YAM magazine’s Best Restaurant Awards 2024 celebrates Greater Victoria, B.C.’s exciting food scene, judged by an independent panel of chefs and food experts.
BY CINDA CHAVICH | PHOTOS BY JEFFREY BOSDET
Restaurant of the Year: The Courtney Room
The Magnolia Hotel, 619 Courtney Street | $$-$$$ thecourtneyroom.com | Reservations strongly suggested
When fans talk about The Courtney Room, they point to the creative cuisine, the craft cocktails, the deep wine list, the professional service and artful ambience — in short, the whole hospitality experience.
It’s that complete package that puts this restaurant at the top of our awards list this year: a dining spot that’s loved by locals and visitors alike, whether you come for the chef’s seasonal tasting menu, a happy-hour drink or a breakfast meeting.
“The team is the best we’ve had in the last five years,” says executive chef Brian Tesolin, whose innovative Pacific Northwest cuisine is at the centre of The Courtney Room’s success. “We all have the same vision — to create a fine-dining experience with the best quality products we can find.”
The restaurant is part of The Magnolia Hotel & Spa and, like this locally owned boutique property, it’s a carefully curated, stylish space, upscale yet intimate and inviting.
“The goal for this restaurant, for the team, is that it’s not a hotel restaurant, but rather it’s a restaurant that operates in a hotel,” says Tesolin.
That means juggling competing demands, and it’s impressive to see what comes out of Tesolin’s compact kitchen — from room service for hotel guests to breakfast service, weekend brunch, lunch and happy hour, plus the innovative selections on his dinner menu, featuring wild foods delivered by a local forager, pristine produce from nearby Island farms, and premium beef and fish, dry-aged in house.
“We have 21 different services a week,” he says, “and we are creating five menus a week, to make sure we can use all of that local product properly.”
Tesolin’s seasonal menus change regularly. They might feature catch-of-the-day halibut with kosho emulsion; a seared duck breast with gnocchi, morel mushrooms and rosehip jus; or a special of pretty fuchsia-hued beet-and-potato gnocchi with fresh peas and blue cheese. The popular duck fat potatoes may be topped with shaved pine mushrooms and your brunch eggs served with local nixtamalized tortillas and fermented black bean salsa.
If all that doesn’t sound like enough, Tesolin is also channelling his Italian heritage, studying the traditional art of hand-rolled pasta and offering at least four choices for dinner service, whether tender linguine with clams or pillowy pockets of ricotta-stuffed agnolotti.
“We all have the same vision — to create a fine-dining experience with the best quality products we can find.”
Beyond the food and drink is the design of the chic, two-tiered space. Like the Art Deco-inspired exterior of the hotel, the room is reminiscent of an elegant Parisian brasserie, a study in understated luxury, with soaring ceilings, a glassed-in wine room, soft colours and tactile textures throughout, from the velvet banquettes to the bronze bead curtains and chevron marble tiles.
Ensuring that all works in perfect harmony is a real team effort, from the leadership of hotel manager Bill Lewis and F&B manager Renée Lauzon to chef Tesolin and his chef de cuisine Graeme Parker, super sommelier Colin Davidson and bar manager Anton Wilson.
Winner of several national awards since opening in 2018, TCR is a restaurant worth celebrating.
Runners-up: Cafe Brio | Nowhere *A Restaurant