Chef-owner Hidekazu Tojo is a legend. Indeed, you can probably credit him for Vancouver’s passionate love for the cool, clean flavors of sushi. He carries more than 2,000 recipes in his head, and, for good measure, invented both the crab-and-avocado-filled California roll and the B.C. roll of salmon and cucumber that you see on sushi menus everywhere. More than 25 years after it first opened, Tojo’s is still as good as it ever was. The room is fantastic—in 2007, he moved from his cramped, warrenlike original space up the block to an airy, light-filled room with high ceilings, low-slung navy banquettes, decoratively gnarled branches, and a huge polished wooden sushi bar. Everything is good; nothing is cheap, though, because Tojo sources only the best. Order the omakase, the chef’s arrangement that features his greatest hits as well as whatever chef feels like making just for you. It can be five, six, or more courses, including one designed around the exquisite (and exquisitely expensive) Japanese Wagyu beef. Be sure to try the golden roll of crab, salmon, scallops, and shrimp wrapped in a paper-thin egg crepe, as well as the unsurpassed selection of premium sakes.