Today, Tastet Vancouver is officially live (!!!), and we get to say it with National Bank right beside us. Tastet was born in Montreal, and I am so happy to be writing this from the other side of the country.
Why Vancouver
Vancouver was an easy yes. The Pacific shapes what lands on the plate here, Asian cuisines are part of everyday eating, neighbourhood restaurants sit a few blocks from long-standing institutions, and a newer generation of restaurateurs keeps opening places with a point of view. The diversity of the city shows up in the food on nearly every street. We have only started scratching the surface, and we are impatient to keep going!
We never land somewhere pretending to know it. Tastet has always run on one rule: we only recommend places we truly love and places that meet our criteria analysis grid. Restaurants never pay to be recommended, and a visit or a meeting never guarantees an article.
We also try to answer more than “is it good?” Good for which craving, which budget, which occasion, which neighbourhood, which kind of evening? That is the question behind every address we publish. A city takes time to get to know, so Vancouver will keep growing on Tastet with new addresses, lists and discoveries over the coming months.
It takes a village
As in every new city, we surrounded ourselves with people who live its food scene every day. Our Vancouver Taste Makers are Alex Kim (Five Sails), Angus An (Maenam, Sainam, Mekong, Fat Mao) and Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson (Published on Main). They help us understand the city, its neighbourhoods, its institutions, its new openings, its quieter corners and the restaurants that matter to Vancouver. We also partnered with the Chinese Restaurant Association Award to make sure we cover the wonderful and diversity of Chinese restaurants the city has to offer. Finally, Scout Magazine was already in Vancouver doing a wonderful job and so we have partnered with Michelle Sproule, its owner, who has been covering the food scene for almost 20 years. Michelle will be our eyes (and mouth) on the ground and we are very proud of this partnership.
We do not claim to know Vancouver better than the people who eat and live here. We chose to work with the ones who do.
Scott Usheroff (@cravingcurator) is behind the camera for the launch Tastet Vancouver. He has worked with us before, especially for our Toronto launch, and he once more plays a big part in how this city looks on Tastet. Working with the community, rather than showing up from outside with all the answers, is how we want to do this.
Tastet Vancouver : the launch party
We are celebrating the launch with a dinner at Fishman, cooked together with three chefs: Jean-Christophe Poirier, Bo Li and one of our Taste Makers, Angus An, who joins us at the stove for the night. The idea was simple. Put some of the people who keep Vancouver’s food scene alive around the same table, and celebrate our arrival with them.
The evening is our way of celebrating the food scene and the people who make it happen. When we did the same in Toronto, one of the chefs told us: “The people here are never in the same room at the same time eating at the same table.” He was right. People in this industry spend their days and nights cooking for everyone else, working incredibly hard, and they rarely get to share a table with each other. We wanted to give something back by doing something special for them and recognizing that work.
We want to give readers the best recommendations we can, and we also want to show some love to the people behind them.
Thank you to our partners
This expansion exists because National Bank believes in Tastet. They support us as we grow across Canada, and that support lets us do it while keeping our editorial independence and our mission intact. National Bank is also a partner of the launch event in Vancouver. Thank you for trusting us with this.
A launch dinner takes many hands. A special thank you to our sponsors of the night: San Pellegrino, Lyft, Massey Wines, OpenTable, Mirvik and The Beverage Collective.
What Tastet Vancouver offers you
Whether you live in Vancouver or are just visiting, Tastet Vancouver is here to help you decide where to go based on your craving, your budget, the occasion, the neighbourhood and the kind of experience you want. Every recommendation is editorial and independent, and nothing is advertising in disguise. It starts today and it will keep filling out.
Five cities, and more coming
Tastet started in Montreal. Today it lives in five markets: Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. Looking at that list makes me proud of the people who got us here. The story continues in 2027 with Edmonton, Calgary and Halifax.
What drives us is becoming the reference for anyone who wants to discover a city the way someone who lives there does: through real visits, real recommendations, local knowledge and zero paid placement. Vancouver is a major step on that road, and we are still at the beginning of it.
Tastet Vancouver is now live on tastet.ca. Now, let’s eat!
Élise and the whole team at Tastet
Written by Valérie Boutet
Photography by Alison Slattery
