More Eatery (Campbell River, BC)

A lifetime ago I wrote a rambling treatise on how to stay sane in the culinary industry. I’ll spare everyone and summarize what, back then I thought would save cooks from burning out in a pre-covid world that already had it in for our tortured little industry: Love. You really had to love eating and kitchen folk and the process of cleaning, prepping and transforming food. I’m ashamed to admit it but despite my own words etched into the internet, I abandoned my tribe nearly two years ago after losing the love.

Fortunately people much smarter, more resourceful and talented stuck around. People like Joe, Carmen and the team over at More Eatery love what they do and do a damn fine job of it. They opened a restaurant in the middle of the pandemic, in a small town that often doesn’t understand good food, in the abandoned location that housed a legendary local diner. Any one of these factors alone would have smothered a fledgling kitchen, but they quickly clawed their way to the top of the town’s eating scene and have had a regular clientele since, me included.

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Sessions Taproom and Kitchen (Campbell River, BC)

A couple days before our Ace Brewing adventure, our crew met up at a Campbell River joint to plan some of our holiday adventures. Sessions Taproom and Kitchen had been suggested to me numerous times but despite biking by it to and from work for two years I’d never had a chance to sit down and enjoy it’s hospitality.

Shame on me for such an oversight. Not only does Sessions deliver an exceptional lounge/drinking experience, but it has – I’m not messing around here – the best pizza in our town.

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Ace Brewing (Courtenay, BC)

During a couple days off this summer Crystal, me and our MTB buddies Jen and Sean spent a scorching afternoon thrashing around Hornby Island’s beautiful Mount Geoffrey trail network. After packing up the bikes the crew needed shade, food and alcohol and seeing as the local Meadery was closed we headed to nearby Courtenay where the breweries are plentiful and the IPAs flow like Mrya Falls.

The newest of these watering holes, Ace Brewing opened up in 2019 just in time to fill the vacuum left by the now- defunct Forbidden Brewing. This cemented Courtenay’s hipster cred as a two brewery town and gave people a place to enjoy craft beer and a bit of socially-distanced social time during the worst of the pandemic.

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Tacofino Will Change Your Life (Tofino, BC)

Tacofino requires no press from me. It’s the single place every Tofino native and tourist alike can agree to eat for lunch. It’s grown from a single taco truck parked behind a surf shop at the edge of the world to a multi-location empire stretching it’s delicious octopus-like tendrils all over the island and mainland. It’s food is always on point, so there is no reason to review it…

…Except it changed my life!

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Tojo’s (Vancouver, BC)

Tucked into an unassuming block of office buildings on Broadway, one of Vancouver’s busiest thoroughfares is a Tardis-like temple of Japanese gastronomy run by one of the planet’s most famous sushi chefs. This itamae titan is Hidekazu Tojo and unlike a lot of chefs with half a century of experience tucked under his apron he can be counted on to be at his restaurant nearly every day with a big smile to greet guests.  

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