Two Victoria eateries finalists in list of Canada’s ‘best new restaurants’

Victoria is no stranger to good eats, and our fair city has topped the list once more in some of the best of the best.

Air Canada has recently released their list of best restaurants for 2025, and two Victoria spots have made the cut as finalists.

The first is Janevca—inside Esquimalt’s turreted Rosemead house, a 1906 mansion straight out of Clue, Janevca is full-fledged dandyism.

Founder Lenny Moy restored the English Inn into a velvet-and-timber reverie, with antiques collected abroad: Savoy Hotel dishware, the Buckingham Palace gates from The Crown. The leaves of the dining room’s replica Japanese maple change seasonally.

A Douglas fir from the grounds was milled into tables, now arranged to reconstruct its silhouette. Fire defines chef Andrea Alridge’s cooking, her Filipino and Jamaican heritage voiced in family-style dishes. Charcoal-oil Castelvetrano olives and Hokkaido scallop crudo with pyanggang sauce lead to Haida Gwaii halibut. Pastry chef Brian Bradley’s Peach Melba is a trompe l’oeil—mousse for the fruit and chocolate for the pit.

At Janevca, everything feels possible.

Newer on the foodie scene of Victoria is Rabbit Rabbit, located in downtown Victoria on Herald Street.

Rabbit Rabbit is like a reward at the end of the day. Tucked into a heritage storefront, the room is a dream in maroon and puce, low light pooling across mosaic tile and the sweep of a bar. Owner Sydney Cooper’s wine list is a booklet of small producers bearing her own notes. She curates cocktails like a shimmering sangria, a blend of skin-contact wine, Japanese plum wine, and a splash of secrets.

The food, under Chef Billy Nguyen (Pizza Coming Soon, PiDGiN) reads like bar snacks, if bar snacks had ambitions and a passport. Find Filet-o-Fish bao on the afternoon menu, lasagna layered with gochujang bolognese and miso brown butter tomato sauce at night. Clever and whimsical, Rabbit Rabbit will leave you with the impression you’ve been out somewhere and into something.