Botanist: a Fairmont kitchen that follows the seasons

Botanist fills the second floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim with a set of rooms built around the idea of botany: a dining room, a cocktail bar with its own laboratory, a glass-walled garden and a TASCHEN library. At the pass is executive chef Amanda Healey, who came home to Vancouver after seven years in Australia with a single plan: cook the Pacific Northwest and tell the stories of the people who grow it.

Seven years away, one plan on the way back

Before Australia, she had already spent four or five years cooking in Vancouver, working at Hawksworth and leading the kitchen at Royal Dinette, and the city stayed with her. In Australian kitchens she kept bringing it up with her own chefs, from the Okanagan stone fruit to everything else coming out of British Columbia, convinced that nothing elsewhere matched it. Her résumé from those years includes Quay in Sydney, Mount Mulligan Lodge in Queensland and Oncore by Clare Smyth, where she was sous chef at a three Chef Hat restaurant.

Coming back, she wanted to cook alongside the farmers and friends she had worked with before. When she looked over the city’s restaurants, Botanist fit best: a fine dining setup that understands where it sits, which lets her say of an ingredient, “this grew up the road, this grew on the island.” The hotel adds its own pull. Guests arrive with high expectations of the property, and when the kitchen exceeds them, she says, they come back.

Botanist : Beating last season’s favourites

The menu follows the seasons. The chef was finalizing the fall menu at the time of the interview, with winter to come after it, and each change teaches her cooks what seasonal cooking really asks of them. After years in Australia, where the seasons are less defined and most ingredients are available all year, she enjoys watching the leaves turn and the menu turn with them.

Her summer sablefish and lamb drew the warmest feedback, and both are leaving with the season. The lamb was served as Alberta loin with ricotta gnudi, Hakurei turnip and lamb pancetta. “As great as that is, I now need to beat it,” she says, and she is looking forward to surprising people again. Whatever replaces them, the plate stays rooted in the region, from the main ingredient down to what sits beside it. Her fish arrive from Vancouver Island, and she is excited to share what she knows about the region’s produce, such as the hazelnut, the only nut grown commercially in British Columbia.

Curves, plants and a ceiling of folded paper

Botanist is open to everyone, hotel guest or not. The Fairmont Pacific Rim sits in Coal Harbour, a block from the waterfront and surrounded by harbour and mountain views, with the North Shore mountains and Stanley Park close at hand. Art begins on the facade, where text wraps the building, and continues inside with a light sculpture of illuminated leaves at the entrance and street photography in the lobby.

On the second floor, the dining room runs on limestone, whitewashed wood and metalwork, with plants climbing through, and a flowing S-shaped banquette in pale pink winds through the middle. The open kitchen puts shelves of preserved and pickled goods on display. Overhead, a 180-foot origami light sculpture by Joseph Wu spans the ceiling, carried over from the restaurant that occupied the space before.

Around the dining room sit the cocktail bar, finished in Italian terrazzo with a darker palette of black, navy and brass, and a garden behind glass planted with more than 50 varieties of plants. The chef points to the curves of the room, the banquette seating and the artwork overhead as the source of its softness: “it feels inviting, and it feels happy.” What sets Botanist apart, in her view, is the room and the people in it, a team that cares about the place and kitchen colleagues who push on together.

A temperance pairing between the wine list and the bar

Matthew Jacobson, the head sommelier, runs a terroir-driven wine program with a focus on British Columbia. His team offers a Canadian pairing and an international pairing alongside the by-the-glass and bottle lists. A temperance pairing is also offered, a non-alcoholic version that moves between the wine team and the bar team to highlight each dish, which suits the many diners who, as the chef notes, seem to be skipping alcohol these days.

The bar program, under creative beverage director Grant Sceney, ranks 38th on North America’s 50 Best Bars in 2026. The cocktails lean on the same regional pantry, as in the Beekeeper, made with Canadian rye, honey, lemon, candy cap mushrooms and yellow chartreuse.

Botanist : Always a great experience

For the months and years ahead, the chef wants Botanist to be a place everyone wants to be in, so that the name alone promises a beautiful experience. The menu will keep rotating through the year, from fall into winter, and she is already looking forward to the new energy of spring. For her, the goal comes down to consistency: guests who walk in expecting a great experience and find one, which she would call “a win in anyone’s books.”

Written by Marie-Françoise Malo
Photography by Ema Peter

Updated on October 29, 2026

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