Marilena: Big City Style in the Capital This highly anticipated downtown restaurant is resonating with diners who are filling the room nightly.
I
t’s not hyperbole to say that Marilena Café and Raw Bar is Victoria’s most hotly anticipated new restaurant in recent memory.
Originally set to launch in 2020, but pushed back by the pandemic, the upscale dining room finally opened this summer. And it’s clear that all of that extra lead time was carefully spent, burnishing every detail to the fine luster that brings a restaurant star status.
and white wine rooms, a dedicated raw/sushi bar, and a massive open kitchen where chef Kristian Eligh and his team turn out their creative, seafoodforward menu.
whole grilled branzino from Mediterranean waters, and Crispy Skin Striped Bass served with cured pork XO, a dish Eligh says is proving especially popular with diners.
“We are definitely a seafood-focussed restaurant, local first, but also imported sustainable seafood,” says Eligh, who is relying on 15 suppliers to source a wide variety of fresh fish for Marilena’s large menu, with twice weekly deliveries to the Island.
It’s hard to know where to start because Marilena seems to have it all, from the soft arc of a leather banquette and a soaring back bar displaying hundreds of the best bottles, to glass-enclosed red
There’s BC sockeye featured in the Oshi Aburi and Hecate Strait Halibut served in a lemongrass broth, but you’ll also find specialty fish imported from Japan for the raw bar, fresh Hawaiian Kampachi Crudo,
New York artist Fernando Mastrangelo’s “Salt Mirrors,” back-lit sculptural artwork wrought in salt and glass, lend an ethereal note to the space in the Rotunda building at Douglas and Cormorant, while an ocean-blue, custom-designed Hestan Cooking Suite from California dominates the large open kitchen, a spot to linger and watch the chefs at work. Even the bathrooms are impressive—enter your personal powder room where a heated toilet automatically opens to greet you.
20 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023