Vikram Vij

From its first weeks, Vij's was unlike any Indian restaurant in Canada. Dishes like the wine-marinated lamb popsicle — which remains on the menu today — announced a kitchen unafraid to treat Indian spicing with the same seriousness as any classical cuisine. The restaurant earned national and international attention with extraordinary speed. In 1998, it was one of only twenty restaurants selected to feature at the James Beard Annual Gala Awards in New York City, and was invited to prepare dinner at the James Beard House — a recognition of rare significance for a restaurant at that stage of its existence.

In 1999, Vij's appeared in Gourmet magazine's prestigious annual restaurant awards, placing among the top five restaurants in Vancouver. In 2003, food critic Mark Bittman of The New York Times published his landmark assessment of the restaurant as 'easily among the finest Indian restaurants in the world' — a verdict that has defined Vij's global reputation ever since. The restaurant went on to earn 19 consecutive Gold Medals from Vancouver Magazine between 1997 and 2015, and in 2012 was voted the best restaurant in Canada by Vacay.ca, in a poll judged by more than forty experts from across the country.

In 2004, Vij and his then-wife Meeru Dhalwala expanded their empire with Rangoli — a more casual, laid-back companion restaurant and market on South Granville, which also became the platform for their line of pre-packaged gourmet curries, Vij's Inspired Indian Cuisine. In 2011, they completed a dedicated production facility to meet growing retail demand. In 2012, Vij's Railway Express — a mobile food truck inspired by his rail travels across India — launched onto the streets of Vancouver, winning the inaugural People's Choice Award from Air Canada's enRoute Magazine as Canada's Best New Restaurant in 2013.

In 2014, Vij opened My Shanti in South Surrey — a solo restaurant whose name translates as 'my peace,' reflecting a menu inspired by his global food travels. My Shanti debuted at number one in The Globe and Mail's Top 10 New Vancouver Restaurants of 2014 and won Vancouver Magazine's Best Indian Restaurant award in 2016. After nearly a decade, the restaurant closed in late 2023. The Rangoli location on South Granville had already closed in May 2020 due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since April 2024, Vij has taken sole creative control of the Vij's kitchen — reimagining the menu and developing new recipes that reflect his own evolving culinary vision, separate from the dishes Meeru Dhalwala had developed over the previous three decades. The restaurant is now likely the only venue in Canada serving alpaca, sourced from a Fraser Valley farm and prepared as a biryani with the restaurant's distinctive basmati rice. In 2024, Vij's continued to draw celebrity diners including Mick Jagger and Prince Harry. The Michelin Bib Gourmand designations in 2023, 2024, and 2025 — awarded by the world's most respected restaurant guide — mark the beginning of what Vij himself describes as a new era for the institution he founded thirty years ago.