Haisan is an intimate, 30-seat fine-dining restaurant built around a single 16-course tasting menu.
Chef Steven Che is getting ready to open the restaurant he’s wanted to build for years.
Haisan, opening this fall on Commercial Drive, is an intimate 30-seat fine-dining restaurant built around a single 16-course tasting menu.
Rather than treating Chinese and Pacific Northwest cooking as two separate influences, Che sees them as a single point of view shaped by his own life.
Born in Macau and raised in Vancouver, Che started working in hospitality at 13 years old. His career eventually took him abroad, including time in the kitchen of a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Norway and a three-hatted restaurant in Australia.
Back home, Che was named Rising Star Chef of the Year at the 2024 Chinese Restaurant Awards and won the 2026 Garland Canada Culinary Competition. Vancouver diners may also know him as the chef behind Just Pizza.
Haisan, however, represents something considerably more personal.
Experience at Haisan isn’t just about what’s on the plate
During a recent walk-through of the still-under-construction restaurant with Che, he took me through many of the decisions that have gone into building Haisan from what was essentially an empty shell.
The dining room is designed around a theme he calls “Ocean and Mountains,” with soft blue tones, natural ash millwork and an open kitchen anchoring the room. Guests will be able to watch Che and his small team throughout dinner, with shelving providing some separation without closing the kitchen off.
Acoustics have been considered from the beginning, with a custom ceiling and acoustic panelling designed to soften sound inside the small room. Narrow-beam lighting will focus attention on the tables and the food.
At one point during the tour, Che unboxes one of the dining chairs and places it in the middle of the construction site for me to try.
Sitting there, surrounded by unfinished millwork and equipment, you can begin to imagine what dinner in the room will feel like in the near future.
Che talks about the importance of the chair being ergonomic and supportive enough for a guest sitting through a lengthy tasting menu. Settling into it, I agree. It’s remarkably comfortable, but the moment also says something about how he’s approaching Haisan. The experience isn’t only about what’s on the plate.
Che is also making roughly 90 ceramic pieces himself for Haisan, producing plates and bowls specifically for the restaurant.
Menu draws from Chinese flavours and dishes with a personal connection
The menu follows a similarly personal philosophy.
Che prefers smaller, focused dishes rather than larger compositions filled with competing elements. The 16-course format is influenced partly by his time cooking in Norway and gives him room to explore more ideas while keeping each course concise.
“I like things short and sweet,” Che told me during the walk-through. “You get the point of it and then you move on to the next thing.”
The tasting menu is expected to be priced around $180.
The food won’t attempt to represent any one region of China. Instead, Che is drawing from the Chinese flavours and dishes he connects with personally and viewing them through the ingredients and experiences of the Pacific Northwest.
“Our menu is Chinese-Pacific Northwest, one point of view, cooked the way I already think about food,” Che says.
Local seafood will play a significant role, alongside vegetables, herbs and ingredients sourced from both British Columbia and China.
Chef growing some of the ingredients himself
Vegetables are particularly important to Che. He believes they can too easily become supporting players on restaurant menus. At Haisan, he wants vegetables and starches to receive the same thought and technique as everything else on the plate.
Some ingredients will come directly from Che himself.
At home, he has planters dedicated to ingredients he’s growing with Haisan in mind, including blackcurrant, sorrel and lovage. It’s a small example of what Che means by Chinese Pacific Northwest: ingredients growing around him considered through his own culinary lens.
The restaurant will operate with a deliberately small kitchen team, with Che working the pass alongside a handful of cooks who will move between responsibilities.
For a chef who left Vancouver to experience ambitious kitchens elsewhere, there’s something fitting about Che now creating the kind of restaurant he once felt he had to leave the city to find.
Haisan is targeting an Oct. 14 opening at 2892 Commercial Dr., with reservations expected to open ahead of its debut.
Christian Alvarez is the founder of Vancouver Chefs and the ICON Dinner Series, platforms that bring together celebrated chefs for immersive, culture driven dining experiences. A graduate of the Northwest Culinary Academy in Vancouver, he blends culinary training with a passion for storytelling, photography and community building. Through curated collaborations, he explores the intersection of food, film, music and art, creating intimate events that celebrate both craft and creativity. When he is not curating dinners, he runs the Vancouver seawall, spends long hours on the road as an avid cyclist, and explores the world through its food and culture.
Dining and Cooking