7 B.C. restaurants make list of 100 best business meeting spots in Canada

The list comes from a partnership between OpenTable and Bumble

Does B.C. really have only seven of the best 100 spots to have a business meeting in Canada?

Dating app Bumble and restaurant reservation company OpenTable have partnered to create three lists geared towards encouraging Canadians to get out and experience their country. All three—Best Restaurants for a Date,  Best Restaurants for a Friend Date and Best Restaurants for a Business Meeting—don’t seem to be exactly heavy on statistics.

Nonetheless, we’re understandably especially interested in the latter category here at BCBusiness. To that end, seven B.C. restaurants garnered a mention on the list, including Kelowna’s 19 Okanagan Grill and Bar, Vernon’s Phoenix Steakhouse, Abbotsford eatery Restaurant62 and Vancouver haunts Botanist, Joe Fortes, L’Abattoir and Tableau.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with that list. In fact, it definitely boasts some of the province’s more well-regarded spots. But we would argue that there should really be at least a few more B.C. names to be found here.

As far as Vancouver goes, where’s Jimmy Pattison’s go-to steakhouse in Hy’s? How about Giardino or Cioppino’s or House d’Aquilini (Elisa)? Or what about this list’s most egregious snub in the Vancouver Club? Beyond Vancouver, it’s hard to see how Vancouver Island doesn’t get even one mention.

Especially when our immediate neighbours to the east in Alberta have a whopping 21 names on the list, including 18(!) in the Calgary area. Sure, Alberta is an old school business hub of sorts and yes, we’re very biased, but that much of an advantage over B.C. feels… off?

Ontario has an insane 55 restaurants featured (most of them in Toronto)—more or less par for the course with these lists—while Quebec has 10.

B.C. does much better in the “date” category, with 18 restaurants listed. Guess we should consider a name change and rebrand? How does BCDate magazine sound?