Surrounded by the Vancouver districts of Gastown, Yaletown and Strathcona, Chinatown is a fundamental component of the city’s hospitality scene. Ahead of North America’s 50 Best Bars’ 2025 Canadian debut, explore some of the neighbourhood’s leading bars, from Chinese-themed speakeasies to chic aperitivo hangouts.
Apothecaries, dim sum parlours and tea houses were part of the fabric of Vancouver’s downtown district long before it became a city in 1886. Today, Vancouver’s Chinatown remains a bustling hub where boutiques selling fragrant loose-leaf teas and ginseng huddle next to old-school Chinese eateries replete with glistening roasted ducks hanging in the windows.
Scattered throughout is a cluster of leading cocktail bars that interpret the neighbourhood’s rich history and culture through drinks and décor infused with Asian ingredients and aesthetics. Here, 50 Best takes a stroll through the streets to uncover some of the locale’s finest drinking dens.
Meo
@meochinatown
Meo opened in March 2024 as a cocktail and snack bar with a penchant for subverting the norms when it comes to cocktail flavours. Nowhere is this more evident than in bar manager Denis Bykov’s Fruits are not Vegetables menu, which upends conventions of fruit as sweet and vegetables as earthy. The topsy-turvy Espresso Carrotini, for example, combines orange gin and bitter citrus-peel-infused cold-brew coffee to balance the sweet carrot reduction.
This ethos of reimagination continues with Meo’s design, conceptualised by Ste Marie studio, the local firm behind Meo’s sibling establishments Kissa Tanto upstairs and Bao Bei. Meo’s interior harks back to 1970s Hong Kong and its hedonistic ‘love motel’ vibe. Rosy hues abound, with plush banquettes, swivel chairs and floral wallpaper lining the intimate room, plus, of course, the obligatory 70s disco ball.
The Keefer Bar
@thekeeferbar
The Keefer Bar (No.49 in North America’s 50 Best Bars 2024) has become the standard-bearer of Vancouver’s innovative cocktail scene, which is unsurprising when you consider it opened its doors more than 15 years ago. Inspired by the neighbourhood’s old Chinese apothecaries, Keefer’s menu of ‘prescriptions’ promises a cure for whatever ails you. The rectangular bar area sparks intrigue with dark cabinets of curiosities, drawing guests into its recesses where backlit anatomical illustrations line the walls.
Idiosyncratic artwork aside, the bar’s enduring appeal comes down to the surgical precision of its cocktails, frequently created with house-made bitters, tinctures and east Asian ingredients such as oolong tea, mountain fig root and red bean. Complexity and creativity are par for the course here, consider the Sweet & Sour, a mind-bending mix of gin, scotch, acidified pineapple, red pepper and honey, garnished with a (very Canadian) ketchup chip chicharron.
Start with a cocktail and stay for a snack from a menu of dim sum staples and playful dishes, such as Chinese churros with a side of Cointreau-infused dulce de leche.
Laowai
@whereislaowei
From the outside, this doesn’t look like a bar at all, masked as it is behind a dumpling restaurant called Blnd Tgr. The restaurant, its red-brick interior marked by vintage Chinese posters, moody red lighting and giant dumpling steamers, takes its moniker from the nickname given to covert drinking establishments during the Prohibition era. One particular order will see guests skipping the food queue and heading to the conspicuous freezer door to enter speakeasy Laowai.
Inside, the bar takes inspiration from 1920s glitzy Shanghai with plush red velvet, flashes of emerald green and gilded furnishings galore. When it comes to drinks, the bar looks to pivotal figures in East Asian history as inspiration for its menus.
Within its Volume 3 drinks list, Hu Die, a pioneer of Chinese representation in early 20th century cinema who later settling in Vancouver in the 1970s, has their story shape the Purple Butterfly, made with gin, buttered popcorn syrup, ‘butterfly blue’ acid and egg whites. Famed pirate Koxinga is honoured through the Jar of Dirt (baiju, triple sec, gingko nut orgeat, yellow rock syrup, lime juice, bitters).
Fiorino
@fiorino_isf
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On the southern tip of Chinatown, Fiorino delivers a taste of la dolce vita to E Georgia Street through the picture-perfect recreation of the Florentine aperitivo experience – a slice of nostalgia owner Giovanni Mascagni wanted to introduce to his adopted home. Tuscany’s terracotta hues and honeyed light form part of its charm, perhaps easier to imagine during happy hour when seated in a cosy booth or at the long bar sipping a negroni with a plate of arancini.
Italian cocktails rule the menu here with no less than eight negroni variations on offer, including the bourbon-based boulevardier (made with pork-washed bourbon) and a less boozy but equally stunning sbagliato. There’s even a version that substitutes the sometimes-polarising Campari with alternative Italian bitters. In a similar vein, guests can experiment with offerings of the classic spritz, choosing between traditional variants, artichoke-based distillates or bittersweet amaro. All are perfect for sipping outside when the seasonal street-front patio is open.
The Chickadee Room
@chickadeeroom
At the Chickadee Room the excess of the 1980s, whether you experienced it firsthand or not, is immaterial to enjoying this compact cocktail bar’s homage to the era. Think liberal splashes of neon and tributes to cult-hit songs and TV characters in the names of its cocktails. Retro vibes aside, the team has a well-earned reputation for crafting forward-thinking cocktails – case in point the Ramona Flowers: both a nod to a Canadian character in the Scott Pilgrim franchise and an effervescent mix of gin, spiced pomegranate, lemongrass, lemon and prosecco.
Although it now occupies its own distinctive space, The Chickadee Room originally opened inside Juke Fried Chicken and this cosy coupling means guests can order snacks from the restaurant’s menu of cult favourites, such as chicken and waffles or nuoc cham ribs.
North America’s 50 Best Bars 2025, sponsored by Perrier, will be revealed at a live awards ceremony in Vancouver, Canada, on Tuesday 29 April.
