The rumours were true.
An award-winning dim sum and seafood restaurant from the old Oakridge Centre is coming back to Vancouver’s Oakridge Park.
We spotted a coming soon sign for Peninsula Restaurant, right beside Sporting Life and across from Lululemon.
For months, that wall teased a mysterious dim sum and Cantonese food with no name attached.
Now the signs read “Authentic Cantonese Cuisine,” next to photos of pineapple buns, dim sum baskets and a giant king crab.
When the old mall closed for redevelopment, there were rumours that Peninsula had a spot saved in the new one.
Whether or not that was the plan all along, the new signs make the return official.
Peninsula opened at the old Oakridge Centre back in 2014, a large, fancy dim sum and seafood restaurant with round white-tablecloth tables.
Its rooms hosted weddings, conferences and big family occasions.
Within months of opening, it won Best Fine Dining Restaurant and Best Service Restaurant in the diners’ choice voting at the 2014 Chinese Restaurant Awards.
A year later, its Buddha Jumps Over the Wall soup, packed with abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw and scallop, took a critics’ choice award for signature dish.
The restaurant was the first overseas project for Peninsula Holdings Group, which is headquartered in Guangzhou and has subsidiaries in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing.
Peninsula also had a sister restaurant at Marine Gateway, Ban Dao Pearl Seafood Restaurant, in the space that’s now Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant.
The new Oakridge Park location is planned big.
In a promo video on the restaurant’s new website, the group lays out a 9,300-square-foot restaurant that can seat 250 diners at once.
The main hall holds up to 200 people and can be split into three multi-function halls for banquets.
There are five VIP private rooms, too, up from the two listed on the old restaurant’s website.
The video looks like it was shot a while ago, though, so the size and rooms may be different in the final space.
That same video estimated an opening of October 2025.
That date has come and gone, due to the mall’s delay.
No new opening date has been announced.
It’s fitting that the luxury mall will have a fancy Chinese restaurant again.
Most of Oakridge Park’s sit-down options are inside Time Out Market for now, and Hello Nori is the only other dine-in restaurant still on the way.
Until a date is out, the QR code on the signage promises “opening surprises” for anyone who follows along.
Peninsula will join recent Oakridge Park openings like Armani Caffè, Kith Treats and % Arabica.
Address
Oakridge Park, 650 W 41st Ave, Vancouver (beside Sporting Life)
