Foraging and feasting

Vancouver rivals Toronto and Montreal for the title of food capital of Canada. You might think this is damning any of the cities with faint praise: Canada does not, after all, have a strong culinary tradition like France or Spain.

What they do have in British Columbia, however, is passion and plenty of high quality, fresh and locally sourced produce. Restaurants throughout the region have embraced the local philosophy.

Vancouver Island
One eatery that takes this to a delicious extreme is the Sooke Harbour House Inn, located on Vancouver Island, about 40 minutes drive from the capital of BC, Victoria. Much of what you'll find on the menu at the restaurant is grown in the garden and what isn't is caught in the bay or sourced from nearby farms. In fact, it won't serve food that doesn't occur naturally in BC, so no olive oil and no citrus, for instance. It does make a couple of exceptions in coffee and chocolate but even those wouldn't be missed as you sample dishes such as gazpacho with nasturtium flower oil or saddle of rabbit in chanterelle and sage broth.

Owner Sinclair Philip is one of the co-founders of the Vancouver Island convivium of the Slow Food project. The other is Mara Jernigan of Fairburn Farm who offers "culinary boot camps" in foraging, harvesting and cooking.

Foraging tours of a slightly different kind are offered by Tla-ook Cultural Adventures. Members of the
Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation take guests out canoeing and on a "wild grocery" walk, teaching them about the cultural history of the area, as well as which of the indigenous plant life is edible. You can sample the root of a fern that tastes like liquorice. Just don't chew it. It's not exactly Bassetts and can be very bitter.

Many restaurants source some of their ingredients from foragers, including the Wickaninnish Inn located near Tofino on Vancouver Island's west coast. The hotel's restaurant couldn't be closer to the ocean without actually being in it. The views from all the tables are stunning - get there before the sun goes down to appreciate it - and are matched by the food. Particularly recommended is the ginger and tamarind glazed sablefish with braised pork belly.

If you're staying at the hotel in July and August make sure you ask about the crab cookouts held on Chesterman beach.

Also in Tofino is SoBo, short for sophisticated bohemian, a phrase which sums up the food style of the place. Having begun life as a purple catering truck, the restaurant has won all sorts of awards and is recognised as one of the more exciting restaurants on the island. The smoked wild fish chowder is worth the trip to Tofino on its own and the "killer fish tacos" are renowned. On the day you go you will probably need only one of either lunch or dinner. The portions are extremely generous.

The menu at Aura, in Victoria, is experimental and the restaurant's aim is to make food fun. Most of it works very well, such as the wild mushroom risotto with citrus marinated feta, smoked tomato and tapenade. Some if it works less well, like the brioche served with raspberry butter, not for dessert but instead of the usual bread.

The Sunshine Coast
The residents of the Sunshine Coast are perhaps not quite as adventurous when it comes to food as those of Vancouver Island or Vancouver itself. It's an attitude that chef David Cox is trying to change at the Restaurant at the Painted Boat resort. The small menu offers fresh local produce, balancing accessible dishes with those with a bit more flair. Oysters were combined with strawberries and black pepper for an appetiser that tasted very much better than it sounds.

Another nearby restaurant producing high quality fare is Rock Water Secret Cove resort. The interior of the restaurant is looking slightly jaded but the food on the plate is not. The Roasted Sockeye Salmon with Maple sake glaze showed how much better salmon can be than the usual bland fare we get in the UK's supermarkets.

Vancouver and Whistler
Vancouver's restaurants span the full range from weirdly experimental to simple and solid. New restaurants are opening all the time and the city is attracting leading chefs such as Warren Geraghty, who arrived at West restaurant a little under two years ago via The Orrery, Pied à Terre and L'Escargot in London. The restaurant is recognised as one of Vancouver's finest. Dishes include sake-braised pork cheeks, yuzu-marinated octopus with quinoa and black tobiko salad and pan-fried gnocchi with sauteed chanterelles and confit frogs legs.

The tasting menu with wine pairings will set you back $186 (£110) a head but if you were to have a splurge in Vancouver then West should not disappoint.

Araxi in Whistler is owned by the same parent company and is recognised as one of Canada's top restaurants. The contestants in the Canadian version of Hell's Kitchen were vying for a position here.

Back in Vancouver, another memorable dining experience can be had at Salt, hidden down the slightly scarily named Blood Alley in Gastown, an area of the city the locals refer to as "colourful" but that is perhaps better referred to as vibrant and trendy.

Salt does cured meats and cheese. That's about it. And that's the appeal. You can order from a chalked up selection of 10 cured meats, 10 cheeses and 10 condiments. The knowledgeable staff, such as Alex, originally from Leeds (and who looks a bit like Brandon Flowers) will select meat and cheese for you and pair the selections with wine. Or you can do it all yourself.

A Casalinga sausage was paired with a spicy Riesling that cut through the smoky, wet-dog flavour (I mean that in a good way) of the sausage. In one of the less experimental pairings a Manchego came with a Fino and if you're into sherry, Salt claims to have Canada's biggest range.

Round the corner from Salt is a restaurant (though cocktail bar would be a better description) where the focus is on cocktails rather than food. At The Diamond the food is simply stuff to eat while you drink - the owner's words not mine - but that doesn't mean it's not good. The cocktails are extremely good though. Try the Buck Buck Mule made with gin, fino, cucumber, cilantro (coriander to us) and ginger beer, or Colin's Lawn made from sake, vodka, kaffir lime, mint and soda. You'll never order a Sex on the Beach again.

Market is a restaurant from Michelin-starred chef Jean-Georges situated in the newly opened Shangri-La in Vancouver. It's a restaurant that offers "special occasion" dining at prices more reasonable than you'd expect. If you can't move after the meal you can always take a room at the hotel. Rooms start at $700 but to afford the penthouse suite at $10,000 a night you might have to skip the meal at Market.

More restaurants should have beds. Sanafir provides beds that you can eat on, and then stretch out on after the meal. Sanafir's clientele seem to be made of the young and beautiful. They come to order a few "tapas trios", which take a particular main ingredient (such as lamb, chicken, prawns) and treat it in three different ways: Indian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean. It might sound like a hotch-potch but it works. The halibut is particularly good and came with a pistachio crust, in a korma and marinated in miso and lime.

If you get tired of restaurant food and feel tempted to recreate these dishes or just wish to pick up a few delectables for lunch, a "foraging" trip to Granville Island market is called for. It's best to avoid going when you're hungry because the mounds of the freshest vegetables, decadent cakes, slabs of meat the size of a Mountie's thigh, donuts, olives, salamis, fudge and wine will have you buying far more than you can stuff into a stomach already enlarged by Canadian portion sizes.

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Alastair travelled as a guest of Tourism British Columbia.

Meals were provided at all the restaurants and accommodation was provided at Sooke Harbour House Inn, The Wickanninnish Inn, Rock Water Secret Cove, the Shangri-La and at Casa di Mare guest house near Rock Water, which is a lovely self-catering venue with a hot tub and some of the best ocean views in Canada.