SANTO TACO

Climb to the second-floor cantina above Denman Street and you land in a room that knows exactly what it is: an open kitchen on one side, a colorful mural of cactus against a pink-maroon sky on another, sombreros pinned up like the place…

There's a small ceremony to eating here that most Vancouver hot pot rooms skip: the cloisonné copper pots, the charcoal glowing underneath, the sense that dinner is an event rather than a transaction.

Skewers Souvlaki Pita Bar operates on a philosophy Vancouver's Greek restaurant scene has largely forgotten: that souvlaki is street food, not a sit-down occasion, and that keeping things honest and fast doesn't mean sacrificing flavour.

Birdies took over the old Earl's on Lougheed Hwy, and the lineage shows — this is a Cactus Club/Joey/Earl's family project, with a menu designed by Chef David Wong and a California-by-way-of-Burnaby attitude.

Blue Water Cafe is the restaurant Vancouver's culinary reputation leans on when the city wants to show off its relationship with the Pacific, and from everything on record, the room holds up its end of the bargain.