Air Canada’s Best New Restaurants 2024

A bookcase stocked with cookbooks and family photos forms the foundation of the pass where polished plates are dispatched to eager diners. On the kitchen whiteboard, we glimpse prep lists and the focaccia recipe – one that produces a white even crumb and deeply bronzed crust that we break and slather with maple-fig compound butter. The son of an organic farmer, chef Adam Loo speaks of the provenance of his ingredients with know-how. So generous are his dinners, they only pop up on occasion. When they do, you’re part of the family.

Beyond the hot pink neon sign of this former fish ’n’ chips spot, our convivial server walks us through a menu that playfully steps far past these cozy neighbourhood digs. The 20 seats are all filled with folks keen for more from D.O.P. alum Jaden Kanomata, Alessandro Chinea and Kayla Blomquist. Hamachi crudo lands in Calabrian chili oil with a fine confetti of cilantro and shallot. Cabbage skewers, grilled until their edges curl, bathe in a remarkable sesame vinaigrette, wasabi mustard there for extra oomph. The spaghetti with chicken jus and duck confit is utter comfort without any heaviness.

It’s handsome here at the latest from Daniel Costa, a modish offshoot of menswear destination Henry Singer. Servers don V-necked white coats in the style of Northern Italian barmen. The chairs are sinuous rolled chrome around tufted velvet. We nibble on potato chips from a silver dish. They’re more bronzed than golden, dusted in fennel pollen, rosemary, salt and a suggestion of sugar. We follow with a pink-on-pink-on-pink ensemble: crisped rounds of cotechino (sausage with pork and rind), flattered by a veil of pickled Treviso radicchio and lucent cherry mostarda. To end, frosted tumblers of Cardamaro and spoonfuls of tiramisu.

Every plate leaving the kitchen at Bar Prima passes in front of a design manifesto, which begins: “Believe in your f*cking self.” A heady mix of determination and bygone glamour (a gleaming Murano glass wall casts amber tones across the room) are what make Prima a primo spot, where classics like beef tartare come spruced up on a bed of chives, laced with fermented chili and punctuated with expletive-worthy sardine and bone marrow cream. You’ll f*cking believe in Bar Prima.

Photo: Rick O’Brien

With pinkies out, we pincer Spam pops from vintage English china, the wink to a res staple gratifyingly fried crisp with panko and garnished with strands of lemon zest and sprigs of flat-leaf parsley. A carryover from Svitlana Kravchuk and Scott Iserhoff’s trailblazing Pei Pei Chei Ow, the brisket with ​​Saskatoon berries is a standout, now on shareable rounds of grilled bannock. In another elegant play on tradition, charred​​ octopus coils upon dandelion greens and white navy beans, both puréed and whole. For after-meal tea, a sentimental taste of ​​Red Rose and sweetgrass in the latte.

The cat’s out of the bag. Once a pop-up at Terre Restaurant in Alt Hotel, Black Cat Pizzeria is now serving up its Detroit-style pies from its own downtown digs – complete with a homey cherry tomato and chili garden in the front window. Toppings here include Rhubarbecue Chicken (featuring housemade rhubarb barbecue sauce), Bacon Jam Chanterelle and of course, donair sauce. But the best way to appreciate the texture on chef Albin Jose Toms’ naturally fermented sourdough crust is to stick with basics – classic cheese or pepperoni – edge slices preferred.

Prepare for a seafood master class. After running an impressive offering of oysters, our server gestures to gleaming fish hanging tails up in a dry-aging cabinet, where flavour and texture deepen by the day. The main turf to Bravo’s surf are seasonal vegetables, like the Big Salad (yes, a Seinfeld reference), or burrata in kale gremolata and braised tomatoes. But we’re here for the surf. We go straight for the fan-favourite Tofino King Salmon, aged for at least seven days, laid in a mosaic over maple-ginger dressing.

I press the button for service at a kitchen stall in Victoria Public Market and moments later I’m lit up with the fiery lick of a proper chai, ginger and cardamom at the fore. A parade of dishes arrives at communal tables: clay pots of fish chatty choru, flaky egg puffs and lacy rice hoppers. The Kerala Pepper Beef Roast has plentiful spice, yet bestows only a gentle prickle of heat, like the flicker of a tropical sun. The gravy, sticky with onions, garlic, tomatoes and ginger, is deftly mollified by coconut oil. Southwest India seems that bit closer.

This Vieux-Hull resto feels like the home of a very fashionable friend. Large windows run the walls, and terra cotta floors lay the base for white-tile tables topped with sprays of fresh carnations. The effect? Casual, yet chic. The food is the same. Take the Îles-de-la-Madeleine scallop crudo, effortlessly draped in salsa bianca under a rubble of puffed wild rice. But the real focus here is fresh pasta. A vision of spring, the garden-green cavatelli dons a rustic ragù bianco with accents of Labrador tea, sowing the seeds of an all-seasons friendship.

Photo: Kit Photos

Flagrant pink sky cutting through the open window jives perfectly with the burnt peach moscatel tinaja in my glass and the orange corduroy banquette at this popular brasserie near Jean-Talon Market. P-Funk grooves from the speakers before Gilberto Gil takes over with a samba. We linger over a riff on vitello tonnato. Prosciutto cotto sidles in for veal, the tonnato sauce kept nimble by clusters of pickled mustard seeds, while slinky asparagus, lithe shavings of fennel and a shake of piment d’espelette add style.

The fried chicken here is in a league of its own: deeply craggy and irrevocably crunchy, with the kind of crackle that remains just as loud as a leftover eaten straight from the fridge. There won’t be leftovers, though – not with the smoky hot honey glaze that hits first, nor the hum of deep and dark spices, broken only by the twang of pickled jalapeños. Latin American, Caribbean and Creole flavours ebb and flow through the kitchen, culminating in a masterfully seasoned braised beef. And that scotch bonnet sauce? Unmissable.

Even on a Wednesday, no less than three birthday desserts light up nearby tables. It’s true: Every visit to Little Italy’s Contrada is an occasion. This one calls for a Northern Exposure, an elixir of Havana Club 3 Años rum, grapefruit cordial, Peychaud’s bitters and – the kicker – butter, poured over ice and lime zest. Next, a wedge salad reimagined with ’nduja, plump peeled marinated tomatoes and a creamy anchovy dressing. For dessert, imagine a butter tart back from a sojourn in Sicily, bronzed with pistachio praline and sunshiny orange curd. Happy birthday.

Photo: Rick O’Brien

At this one-two punch of an eatery, the day begins with Cloe Wiebe’s naturally leavened boules and blink-and-you-miss-them viennoiseries, from her famed featherweight crullers to a heavy-hitting prosciutto and Gruyère croissant. An hour before noon, Andrew Koropatnick clocks in with sandwiches on split housemade pizza bianca, shareable pastas, salads and supplì. We dig into the hand-cut tagliolini, with strands just rough enough to help the slurry of woodsy morel butter cling a little closer. It’s royally effective. All hail the Queen and King.

The menu at this Yaletown hot spot is chockablock with crowd-pleasers, so we take our cues from our server. She’s a character and the busy terrace might as well be a stage. She starts us off with beef tataki in a butter soy sauce, finished with crispy shallots and leafy cilantro. We know we’re in good hands as she delivers roasted Brussels sprouts in black garlic aioli, festooned with garlands of grana padano. Radiatori stands in for noodles in the carbonara, partnered with a sous-vide egg to burst for a bit of drama. Lemon tiramisu closes the curtain.

Restaurant group Banda Volpi’s fourth opening is all sun-bleached glam. In this former mechanic’s shop, the ceiling soars above a winding horseshoe bar and open kitchen, with sandy-toned banquettes meandering in between. The Elio Sour is a glass of sunset: blurred layers of grapefruit and hibiscus cordial, Tanqueray, ​​Lambrusco float and a cloud of foam. My main is just as vibrant. Striped bass, crisped skin intact, barely-soft veg – H​​akurei turnips, English peas and morels – aglow with citrus butter sauce. As the lights lower, a Sicilian mandarin sorbetto shines brighter than a Creamsicle on a hot night.

Photo: Ian Lanterman

We’re in the back, drinks on the table, retro-pop Generationals coming from the speakers. From a Saskatchewan-sourced roster that includes salt and pepper pickerel wings (a cheeky fish take on the chicken staple) and gochujang-cured egg yolk on beef tartare, the classic smash burger and tater tots have tough acts to follow. But Top Chef: World All-Stars alum Dale MacKay knows what he’s doing. Double patty. Frilled skirt. Melty onions. Meltier cheese. Creamy-tangy house sauce. Paprika-dredged potatoes with enough crunch to make BBQ Ruffles jealous. All hits, no skips.

A good rule for first-timers to this restaurant and butchery is to order the mixed grill: kitchen’s choice of housemade sausage and cuts of pork and beef paired with condiments. Tonight, the pork chop’s pearly fat cap sports a neon orange slash of aji amarillo, while Miami-cut short ribs wear a soy-garlic glaze down to their frizzled edges. These grace notes sing over a feel-good funk soundtrack. They carry across the menu to a scallion-ginger sauce that zips through rich hollandaise on asparagus and the bitter char of jalapeño mignonette against sweet cold-smoked B.C. honey mussels.

The jumping off point for Gary’s, the first restaurant from industry vets Bailey Hayward and Mathew Bishop, was a friends-only supper club. Now menu-carrying members, we lean back in our chairs and spring for the crudo, gem salad, hen-of-the-woods and rabbit. All warrant membership, but the roasted leg, in a consommé with petit garlic sausages and early-summer vegetables, is our runaway favourite. Broad ribbons of lightly-fermented sauerkraut are languid in a transparent broth, with a clarity that belies its depth of flavour.

A heady breath of cinnamon hangs in the air and on the tabletop, a hypnotizing motif swirls with umber and brown sands. The dishware is Tunisian. The water, poured from a curvaceous glass ibrik made in the mountains of Lebanon. Yet, the toum is milder than most, thanks to the wild garlic. Kibbeh nayyeh, a bulgur-enhanced tartare, is rosy with beef from PEI. There’s lobster instead of shrimp in the tamarind-tomato ghaliyeh maygoo stew and birch syrup anointing the baklava. With each plate, we cross between Southwest Asia and North Africa – by way of Little Burgundy.

In the span it takes to whoosh up the elevator to Île-de-France on the ninth floor of the Eaton Centre, we’re time-machine warped to 1931 and Montreal’s art deco heyday. Scalloped alcove walls, an oval bar, oak-and-walnut herringbone floors and potted palms set the stage for a menu as throwback as we had hoped – poached shrimp dangling off a coupe of Marie Rose sauce, hanger steak with piquant Café de Paris butter and baked oyster persillade.

Photo: Alison Slattery

The little sister to Charles-Antoine Crête and Cheryl Johnson’s nine-year-old Montréal Plaza lives up to its playful lineage. Toy dinosaurs oversee the oyster service, presented on a Triassic-sized scallop shell platter. Laced with basil, the strawberry spritz conjures a summertime lick of a Jolly Rancher. Splatter-painted mustard serves as the backdrop to bacon-wrapped cocktail sausages. Poppadoms fall aside to reveal a Smurfian terrain of crisped lamb flank carpeted in mint, parsley and black olives, with dots of lemon-confit labneh here and there. Dessert comes, and it’s two Goglu cookies sandwiched around maple ice cream. We grin like kids.

This verdant haven on Main Street (complete with a not-so-secret garden out back) comes from long-time friends Meeru Dhalwala, head chef and co-founder of Vij’s, and Shira Blustein, founder of the Acorn. Vegetable-forward though not vegetarian, the menu delivers on its promise of sustainable, playfully modern Indian dishes: portobello mushrooms in onion curry with paneer, a thatch of grated beets tossed with creamy fenugreek chutney and walnuts, or mango custard stained with a not-too-sweet B.C. blueberry sauce – a fresh fruit pairing with an unexpected affinity.

Photo: Michelle Sproule

The sign reads Three Boars, but this veggie-forward abode is Little Wolf’s little house now. We pick the front porch to enjoy Shaun Hicks’ smart and compact menu, built with uncommon creativity. He piles cremini mushrooms, glossy with salsa macha, on toasted sunflower seed butter, flecked with the juicy bite of pickled raisins. Black cod belly is balanced on fermented chunks of tomato and cucumber, set in their collected juices and ​​makrut leaf coconut oil. We tip our bowls to spoon out the last sip. It blows the house down.

“When you put okonomiyaki on the menu, it creates expectations,” our server says with a wry grin. That may be true in most places. On the menu of a farmhouse restaurant in the foothills of the Laurentians, it upends them. But here we are. Both crunchy and custardy, the Japanese cabbage pancake is served without traditional ingredients like bonito flakes or dashi because here, nearly everything is cultivated on the 600-acre property. Instead, dulse seaweed and lacto-fermented shiitakes grown in Quebec reimagine the fishy umami of the former and the depth of the latter. The mouthwatering result is neither here nor there. Like everything made in a kitchen guided by the land and seasons, it’s now.

As we cross paths outside Martine’s, an old friend tells me I have to order the bavette au poivre and the pasta, which I know means the gnocchetti Sardi with lobster and saffron bisque. Grant van Gameren’s latest is a little Woodlot and Harry’s Charbroiled, remade into a proper hangout with good wine. We go with the Lambrusco and nibble on Tokyo turnips, their vegetal earthiness brought to full effect by long pepper and bonito. On the way out, another run-in with a clutch of pals at the bar beneath the mezzanine. “You have to order the pasta,” I begin.

The buoyant din of conversation seems far away from my bar perch overlooking the open kitchen where six burners, two charcoal grills and three chefs add up to Korean-Japanese alchemy. Call it Mhel math. From the choreography of close quarters, a curved bowl of kanpachi sashimi with charred broccolini appears, then a stack of chef Hoon Ji’s family-recipe kimchi, followed by a still-sizzling chicken thigh. My lips reverberate with a touch of sansho peppercorn. It’s a touch of magic.

Order the bread, our waiter insists more than suggests. Not only because it’s from nearby Boulangerie Louise, but because not a drop of sauce should be left unrelished. Not the cloudlike tarragon emulsion that cloaks an eight-minute-20-second egg, still translucent at its centre, nor the horseradish dill cream that pools around barely-torched trout, made deeply savoury by everything bagel spice and trout roe. That said, the chunky frites – cut in the platonic ideal of a proper chip, all fluff inside crunch – would handily get the job done, too.

Photo: Alison Slattery

Thirty clicks south of St. John’s, the sun is setting across the bay from the Bread & Cheese Country Inn’s expansive windows. Dinner is done, six Spanish-laced courses, and chef Pablo Martinez is telling our communal table that, in a Valencian paella, the rice should be one grain deep. We’ve just enjoyed his rendition made with salt cod stock, turbot fillets on top. We may have pushed our forks to rescue every precious centimetre of socarrat (the perfectly scorched bottom layer), but we still found room for the faultless Basque cheesecake from co-owner Paula Hanna.

Quebec’s lauded pastry chef, Patrice Demers, plucks sorrel straight from the garden for his amuse-bouche — an invigorating sip of the leafy herb blitzed with cucumber and gooseberry. The cobalt blue cutlery rests, sommelier Marie-Josée Beaudoin explains, were handmade by the couple. Intention thrives behind every detail at this brilliant 14-seater offering tea and dinner services. How the blue carries through to bendy light fixtures, or how the praline sparkles and pops with every bite of 90-percent-fruit strawberry sorbet, vanilla cream and pistachio cake dessert.

Photo: Patrice Demers

Everyone here seems to be a regular, and we’re treated to the same breezy hospitality and big smiles as if we are, too. The dining room is without era: an upright piano (the owners, previously of Toronto bar The Gaslight, keep it tuned), fresh flowers spring from vintage apothecary bottles and wood panelling evokes the comfort of a 1970s rumpus room. The menu is just as timeless, with beef patties ensconced in D​ay-Glo yellow butter pastry, pickled eggs with hot sauce, lick-your-fingers hoisin chicken wings and churros with dulce de leche for the dunking.

All action at this uplevelled KBBQ spot is in the booths, where waitstaff slide in and out to grill and serve house-dry-aged meats, seafood and seasonal veg. But first, the seafood pancake: crisp and pillowy, with a soy vinaigrette (amped with gochugaru) that deserves its own fan club. A banchan salad, another scene-stealer, arrives fluffy with chrysanthemum, cabbage, watercress and herbs. The finale? Milky, Candy Land-fantasy shaved ice (bingsoo), heaped on a foundation of compressed rhubarb, strawberry and citrusy sudachi and doused in strawberry purée.

Inside the walls of Fort Langley National Historic Site, a welcoming room of wood beams serves as chef and Sayisi Dene First Nation member Sarah Meconse Mierau’s new base for bannock. The first bite, still fryer-hot and steaming, is crenelated crisp, giving way to a stretchy-tender interior burnished with sweetness. An icy sip of sweetgrass strawberry lemonade follows. Balanced and herbaceous, it’s offered as plant medicine. In these digs and at her food truck, Tradish, offerings like corn, squash and bean-layered Three Sisters bannock tacos and raspberry dandelion tea nourish through tradition.