Best Brunch in Richmond BC

Brunch in Richmond splits three ways and most guides only cover one of them. There are the Steveston rooms with weekend waits, there are the all-day cafes away from the water, and there is dim sum, which is what a great many people in this city are genuinely eating at eleven on a Sunday. I will take them in that order, and I will tell you which ones I go to when there is nobody visiting to entertain.

How I rank a brunch

First, whether it is brunch or breakfast. A kitchen that opens early and feeds people on their way somewhere is a different animal from a kitchen that opens at eleven and pours mimosas. I want both, on different days, and lumping them together is why most brunch lists are useless.

Second, the wait and how the wait is handled. A room that takes names online and texts you is doing something kind. A room with no reservations and a clipboard by the door had better be worth standing for.

Third, the eggs. Split hollandaise, or a poach cooked hard, tells you what the kitchen thinks of brunch service. Fourth, coffee, because a good plate with bad coffee is a wasted morning. Fifth, whether I can sit outside with Biscuit. That last one is not your problem, but it is mine, and it shapes the list.

The Steveston circuit

Breakfast Table

On No. 1 Road, and worth checking the hours on before you make the drive. This is my pick on the food. The kitchen works Asian flavours into diner formats rather than bolting them on: ube lattes, challah French toast, a breakfast ratatouille. On a weekend morning you are going to wait, and the wait is the price of the place being good. Go on a weekday if your schedule allows it.

Cannery Cafe

Moncton Street, and the most flexible of the village options. Eggs benedict and fusion paellas on the same menu as handmade Shanghai dumplings, which sounds like it should not work and does. It absorbs a large family without drama, though ring ahead if you are bringing one. Anyone who watched a certain fairytale television series will recognise the frontage, and yes, strangers still stop to photograph it.

Kove Kitchen

Tucked in behind the Bayview shops and very easy to walk past. It is the one I check first when I want brunch on a day that is not a weekend, because most of the village saves brunch for Saturday and Sunday. Burgers and crab cake benedict, then borscht and cabbage rolls, which is not a combination anybody planned but is very pleasant on a grey morning. Less pressure here than out on the boardwalk.

Chef's Playground Eatery

No. 1 Road, small, with a busy weekend brunch. When I was last there it ran on a ninety-minute seating limit with a waitlist handled online rather than by phone. The time limit sounds unfriendly until you are the person waiting outside, at which point you will approve. Get yourself on the list before you leave the house.

The Steveston Cafe and Hotel

The cafe inside the old hotel on Third Avenue, and the antidote to everything above. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, coffee, and a room that feels older than every patio on the waterfront. Go in the morning rather than late. It is not brunch and has no interest in being brunch. Some Saturdays that is exactly right.

When you want a beer with your eggs

Britannia Brewing Steveston, a block off the water on Second Avenue, pours its own ales, and the trick is to get there before the village fills up. Its patio is the first one in the neighbourhood to fill on the first warm afternoon of the year.

Steveston Built Local Taphouse and Grill, over on No. 1 Road and set back from the tourist strip, is where I go when the waterfront is packed. Roomier, a deep beer list, and nobody photographing anything. This is the local answer rather than the visitor answer, which is most of the appeal.

Away from the water

Steveston takes all the attention and it is not always the right call, particularly if you are coming from the middle of the city and the bridge traffic is already going badly.

Cavu Kitchen Bar, on Minoru Boulevard, is the practical option near Richmond Centre, Minoru Park and the hospital, and parking is straightforward. I have eaten more early weekday breakfasts there than anywhere in the village, mostly because of where it is.

And Steveston Bakery, up on No. 1 Road, has a cafe attached doing breakfast, sandwiches and a soup that changes. It is a bakery with a diner inside it, and it is my honest recommendation for an unfussy Saturday morning: eat there, then walk the dyke.

The Richmond answer

Ask a hundred people here what they are eating on Sunday morning and a lot of them are going for dim sum, which is why it belongs in a brunch article instead of being quarantined in its own category. Fisherman's Terrace Seafood Restaurant, on the third floor of Aberdeen Centre, is the version I recommend to people who have not done it: high volume, consistent, and you can do your shopping downstairs afterwards rather than making two trips. Go early or go at half past one. Not in between.

If what you want is the quieter version of a Chinese breakfast, congee is the move. Tsim Chai Noodles, in the strip across from the public market, does it fast and without ceremony, with wonton soup and brisket noodles if congee is not your thing. I have eaten an unreasonable number of breakfasts on that block over the years, and it holds up.

Timing, parking, and the dog

The whole thing turns on when you arrive. Quarter past nine on a Saturday in Steveston is a calm village. Half past eleven is a different place: the lots off Bayview and Moncton fill, and people circle them instead of parking two streets up and walking four minutes. Park around Chatham or Second and walk. It is small.

If you have a dog, do it in the right order. Walk first, out along the West Dyke Trail or over toward Garry Point while it is still quiet, then eat. Patios in the village are generally relaxed about a dog under the table, and none of them are relaxed about a dog that has been sitting in a car for an hour.

Short version

Best food: Breakfast Table, and accept the wait. Best with a group or with kids: Cannery Cafe. Any day of the week: Kove Kitchen. Plainest honest breakfast: the cafe in the old Steveston hotel, or the bakery up on No. 1 Road. In the middle of the city: Cavu. And if it is Sunday and you want the meal Richmond does better than anywhere else, it is dim sum, and you should be at Aberdeen before noon.