The Vancouver restaurants that got Michelin approval

The Michelin guide has released its first Vancouver edition, awarding eight restaurants, including Published on Main, with the prestigious one-star rating.Sarah Annand/Handout

Vancouverites, get ready to make some dinner plans. The prestigious Michelin guide officially launched in Vancouver, awarding eight restaurants with a coveted star. Another 12 restaurants earned the Bib Gourmand designation, which recognizes “good value” eateries that are more affordable.

There are a total of four categories: Three stars, two stars, one star and Bib Gourmand. No Vancouver restaurants were awarded three or two-star designations.

The Michelin guide made its Canadian debut in Toronto last month, awarding the high-end Japanese restaurant Sushi Masaki Saito with two stars, and 12 restaurants with one star each.

Eight Vancouver restaurants receive prestigious Michelin honours

While Michelin stars are a boon for local businesses and bring excitement to a local food scene, the guide has also faced pushback in recent years. It’s been criticized as elitist and Eurocentric, and as The Globe’s food reporter Ann Hui writes, it’s also been revealed that some guides were at least partly funded by local tourism boards.

The guide is compiled by Michelin “inspectors”, as the organization calls its food critics, who visit restaurants anonymously and pay for their own meals to ensure they’re treated like average customers. The inspectors’ exact judging criteria are kept a secret, but are based on quality of products, expertise of cooking techniques, the personality of the chef represented in the dining experience, harmony of flavours and consistency between inspectors’ visits.

Here is the full list of Michelin-ranked restaurants in Vancouver, along with The Globe’s reviews over the years.

One star

AnnaLena

Type of cuisine: Contemporary

Chef: Mike Robbins

Neighbourhood: Kitsilano (1809 W 1st Ave.)

What The Globe said in 2015: “I feel ambivalent toward the kitchen. Mike Robbins is a serious chef with great potential. He is going to be a star, mark my words.”

Barbara

Type of cuisine: Modern-classical West Coast

Chef: Patrick Hennessy

Neighbourhood: Chinatown (305 E Pender St.)

What The Globe said in 2022: “Chef [Patrick Henessey] doesn’t have much time to chat, but the personal touch of having him deliver each plate with a fulsome description of every scratch-made ingredient, composed in a carefully orchestrated dance just a few steps away, gives the experience a rare sense of social intimacy that the pandemic has largely denied.”

Burdock & Co

Type of cuisine: Contemporary

Chef: Andrea Carlson

Neighbourhood: Mount Pleasant (2702 Main St.)

What The Globe said in 2013: “This refined-yet-rustic Main Street charmer is a shining reflection of progressive local tastes.”

iDen & Quan Ju De Beijing Duck House

Type of cuisine: Chinese

Chef: Allen Ren

Neighbourhood: Mount Pleasant (2808 Cambie St.)

What The Globe said in 2021: “I do not have one bad thing to say about the Beijing duck (also known, but not properly) as Peking duck. It is expensive, at $98 a duck, but not out of line with any other Beijing ducks in Vancouver.”

Kissa Tanto

Type of cuisine: Japanese-Italian

Chef: Joel Watanabe

Neighbourhood: Chinatown (263 E Pender St.)

What The Globe said in 2016: “Kissa Tanto hits a high note on every level. It is the most significant restaurant to open in Vancouver for quite some time. It is fully of the place, yet progressive and pushing forward. It is the hot spot du jour, and likely will be for many years to come.”

Masayoshi

Type of cuisine: Japanese

Chef: Masayoshi Baba

Neighbourhood: Mountain View (4376 Fraser St.)

What The Globe said in 2016: “Masayoshi, a small 24-seat Mountain View dining room, has garnered the patronage of many local chefs and industry folk since opening in August. They don’t come for the modest black-and-white decor, or the leisurely – sometimes haphazard – service. They come for [chef Masayoshi] Baba’s exquisitely detailed – often sublime – cooking.”

Published on Main

Type of cuisine: West Coast modern

Chef: Gus Stieffenhofer-Brandson

Neighbourhood: Mount Pleasant (3593 Main St.)

What The Globe said in 2020: “What really stands out is the exquisite balance in every bite, especially those incorporating extreme flavours that might be jarring with fewer tweaks and less finesse… The cooking is experimental, yet accessible. Painstakingly detailed, but not precious.”

St. Lawrence

Type of cuisine: French

Chef: Jean-Christophe Poirier

Neighbourhood: Japantown (269 Powell St.)

What The Globe said in 2017: “Welcome to St. Lawrence, a seductive slice of haute country cooking from La Belle Province (with detours into France) where rich meat sauces, excellent terrines, luscious creams and decadent pastries are celebrated unlike anywhere else in the city.”

Bib Gourmands

The Michelin guide inspectors also awarded 12 restaurants with the Bib Gourmand designation. The Bib Gourmand recognizes “good quality, good value restaurants” where diners can have two courses and a glass or wine or dessert for under $60.

Here is the full list of Bib Gourmands: