predominantly on the kitchen's confidence with North Indian technique. For the practical move: this is a room that rewards ordering across the table rather than playing it safe with one protein. The housemade breads are a kitchen point of pride — order them alongside rather than as an afterthought. Given the loyal following the restaurant retained through its relocation, weekends can fill quickly; calling ahead is the sensible play. View restaurant →

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Bahubali Biryani House Downtown — Bahubali Biryani House Downtown occupies a quietly defiant position in Vancouver's dining landscape: tucked at the base of a high-rise, accessible through the back, entirely invisible from the street, and yet drawing a following that knows exactly where it's going. This is not a restaurant angling for walk-in tourist traffic or fusion novelty. It is a 100% Halal-certified Indian kitchen built around biryani as a serious culinary tradition — the kind of place where the lunch buffet at $19.99 (Monday through Friday, 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM) functions less as a value proposition and more as a daily ritual for downtown workers who've figured out what they're doing. The 60-seat dining room is matter-of-fact; the ambition is on the plate. The dish that diners consistently name is the Vijayawada Fry Piece Chicken Biryani — a preparation rooted in the spice-forward cooking traditions of Andhra Pradesh, where fry-piece biryani distinguishes itself by cooking the chicken separately, typically with high heat and dry spicing, before it meets the rice. Yelp reviewers specifically call out the aromatics and the quality of the chicken pieces, which puts it in a different register from generic steam-table biryani. The Butter Chicken on the menu is described by the restaurant as boneless chicken in a rich butter sauce with cashew nuts — a version that positions itself toward the richer, nut-thickened school rather than the tomato-forward shortcut. Chilli Paneer rounds out the verified menu highlights for the vegetable-forward diner. Manager Ram is name-checked often enough in reviews that the service warmth here reads as structural, not accidental. The lunch buffet is the insider move for value and variety, but the Vijayawada Fry Piece Chicken Biryani is the reason to come for dinner. Book ahead for groups — 60 seats disappears fast when word travels among the Halal-conscious downtown crowd — and factor in the back-entrance access before your first visit. View restaurant →
A&S FUSION RESTRO + BAR — A&S Fusion Restro + Bar on Granville Street is built around an idea that could easily collapse under its own ambition — Indian spice structures, Greek technique, Continental European depth, all sharing a menu — but the kitchen behind it has the credentials to make the case. The executive chef brings more than two decades of five-star experience across India, Europe, the Middle East, and North America, with a dual fluency in Continental and Indian cuisine that isn't decorative here; it's the actual engine of the concept. South Granville is a neighbourhood that rewards this kind of confidence: it's a corridor of independent restaurants where diners are comfortable with a bill that reflects craft, and where a mid-price restaurant that swings between Shahi Paneer and Chicken Souvlaki either earns its room or quietly disappears. A&S has stayed. That's a signal worth noting. The menu's range is the thing to grapple with before you arrive. The Shahi Paneer — a north Indian classic built on a rich, cream-and-tomato royal gravy — sits as a verified signature, the kind of dish that tells you where the kitchen's Indian roots are deepest. Against it, the Chicken Souvlaki reads as a genuine cross-cultural gesture rather than a novelty: a Mediterranean preparation that works because the chef's European experience is real, not assumed. The Mixed Grill Platter — chicken tikka, lamb seekh kabab, fish tikka, prawns, tandoori chicken — is the dish that makes the fusion premise legible in a single order, a tandoor-and-grill survey that diners who want the full range consistently gravitate toward. The Butter Chicken functions as the anchor for guests working through the menu for the first time. The practical move here is to treat the Mixed Grill Platter as the table's introduction and build around it rather than ordering across cuisines independently — it's the dish that demonstrates what this kitchen is actually attempting. A&S runs breakfast through late night, which makes it unusually flexible for the neighbourhood; weekend brunch draws a different crowd than the dinner service, and the bar component means the room stays active later than most of its South Granville neighbours. Book for dinner if atmosphere matters to you; walk in for lunch if you want the kitchen's attention at a quieter hour. Address: 8028 Granville Street; phone (604) 563-0403. View restaurant →
Dhamaka Indian Restaurant | Vancouver — Dhamaka has built its reputation in Mount Pleasant on a proposition that is rare in Vancouver: biryani treated as the main event rather than an afterthought on a sprawling menu. The South Main room runs a South Indian and halal kitchen organized around more than two dozen biryani variations, and the scale of that commitment is what distinguishes it from the city's longer, more diffuse Indian menus. Price-point one means a full table can eat seriously without the bill becoming a conversation. The dish that diners consistently cite first is the Raju Gari Chicken Biryani — reportedly the anchor of the menu and the one that has driven the restaurant's word-of-mouth. For those who want something richer, the Ghee Roast Chicken Biryani is the natural follow-on, known for leaning deeper into fat and aromatics. Beyond the rice, the Butter Chicken is understood to be a reliable companion dish — familiar in form but executed within a kitchen that takes regional specificity seriously. The Mutton Marag is worth flagging: a Hyderabadi mutton soup built around pepper, and the kind of starter that signals the kitchen's range extends past the headline biryanis. The Mango Lassi is widely recommended as the practical counterpoint to the spicing across the menu. Consistent community feedback does note that execution can vary dish to dish, with the biryanis performing most reliably — something to keep in mind when ordering broadly. This is a restaurant built for groups and for people who want to eat with intent. The practical approach: come with enough people to share two or three biryanis side by side, let the table weigh in, and use the Mutton Marag to open before the rice arrives. View restaurant →
Krsma Indian Restaurant — Krsma Indian Restaurant on Victoria Drive is the kind of East Vancouver room that builds a following quietly, through consistency and portion size rather than fanfare. The kitchen draws on a reported thirty-plus years of cooking experience spanning Delhi and Vancouver, and that background shows in a menu that commits seriously to the North Indian canon — not the abbreviated, crowd-pleasing version, but the fuller register that includes both the familiar comfort dishes and the Indo-Chinese crossover cooking that most comparable spots treat as an afterthought. The neighbourhood Google rating sits notably high, which in a part of the city with genuine Indian food literacy tends to mean something. The menu centers on five dishes that diners return to consistently. Butter chicken and lamb curry are the headliners — the kind of benchmarks regulars use to judge a new kitchen — but the goat curry is reportedly the dish that separates Krsma from the field, known for well-cooked meat and a spice balance that reviewers describe as deliberate rather than one-dimensional. On the vegetarian side, the paneer butter masala and dal makhani are frequently cited as having genuine depth, the dal in particular praised for the low-and-slow richness that shortcuts tend to flatten. These are not afterthought dishes; they appear to anchor the menu with the same seriousness as the meat options. Krsma reads as a casual family dinner destination or a practical group meal — the kind of place where ordering broadly makes sense because portions are large and the price point is approachable. It is open late on weekends, which makes it a useful option when the usual spots have already closed. Come with a table of four or more, order across the menu, and plan accordingly for leftovers. View restaurant →
AMRUT KITCHEN AND BAR - HYDERABADI INDIAN RESTAURANT — Vancouver's Indian restaurant landscape skews heavily toward butter-centric North Indian menus, which makes Amrut Kitchen and Bar genuinely notable: the kitchen is anchored specifically to Hyderabadi and Deccan tradition — slow braises, tandoor cooking, and layered spicing built on accumulation rather than blunt heat. This is not a tikka masala house dressed in saffron. At a price point that reportedly undercuts most of its competition significantly, it's a room that assumes a certain seriousness from its guests and returns the favor. The menu's logic runs from shareable starters toward centerpiece rice dishes, and the verified lineup rewards working through it in order. The Samosa Chaat is described by diners as the kind of organized chaos that arrives looking messy and tastes precisely calibrated — flaky pastry, tamarind, and green chutney doing what chaat is supposed to do. The Chicken 65 Semi-Dry is consistently cited as a benchmark South Indian fry: deeply colored from Kashmiri chili, tightly spiced, and known for the contrast between its exterior and interior. The Hyderabadi Goat Curry carries the aromatic weight the region is known for — cardamom and clove working in the background of a long braise. The Amrut Special Goat Keema Biryani is the dish the restaurant is most closely identified with: minced goat folded through long-grain rice in the layered Hyderabadi style, reportedly restrained enough that each component registers separately. The Tandoori Prawns round out the tandoor section of the menu with the char-forward cooking the method is built for. Practically: table configuration toward the back reportedly handles larger groups without conversation becoming impossible. Weekend evenings fill early, and the biryani is known to run out — arriving at opening is the more reliable call. View restaurant →
Burgoo — Burgoo has built a loyal following in Mount Pleasant on a premise that sounds simple but is harder to pull off than it looks: global comfort food at a price point that doesn't ask you to commit to a reservation or a dress code. The menu pulls from a wide pantry — Cajun, French country, South Asian — and rather than hedging its bets, it leans into that range with apparent confidence. The crowd, by most accounts, skews fiercely neighborhood-loyal, which is the kind of signal that tells you more than a star rating. These are people who keep coming back, not people who showed up once for the novelty. The dishes Burgoo is consistently recognized for span a few different registers. The LA Poutine reportedly holds its structure — fries that don't collapse under the gravy, which is a more demanding technical ask than it sounds. The Butter Chicken is described as deeply colored and reduced, suggesting a kitchen that's not cutting corners on time. The Beef Bourguignon, a dish that exposes shortcuts almost immediately, has a reputation for the kind of low-and-slow patience that classical French braises demand. The Crispy Brussels Sprouts appear on enough tables to suggest they're reliable rather than decorative. And the Jambalaya is known for building heat gradually rather than front-loading it — the kind of thing that keeps diners reaching back in rather than reaching for water. For practical purposes: weekdays offer more room to breathe; weekends pull the full neighborhood crowd. If you're sharing, the Butter Chicken and the Jambalaya together cover a lot of ground. The Beef Bourguignon is the call if you want something that leans more quietly into the meal. Come hungry, come casual, and don't overthink it — that's apparently the whole point. View restaurant →
Vij's — Vij's is the restaurant Vancouver food culture keeps returning to as a reference point — the place that, over decades, has insisted Indian cooking belongs in the same conversation as any serious fine-dining room in the city. Founded by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala, the kitchen is known for treating South Asian spicing not as a fixed tradition to replicate but as a living framework for working with Pacific Northwest ingredients. The result, by consistent account, is cooking that carries the precision of a high-end kitchen without shedding the generosity that makes Indian food feel communal in the first place. The west-side room is reportedly warm and glowing in atmosphere, and the service is widely described as genuinely gracious — less like a transaction, more like being received into someone's home. Because no verified dish list is on file for the current menu, it would be dishonest to name specific plates with confidence. What the restaurant's reputation makes clear is that the menu centers on shared formats, rotates with the seasons, and has long been recognised for vegetable cookery that holds its own alongside the meat dishes. Diners consistently point to the wine list as unusually thoughtful for an Indian restaurant — reportedly curated to actually stand up to bold spicing rather than treated as an afterthought. That detail alone signals the seriousness of intent here. The room has historically operated without reservations, which means a queue at peak times is a real possibility — check the current policy before you go, as it may have evolved. This is a table suited to groups willing to share widely across the menu and to partners looking for a dinner that feels considered rather than routine. For the most accurate picture of what is being cooked right now, the restaurant's own current menu is the place to start. View restaurant →

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TastyPalsTonight
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Smarter follow-through after the guide: better restaurant context, quicker narrowing, less second-guessing.
For tonight
Date night spots with warm rooms and polished service
Next step
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