YAM magazine’s Best Restaurant Awards 2025 celebrates Greater Victoria, B.C.’s exciting food scene, judged by an independent panel of chefs and food experts.
BY JOANNE SASVARI | Photos Leila Kwok
Best New Restaurant: Janevca Kitchen & Lounge
429 Lampson Street | $$$
janevca.ca | Reservations highly recommended
Chef Andrea Alridge still remembers her first time cooking over live fire.
She was working at Vancouver’s CinCin Ristorante and the cook who usually worked the massive wood-fired Grillworks Infierno hadn’t shown up that day. “You’re on,” executive chef Andrew Richardson told her. “It’s your turn, suck it up.” She fell in love instantly. “I think it was fear focused, but I tell myself it was love,” she says with a laugh. “It was a really good challenge that I fully embraced.”
Since then she’s been a finalist on Top Chef Canada (Season 9), head chef at Vancouver’s beloved Osteria Savio Volpe and is now executive chef at Greater Victoria’s most exciting new restaurant, where she plays with fire every day.
In a year that saw plenty of dynamic newcomers to the scene, Janevca Kitchen & Lounge still manages to catch the eye. Located in the lovingly (and expensively) remodelled heritage Rosemead House in Esquimalt, it is an ode to maximalism, all rich colours, lush patterns, antique furnishings and a giant faux tree whose branches arch over the diners.
Service is polished and helpful. The wine program, led by Jacques Lacoste, is thoughtful, wide-ranging and getting better all the time. The lounge, with its plush magenta seating and view into the open kitchen, is a great place for cocktails. The desserts, from pastry chef Brian Bradley, are perfectly tempting.
But what brings us back again and again is Alridge’s cooking. She draws on her Jamaican-Filipino heritage, expertise in fine Italian dining and love for local ingredients to create something totally new. We love the wood-fired pizzas and steaks, tender handmade pastas and flavourful salads. We love the way she infuses spice into hearty pork chops with pickapeppa sauce (a.k.a. Jamaican ketchup) and the wood-grilled half-chicken with zingy, smoky siu haau sauce (a.k.a. Cantonese BBQ sauce) and chili crisp. “I’m very proud of that one,” she admits.
Most of all, we love how Janevca Kitchen & Lounge has brought something thrillingly new to Victoria’s dining scene while also embracing the heritage that’s made this city what it is.
