2015

Best Seafood 2015

Best Seafood winners of Vancouver Magazine's 26th Annual Restaurant Awards

By John Burns /

Best Seafood winners of Vancouver Magazine’s 26th Annual Restaurant Awards

  • Gold: Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar
  • Silver: Yew Seafood + Bar
  • Bronze: Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar
  • Honourable Mentions: Landmark Hot Pot House, Zest

 Seemingly no other seafood-focused room can unseat Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar from its Gold throne. Our judges praised its “exceptional consistency,” owing in large part to chef Frank Pabst, who “still works the line and constantly adjusts the menu to combine old favourites—sometimes in a slightly different guise—and new dishes.” Cooked dishes are ingeniously composed, but the sheer freshness of Blue Water’s fish means simplicity wins out: a plate of oysters or a seafood tower offers literal raw pleasure. Yew Seafood + Bar (Silver) has continued to improve by leaps and bounds under the direction of chef Ned Bell, whose commitment to sustainable practices (see Green Award) doesn’t negate commitments to “never compromising quality and being continuously innovative.” Vegan lunch and dinner menus, plus one of the city’s most comfortable bars, with a revamped cocktail list, make Yew extra inclusive and a prime spot for unwinding post-work. Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar (Bronze) opened with much fanfare last year and was judged to be “a hotel restaurant with a difference”—an impressively sprawling room, a something-for-everyone menu, and a superlative selection of organic, sustainable, and local wines. Honourable Mentions: Landmark Hot Pot House, Zest