This Idyllic Canadian Island Is the Pacific Northwest’s Finest-Stored Secret

Back on property, visitors tuck into Southeast Asian dishes on the pop-up Lola restaurant, helmed by Filipino-Canadian chef Elmark Andres, the place the menu is written in a mix of Tagalog and English, the seafood is domestically sourced, and seasonal produce comes from the Bodega Ridge farm. Or they’ll head to the cedar-shingled Pink Geranium, a vivid, sunny all-day café and specialty meals retailer launched in 2024, the place lunch may be a warming bowl of tom kha soup (coconut, crimson pepper, inexperienced onion, shimeji and king oyster mushrooms) and freshly baked focaccia with rosemary and garlic confit. Regular neighborhood programming runs the gamut from poetry readings to queer opera, and a big stone inglenook hearth invitations curling up with a guide and a espresso on brisk winter afternoons.

Food has an outsized significance on such a calmly populated island as Galiano, dwelling to standout eating places like Oxeye and The Crane and Robin—although most islanders would agree that the fine-dining temple Pilgrimme close to Montague Harbour is Galiano’s most sought-after desk. At the helm is Winnipeg-born chef Jesse McCleery, who opened the restaurant in 2014 after a stint at Copenhagen’s groundbreaking Noma, alongside his associate, chef Melanie Witt.

Photo: Jarusha Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Pilgrimme

Tucked in a dense forest that appears straight out of a kids’s storybook, the restaurant occupies a log cabin embellished with hanging lanterns, antler accents, shearling throws, and a copy of Vladimir Tretchikoff’s “Chinese Girl.” It’s cozy and unpretentious, with room for simply 16 diners, placing the highlight on seasonal dishes served on sculptural dishware by native ceramicists like Ilana Fonariov.

The 12-course tasting menu is a love letter to Galiano’s bounty: foraged kelp, sea buckthorn, aronia berries (“I’ve never seen them grow outside Scandinavia,” muses McCleery), and Sichuan pepper leaves. Wild-ferment vinegars constructed from salal berries and grand fir needles stand in when yuzu, kaffir lime, or different Japanese citrus isn’t available from a grower on neighboring Salt Spring Island. True to Galiano kind, nearly all of the fruit comes not from skilled farms however from native neighbors and residents.

Photo: Courtesy of Pilgrimme

Photo: Courtesy of Pilgrimme

“There are so many people here with hobby gardens and orchards,” McCleery notes. “People drop by with a massive box of plums or apples, which we’ll trade for a pizza,” he says, referencing his different Galiano undertaking, Charmer Pizza, a pop-up restaurant specializing in 48-hour wild-ferment sourdough made with natural British Columbia grains.