Wolf in the Fog - Tofino, BC

Hi everyone!! I’m back after a long holiday break and gonna get back into the groove of things!

This is Part 4 of our Vancouver Island Food Adventures! Check out the rest!

This Vancouver Island trip was to celebrate AngryRussian and my first anniversary. For our official anniversary dinner we went to Wolf in the Fog in Tofino. In 2014 they were named Air Canada Enroute magazine’s Best New Restaurant. But I wanted to go because they had octopus on their menu!

Wolf in the Fog is nestled in the heart of Tofino and on weekdays they don’t open until dinner time (they do have happy hour but only on the weekends). We had reservations right at 5pm and were seated at a wonderful corner of the upstairs level of the restaurant, right by the windows.

From our seat we had the view of the entire floor. As expected the interior is very west-coasty.

We started with some drinks. AngryRussian picked the Duchess of Darkness ($7). It’s a beer cocktail of dark ale, tea infused gin, amaro, and angostura bitters.

I had the Pickle & Smoke ($12) which is a double caesar made with smoked salmon infused vodka and garnished with house made pickles and local seafood. Today the local seafood was smoked salmon =/ …I can’t help but think that might be the local seafood every day.

It was a good caesar but nothing spectacular. I couldn’t really discern the “smoked salmon infused vodka”.

We picked an appetizer to share and it was the octopus I wanted. The Spiced Octopus & Pork Jowl ($21) was savory and spicy. Our server told us to mix everything (beluga lentils, burnt eggplant, almonds, za’atar) up before eating.

Everything along with the mint and cilantro made this bowl very yummy. I only wished there were more pieces of the octopus and pork jowl and there were very little and we were left with mostly beluga lentils in the latter mouthfuls.

With the mains, how it works at Wolf in the Fog is that the mains are under the “Plates to Share” section. They’re for 2 people but you can also order them in individual portions for half the price. At the EAT! Harvest event last year I met head chef Nicholas Nutting and asked him why they didn’t just offer them in individual portions. His answer? Simply that it’s less work to make a few large plates than a lot of little ones!

The Roasted Arctic Char ($70 share; $35 individual) was one of our entree choices. After watching Masterchef, I’ve really grown to liking pan-roasted fish with a crispy skin, plus the smoked bone marrow risotto and wild mushrooms sounded very enticing.

The char was roasted to a perfect medium rare and the skin was crispy. The marrow risotto was rich but could be creamier. I loved the amount of mushrooms though.