by Andrew Morrison | Good news! The Acorn on Main Street and Gastown’s PiDGiN have made it on to enRoute’s annual Top 10 Best New Restaurants in Canada list, which was released this morning (full disclosure: I’m on the advisory panel). Says the magazine, “On a month-long culinary odyssey that took noted food writer Andrew Braithwaite from Vancouver Island to Fogo Island he discovered a bumper crop of adventurous chefs who continued to redefine what it means to dine out in Canada.” The results are as follows:

NO 1 BAR ISABEL | Toronto | Link

“looks, feels and tastes vaguely Castilian but does far more than ape a menu straight out of Madrid.”

NO 2 SHOTO | Toronto | Link

“a storybook of a tasting menu, with all the typical annoying bits – the repetition of ingredients, the showy caprice, the monotonous pacing – smartly edited out.”

NO 3 FOGO ISLAND INN | Newfoundland | Link

“There’s a terrific survivalist spirit bursting out of Chef McDonald’s kitchen, where most everything is made from scratch.”

NO 4 SUPPLY AND DEMAND | Ottawa | Link

“It’s not supposed to be this easy for a first-timer … you notice all the little things that rookies Steve and Jennifer Wall are getting so right.”

NO 5 PIDGIN | Vancouver | Link

“The cuisine of Winnipeg-born Chef Ono, who ran restaurants in Beijing and Hong Kong, draws from multiple languages.”

NO 6 CARINO JAPANESE BISTRO | Calgary | Link

“a Japanese-Italian wine bar that defies logic in the most wonderful ways.”

NO 7 MAISON PUBLIQUE | Montreal | Link

“A mere 250 years after the Treaty of Paris, cooking Anglo food in Montreal is cool again.”

NO 8 LE BOUCHON DU PIED BLEU | Quebec City | Link

“one of the most convivial, playful, unabashedly fun dining experiences I’ve had anywhere in North America.”

NO 9 THE ACORN | Vancouver | Link

“That the food is meatless is almost beside the point unless you’re a foodie vegetarian who’s long hankered for a compromise-free night on the town.”

NO 10 ELECTRIC MUD BBQ | Toronto | Link

“Electric Mud is a twisted hymn to the American South.”

Here’s a video on the No. 1 pick, Toronto’s Bar Isabel…

While I’m surprised that neither Burdock & Co. nor Wildebeest cracked the list, life goes on. I’m glad to see Vancouver represented again, and keen to try out the rest.

Bonus: the “People’s Choice” nod went to Vancouver’s own Vij’s Railway Express food truck.