Restaurant in Vancouver, Canada
Four courses, Québécois backbone, hard to book.
St. Lawrence is the strongest case for a multi-course dinner in Vancouver at the $$$$ tier. The four-course Québécois-French table d'hôte — ranked #125 on OAD's 2025 North America list — gives you tasting-menu progression with individual choice. Booking is genuinely hard; plan several weeks ahead. The February cabane à sucre menu is a specific seasonal reason to time your visit carefully.
St. Lawrence is the strongest case for booking a tasting-format dinner in Vancouver right now. The four-course table d'hôte structure at this Québécois-French restaurant on Powell Street gives you the architecture of a tasting menu with the freedom of individual choice — a format that outperforms the fixed omakase-style experiences you'll find at Masayoshi if you want agency over what lands in front of you. Ranked #125 on Opinionated About Dining's 2025 North America list and carrying 76 points on La Liste 2026, this is one of the most credentialled restaurants in the city, and the experience justifies the price tier. If you're eating at the $$$$ level in Vancouver, this should be near the leading of your list.
The menu at St. Lawrence is built around the logic of classical French cuisine refracted through a Québécois sensibility — which in practice means dishes that use sweetness as a structural element rather than a finishing flourish. Crispy pig ears tossed in maple syrup and spices (oreilles de crisse) and a savoury éclair filled with duck liver mousse are the kind of optional additions that reveal the kitchen's personality: confident, rich, and unafraid of indulgence in the technical French sense. These are not decorative touches but deliberate anchors for the meal's flavour arc.
The four courses move from thoughtful canapés through to more substantial plates , charcoal-grilled duck with chou-farci and wheat berries is the kind of main that shows classical training applied to local ingredients , and close with dessert built around maple. The maple St-Honoré with Chantilly and caramel is the dish that recurs across sources covering this restaurant, which is a reliable signal that it earns its position at the end of the meal. Delicate fresh pasta, such as a version stuffed with Tomme de Savoie, peas and onion broth, appears in the middle courses and shows the kitchen's range beyond the Franco-Canadian register.
Dishes rotate to reflect what's available from small British Columbia producers. In spring and summer, that means lamb, fava beans, asparagus, and rhubarb driving the menu's direction. If you're visiting in February, the cabane à sucre menu is worth scheduling around: the kitchen produces refined versions of cretons, fèves au lard, and tourtière that are as close to a Québec sugar shack tradition as you'll find on the west coast. That's a specific seasonal reason to book, not just general praise.
The dining room is small and carefully put together, with a semi-open kitchen and a front bar that functions as a genuine pre-dinner option rather than a holding area. The bar is worth knowing about for two reasons: it gives solo diners a viable seat (more on that below), and it puts you in proximity to one of the more considered beverage programs in Vancouver. David Lawson's wine list leans toward low-intervention and biodynamic bottles , the kind of selection that rewards explorers who want to drink something beyond the expected French canon. The zero-proof beverage menu is among the most developed in the city, including non-alcoholic preparations that make use of kitchen byproducts (a non-alcoholic gin with lemon and fennel juice pressed from stalks that would otherwise be composted, for example). Whether you drink alcohol or not, the beverage pairing options here add real value to the meal.
St. Lawrence is hard to book. The room is small, the restaurant has been operating since 2017 with consistent critical recognition, and demand has not softened. Plan for a booking window of several weeks minimum, particularly for Friday and Saturday evenings. The restaurant is closed Mondays. If your dates are flexible, Tuesday through Thursday gives you the leading chance of securing a reservation on shorter notice. The front bar provides walk-in potential for solo diners or pairs willing to sit there, but do not count on it for a party of three or more.
Among Vancouver's $$$$ restaurants, St. Lawrence occupies a specific position: the most credentialled French-influenced tasting experience in the city, with more international recognition than AnnaLena or Kissa Tanto, and a menu format that gives you more choice than a pure tasting menu without sacrificing the progression of a structured meal. Against Masayoshi, the comparison is cuisine-dependent: if Japanese precision is your preference, go there; if you want French-Canadian cooking at its most technically serious in Vancouver, St. Lawrence wins that comparison directly. Barbara and iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House serve different enough formats that the comparison is less direct , St. Lawrence is the better option when you specifically want a multi-course evening built around French and Québécois cooking.
In a broader Canadian context, St. Lawrence sits comfortably alongside Alo in Toronto and Tanière³ in Quebec City as one of the French-rooted tasting experiences worth building a trip around. Compared to Jérôme Ferrer - Europea in Montreal, St. Lawrence is the more focused, smaller-scale option , better for intimate dinners, harder to book, and more ingredient-driven in its current form. For a meal with comparable French technical ambition outside Canada, Le Bernardin in New York City is the obvious reference point for classical precision, though the format and price tier differ significantly.
St. Lawrence is the right call if you want a structured multi-course dinner with genuine Québécois identity, strong beverage options, and a room that feels like a real restaurant rather than a concept. It rewards diners who engage with the menu rather than eating on autopilot , the flavour combinations are deliberate and the seasonal ingredient sourcing gives you a reason to return across different times of year. For special occasions, the format and credential level support the investment. For a more casual $$$$ evening, Kissa Tanto is a better fit. If you're planning a broader Vancouver dining trip, see our full Vancouver restaurants guide for context on how St. Lawrence sits within the city's wider options, alongside hotels, bars, and experiences.
Yes, with a caveat on strategy. The front bar is your leading option as a solo diner , it puts you in the room without requiring a table reservation, which is otherwise difficult to secure for one. The four-course table d'hôte format works well solo because choice is built into the structure. If you want a guaranteed solo seat, try a Tuesday or Wednesday and ask specifically about bar availability when booking.
St. Lawrence only serves dinner, Tuesday through Sunday from 5 PM. There is no lunch service. If you want a daytime French-influenced meal in Vancouver at the $$$$ tier, you'll need to look elsewhere. For dinner, earlier seatings (around 5–6 PM) give you a quieter room and more attention from the kitchen during the first seating.
Strongly yes. The four-course format, credential set (La Liste, OAD Top 125 in North America), and the calibre of the beverage program make this one of the most appropriate special-occasion restaurants in Vancouver at the $$$$ tier. The room is small and the atmosphere is convivial rather than stiff, which makes it a better choice than more formal alternatives if you want the meal to feel celebratory rather than ceremonial. Book well in advance , this is not a last-minute option for a Saturday night.
Yes. The front bar is a genuine dining option, not just a waiting area. It's the most accessible route into the restaurant for walk-ins or short-notice visitors, particularly solo diners or pairs. The full menu is available at the bar. Given the difficulty of securing a table reservation, the bar is worth considering as your primary plan rather than a fallback, especially on weeknights.
Based on verified sources, the oreilles de crisse (crispy pig ears with maple syrup and spices) and the savoury éclair with duck liver mousse are the most consistently mentioned optional additions and worth ordering if the kitchen is offering them. The maple St-Honoré with Chantilly and caramel recurs across coverage of the restaurant as the dessert to finish on. If you're visiting in February, the cabane à sucre menu replaces the standard format and is worth booking specifically for , the kitchen's versions of tourtière and fèves au lard are among the more distinctive things you can eat in Vancouver during that period.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Lawrence | $$$$ · French | $$$$ | Hard |
| AnnaLena | $$$$ · Contemporary | $$$$ | Unknown |
| iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House | $$$$ · Chinese | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Kissa Tanto | $$$$ · Fusion | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Masayoshi | $$$$ · Japanese | $$$$ | Unknown |
| Published on Main | $$$ · Contemporary | $$$ | Unknown |
What to weigh when choosing between St. Lawrence and alternatives.
The front bar at St. Lawrence is the move for solo diners — it functions as a genuine pre-dinner and dining option rather than a waiting area, and the semi-open kitchen keeps things engaging. The four-course table d'hôte format works well alone since you're choosing within a structured menu rather than navigating a large à la carte list. At $$$$ pricing, solo seats at the bar are easier to secure than a full table, which matters given how difficult this room is to book.
Dinner is your only option — St. Lawrence opens at 5 PM Tuesday through Sunday and is closed Monday. There is no lunch service. Book accordingly, and plan for 5 PM if you want the best chance at a table without months of lead time.
Yes, and it's one of the stronger cases in Vancouver for a milestone dinner. The four-course table d'hôte format gives the meal a clear arc without locking you into a single set menu, and the room is small and carefully put together. It carries La Liste Top Restaurants recognition in both 2025 and 2026, which means the credential holds up if that matters to your group. Book well in advance — the room fills fast and the restaurant has operated at consistent demand since 2017.
Yes. The front bar is a functioning part of the dining operation, not just a holding area, and it's the most practical entry point for solo diners or last-minute visitors who couldn't secure a table. It also gives you proximity to the semi-open kitchen, which adds to the experience rather than diminishing it.
The menu changes frequently to reflect seasonal B.C. ingredients, so specific dishes vary — but the four-course table d'hôte is the format to follow. Documented signature items include oreilles de crisse (crispy pig ears in maple syrup and spices) and a duck liver mousse éclair, both available as supplements for those who want more richness. If you're visiting in February, the cabane à sucre menu featuring cretons, fèves au lard, and tourtière is a specific reason to book that month. The zero-proof beverage menu is also worth considering — it's among the more developed non-alcoholic programs in the city.
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