Restaurants in Bellingham

The Pantry Restaurant serves home-style meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Comforting classics such as cinnamon french toast or egg skillets share menu space with steel-cut oatmeal, fresh fruit, and granola pancakes. For lunch and dinner, soup-and-salad combos, burgers, and old-fashioned favourites such as meatloaf and lasagna please everyone, even the family nihilist.

It was once impossible to see prawn fettuccini alfredo, nachos, and hoisin sauce on the same menu. The menu of contemporary cuisine at Purple Olive Grill, though, brings together disparate culinary influences from around the world. Chefs man a charcoal grill in the kitchen, bringing to life the aromas of tiger prawns and steak, which mingles in the air with evidence of curry and housemade sauces. There are a number of comfort foods, too, including burgers and chicken wings that call to mind a cozy pub or the famous food-fight scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Chalkboard menus and sports memorabilia adorn the inside of The Sin Bin Sports Grill, where full lunch, dinner, and brunch menus keep bellies as full as the bar’s event calendar. Sports fans join their ilk beneath 106 inches of projected television screen, and comedy fans take in standup one to two times a week. During lunch and dinner, tapas, blue-cheese-decked strip steaks, and burgers accompany the entertainment; and come midday on weekends, brunchers can sink their teeth into a variety of benedicts: blackened chicken, smoked salmon, and portobello gouda are just a few of the options.

The artful chefs at Vaades the Indian Restaurant prepare feasts for both eyes and empty stomachs with a colourful spread of traditional tandoori chicken, lamb curries, and vegetable stews, as well as contemporary small plates and main courses. The culinary experts take great pride in using quality ingredients such as corn-fed chicken and seasonal veggies, and they abide by strict cooking practices such as making sauces with only unsalted butter, vegetable oil, and light cream––never using meat stock, flour, or astronaut ice cream. Outside the kitchen, visitors savour tender poultry baked with fragrant cardamom, rose, and coconut or dive their utensils into inventive meals of mango-basil mousse, parmesan-stuffed naan, and cumin-kissed squash yogourt. Aside from meat-centric dishes such as saag gosht with lamb, the menu accommodates vegetarian diets by pairing organic multigrain roti with black-lentil dal makhni and roasted eggplant baingan bharta.

Although the quaint streets of Yaletown emanate the vibe of unhurried contentment, the kitchen in Hamilton Street Grill is hustling and bustling under the direction of owner and head chef Neil Wyles. He helms a skilled kitchen crew as they dart about the kitchen, whipping up a menu of certified Angus-beef steaks, fresh BC seafood dishes, and the house-ground char-grilled burgers that have won praise from Vancouver magazine. The dining room, which reflects the slower pace of the shop-lined street outside, boasts cushy booths, rich oak accents, and exposed yellow brick reminiscent of industrial warehouses and Oz’s municipal trucking route.

Gyu King Teppanyaki's seasoned chefs tap into a rich 200-year-old tradition with their stir-fry-slinging teppanyaki technique. Chefs sear, simmer, and slice main dishes on an expansive steel teppan grill that can seat up to 20 diners around its perimeter to watch shrimp execute backflips and chicken glide through a ballroom waltz at the hands of each talented chef.

Seafood, game, and vegetables cook one at a time at a leisurely pace while peppered with only basic seasonings such as soy sauce and vinegar, fostering a relaxed communal atmosphere among the audience of diners. Guests dine and enjoy the show ensconced in red walls, recessed lighting, and modern Japanese decor, free from the anti-open-flame regulations of traditional theatrical performances.