Craving comfort? We’ve rounded up hearty, soul satisfying bowls of goodness to enjoy all over Vancouver.

It’s January. The days are short and dark, the weather cold nd damp, the mood generally gloomy, especially for those of us who overindulged in December and are peering ously at the scale and our credit card bills. This is, in so many ways, the month of reckoning.

It is also the month of soup. Soup warms the body and soothes the soul while making the most of often humble ingredients. As the pioneering chef Auguste Escoffier once said, “Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day and awakens and refines the appetite.” Soup may not cure everything that ails you, but it will certainly make you feel better about it.

And Vancouver is simply awash in great soup, from classic chowders to spicy bowls of broth packed with noodles and dumplings. Some, it is true, teeter on the edge between soup and stew or even porridge — congee, for instance, or laksa, or bouillabaisse. But we’re not fussy. If we need a spoon to eat it, we’ll happily call it soup.

Consider this your guide to finding beautiful soup around town.

Seafood soups and chowders
In many ways, chowder is the quintessential West Coast dish: thick, creamy, comforting, rich with local seafood, perfect for a rainy day. You can still find the famous tomato-based Manhattan-style clam chowder on BC Ferries and a sumptuous salmon chowder at Liquids + Solids or, occasionally, luxe variations made with spot prawns or sablefish. For the most part, though, chowder on this coast means New England style, made with clams, potatoes, bacon and cream.

The Sandbar Seafood Restaurant on Granville Island is one good destination for classic clam chowder, but you can also find it at many pubs and seafood specialty joints such as Fanny Bay Oysters Bar or frozen and ready to go at Fresh Ideas Start Here.

But chowder isn’t the only European-style seafood soup in town. Bouillabaisse is a Provençal fish soup laced with saffron and served with rouille, a spiced mayonnaise-style condiment. Not surprisingly, the best place to enjoy it is at Provence Marinaside. Sadly, though, you won’t find its Italian-American cousin, cioppino, at Cioppino’s, although you can enjoy a luxuriously rich lobster bisque instead.

Wonton and congee
Wontons appear across China’s many regional styles of cuisine; here in B.C., they have long been a staple of Cantonese and Chinese-Canadian restaurants.

These dumplings of tender wheat flour dough wrapped around a filling of minced pork and/or shrimp are fried, steamed or, most often, served in clear chicken broth. You can also find a variation of wonton soup known as wor wonton —“wor” meaning “everything” — with added ingredients such as shrimp, barbecued pork, sliced chicken and vegetables making for a hearty and satisfying meal in a bowl.

For loaded wonton soups, check out Hon’s Wonton House (Olympic Village and East Broadway locations) and On-Lok Restaurant & Won-ton House. (The clue is in its long name.)

For a similar, mildly savoury flavour profile, there is also congee, the soupy rice porridge that is the ultimate in comfort foods. That bland base is a terrific canvas for a myriad of flavours — have fun choosing among the 30 or so variations at No. 9 Restaurant in Richmond or Congee Noodle House on East Broadway — but is always better when it’s garnished with slivered ginger, white pepper and crisp Chinese doughnut.

Pho
Chances are you already have your favourite pho place; this brothy Vietnamese noodle soup is ubiquitous around Vancouver and for good reason. It just makes you happy.

Pho  emerged  in  northern  Vietnam  during  the  French colonial period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It quickly became a national passion and continues to evolve today. Typically, beef or sometimes chicken bones are slowly simmered with delicate spices for a light but richly flavoured base. A number of Vietnamese restaurants also offer vegan versions, so this is not a pleasure limited to carnivores. The soup is then loaded with wonderfully chewy rice noodles as well as toppings such as sliced meat, bean sprouts, chili sauce and fresh basil.

There are dozens of excellent places for pho in this city; among our favourites are Anh and Chi, The Lunch Lady and Do Chay, most of which offer vegan pho as well as traditional beef.

Ramen
Is ramen a soup or a noodle dish? Well it’s both, but it started with the noodles, specifically, Chinese-style wheat noodles. Ramen’s origins can be traced to the hand-pulled noodles in Yokohama’s Chinatown back in the early 20th century, but it has since become an iconic food across Japan and indeed here in B.C., especially Vancouver.

Ramen’s popularity grew in the lean years after the Second World War when it became a quick, inexpensive and satisfying meal for “salarymen.” The invention of instant noodles in 1958 made the dish even more popular, especially among broke students and others with limited cooking facilities.

There are almost endless combinations of broth and toppings to enjoy. Ramen could be made with light, clear salt or shoyu broth, creamy “tonkotsu” pork bone broth or umami-rich miso broth. Noodles can come in a wide range of sizes and shapes, but are almost always made from wheat flour, water, salt and “kansui,” an alkaline water that gives them their golden-yellow colouring and bouncy firmness. Toppings can include eggs boiled to a jammy yolk consistency, barbecued pork, nori, vegetables and more.

It will come as no surprise that there are dozens of ramen restaurants around Vancouver, especially in Richmond and in the West End around Robson Street; nor is it surprising that people have very strong feelings about their favourites. A good place to start is Yah-Yah-Ya Ramen or Maruhachi Ramen in Richmond, JINYA Ramen on Robson or The Ramen Butcher in Chinatown.

For a vegan take on ramen and its cousin udon, head to Harvest Community Foods, where chefs Andrea Carlson and Gabriella Meyer indulge their love for all things noodliscious.

Spicy soups
Feel a cold coming on? You could do a lot worse than settle in for a bowl of laksa, the spicy noodle soup of Southeast Asia. Like so many Asian noodle dishes, the history of this one starts in China, simmered by naval trade, intermarriage or, most likely, the descendants of Chinese immigrants to maritime Southeast Asia.

Although there are countless regional variations of laksa throughout Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, most have a rich, spicy coconut curry base, loads of tender thick or thin rice noodles, and toppings such as fish, prawns, chicken, deep-fried tofu, bean sprouts and fresh fragrant herbs, especially mint and cilantro.

Savour it at Banana Leaf (Malaysian cuisine, multiple locations; available at lunch), Hawkers Delight Deli on Main Street and other restaurants, especially in Richmond.

North of Malaysia, Thailand also enjoys a healthy relationship with spice. The most famous of Thai soups, Tom Yum, is a hot-and-sour soup, usually made with a clear broth (though sometimes evaporated milk is stirred in. There are endless variations on this as well). The broth can be chicken, coconut milk or even water, simmered with aromatic ingredients such as lemongrass, makrut lime leaves, galangal and chilies. The soup is then loaded with seafood, pork or chicken, and topped with cilantro. Rice noodles may be added, or not.

For exceptional Thai flavours, turn to chef Angus An, who has long set the bar for this flavourful cuisine in Vancouver. From the elevated Maenam to casual Fat Mao Noodles, he dishes up fragrant bowls of Tom Yum Goong and other dishes. Other great places for Thai soups: Sawasdee Thai Restaurant and Song (by Kin Kao).

Humble soups
There’s a reason we say something is “cheap like borscht.” The tart, tangy Eastern European soup is made from hearty, hardy, budget-friendly ingredients such as onion, cabbage, carrots, potatoes and beets. It may be inexpensive to make, but the flavour is richly satisfying. Borscht typically starts with a beef bone stock, although it can be vegan; it can be served hot or cold and is often accompanied by sour cream, boiled eggs, potatoes or other garnishes such as the garlic bread known as pampushky.

There are many variations, too. Borscht has long been especially popular among Jewish and Mennonite populations, and the vivid red beet version we know best is traditional to Ukraine. For borscht and other Ukrainian dishes, head straight to Kozak (in Gastown, New West and on Victoria Drive), where there are three different styles: with beef, pork or beans.

If you’re looking for something else that’s rib-stickingly traditional and gentle on the budget, consider a thick, chunky French Canadian split pea soup, made with a smoked ham hock and just a touch of hot sauce. The one at Liquids + Solids will fit the bill. Or join chef J-C Poirier each January when he serves up his annual cabane à sucre at St. Lawrence — his gourmet take on split pea soup is always on the menu.

Fancy-ish soups
Soup is the star of a comforting casual meal, but it can also be the entrée to a more refined one. Take chef Rob Feenie’s mushroom soup at Le Crocodile by Rob Feenie. It’s made with whatever mushrooms are in season, simmered and puréed to create a silky, umami-rich bowl of goodness. Topped with a tender-crisp Gruyère tuile, it is both elegant and altogether more-ish.

Then there is French onion soup. The court of Louis XV enjoyed a soupe à l’oignon at Versailles, but the version we know today, with its hearty crouton and gloriously gooey layer of cheese baked au gratin, is more proletarian. It originated in the mid- 19th century at Les Halles, the famous open-air market in Paris, where it was both a cheap, hearty meal for the market workers and a hangover remedy for bons vivants on their way home from the city’s cabarets.

Today, it is a staple on French bistro menus, at Tableau Bar Bistro, for instance, Alouette Bistro or Les Faux Bourgeois.

Heat-and-eat soups
If there is one downside to soup, it’s that it can be a little messy to eat in public. It’s easy to spill, drip and stain your favourite shirt. Worse, slurping is a particularly cringe-inducing trigger for anyone afflicted with misophonia (a disorder also known as “selective sound sensitivity syndrome”). Luckily for those who prefer to enjoy their soup in private, Vancouver has a bounty of terrific take-home heat-and-eat soups, too.

A good place to start is at The Stock Market on Granville Island. They carry all kinds of stocks, of course, but also a good selection of everything from “real” chicken noodle soup to lobster bisque to split pea with ham. Meanwhile, over at North Van’s Lonsdale Quay Market, Ralf Dauns, the original “soup meister,” passed away in 2022, but his nephew Evan has taken over at what has become The Soup Meister’s Nephew, dishing up a soul-warming menu that changes daily.

But that’s not all. You can also order soups by local companies Goodly and Be Fresh from Spud and find soups from local makers like Vancouver Soup Company and kitskitchen at various retail stores. And keep an eye out for SoBo smoked salmon chowder and other goodies from Lisa Ahier, the Top Chef Canada competitor and chef-owner of the recently shuttered Tofino restaurant. She’s just signed a deal with Choices Markets for her line of food products, starting with her award-winning chowder.

The world of soup is a wide one, and there are many we haven’t even touched on here: tomato soup, chicken noodle, tortilla soup, minestrone and tortellini in brodo, just to name a few. Whichever you choose, nothing satisfies like soup. It’s good for you, good for your wallet and just plain good.