Pilgrimme, Galiano Island, BC, Canada - March 2025

One of my favourite experiences so far in Canada. This place is special. It’s not the easiest place to visit but well worth it.

To get to Galiano you need to take a 45 minute ferry from just outside of Vancouver. The island itself is quaint and has some other really good food. A two night stay is plenty and come prepared for hiking and outdoor activity.

As for Pilgrimme, it books up relatively quickly but if you’re flexible, you can get there on not super long notice. Everyone starts at 6PM. The overall experience is about 3:15.

There is room for about 16 people in the dining room. It’s chef and his partner and two servers. For being a small, quaint island, you’d maybe be surprised at the very strong service and amazing hospitality. The team was dialed. Pacing, timing and overall service was very nice.

For wine, the pairing is quite reasonable, all BC wine and funky/natural wine oriented. Given the pairing was $65 CAD, purists who may not love these types of pairings should breathe easy knowing they haven’t broken the bank. It was just a fun pairing and we really liked the wines.

As for the food, there wasn’t a dish out of place. Like Nordic cooking, in order to utilize ingredients of the island, ferments and pickled ingredients were common. The flavours were very good and everything just made sense. The tuna, pizza, opening tart and dumpling stood out as unique and amazing but there wasn’t really anything we disliked. Chef’s cooking was so refined. We didn’t know he had done a stint at Noma but both had mentioned a lot of dishes reminded us of our visit there.

I can’t wait to go back. It’s a place you know will be incredibly different every time we go. We will definitely make it an annual thing. Feel free to shoot me a note with any questions!