I love the food here but the dish i had was too salty for me, i don't use salt at home, but the taste of the chicken was great. i also found the vegys a little overdone, i'm not complaining but just telling it as I see it. thanks

It's no hardship to support this great cause. Attentive service, just enough menu choice to make it interesting, beautiful plate presentations, a room with an awesome view and felt totally safe during Covid times - on campus and while in the Discovery Room. My 3 guests were new to this super dining experience and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves for the same reasons. :)

Very enjoyable, great view, well prepared food, delicious from breads to mains, good wine selection, fabulous desert. Reasonably priced, thank you.

Always a pleasure.

This is the best fine dining experience in the mid-island.

Only open a limited number of days so make sure you book your reservation.

Highly recommend it.

I would highly recommend the VIU Discovery Room;
booked a lunch reservation as a preview to a dinner reservation
in a few weeks. A bonus was the sunny weather, the room has
a great view of the ocean and the city of Nanaimo. Overall a great experience, I had the French Onion Soup appetizer followed by the main course of Grilled Pork Loin Steak. A dessert is also included,
which was an amazing lemon tart with blackberries. I will be making it a point
to frequent the Discovery Room more often.

Always great! Thanks to Daniel and his team for another great dinner experience!

Great program at the university! Meal was great and always encouraging to see kids learn a skill!

Best value for a great meal in Nanaimo.
We set up to deal with covid and fine dining. We brought wine to pair with the menu which changes and can be viewed on line. There is a meager corkage fee. Their wine and beer menu is good as well.

our 2 appetizers - mussels and smoked trout were delicious. The salmon was served with a delicious lemon creme sauce with salsa on top which I didn't think it needed. Salsa with unripe tomatoes is not very tasty. The other entre a lamb shank was very good. The lime tart dessert served with fruit garnish was very tasty and the coffee was very good. We each had a glass of Hester Creek wine - pinot gris & merlot which were good value for the money. Our server Olivia was very good

Everything was lovely, thank you.

Delicious as always! beautiful presentation and professional service :)

Excellent experience! Student training restaurant offering fine dining 'done right. Best kept secret in Nanaimo!

we had a delicious amuse bouche of smoked char with apple jelly sauce
The seafood chowder was very good & we both had beef bourgignon which was tender and flavourful The baguette & cheese bread were very good.

What an incredible hidden gem!! Great service, and the food was outstanding. Beautifully presented and the flavors were more than delicious. Excellent atmosphere, clean, professional, and mountain views to top it all off. Can't recommend highly enough.

We always look forward to our times at the Discovery Room. Thank you!

Best food and value in Nanaimo.

Excellent experience, outstanding food. We love the dinners by the students.

Great to be back, great service, food, ambiance. Thank you.

Always so impressed with the whole dining experience.

Wonderful meal.
Great creativity
Our second time going, with multiple visits to come!!!
Thank you

Wonderful - hope the Discovery Room is available next year.

We have been to the Discovery Room a number of times both for business lunches and Romantic evenings.

It is probably one of the best fine dining experiences in the city and by far the best value. It has NEVER let me down and as a professional food photographer, I have visited a lot of places across Canada.

The food was gourmet for sure. Our meals exceeded our expectations.

Food was delicious the soups main courses and it was topped off by a delicious free pear tart dessert highly recommend

Everything from the ambience to the service, food presentation and amazing tastes to the fabulous view—felt like a 5 star restaurant! Can’t wait to come back!

Great food for a great price with great service and a great view. I always enjoy a visit to the Discovery Room!

As always going for dinner at the Discovery Room is a special night out. All the students try very hard to make sure your dinner experience is a night to remember. The food is perfectly cooked and always presented like you're eating at a 5 star restaurant. Can't wait until I'm able to go back again.

Outstanding in all respects. Will definitely continue to patronize your restaurant. Highly recommended.

Every aspect of the dining experience was fantastic. Thank you to all involved!

This is the best kept secret dining room in town. The food is always awesome being a culinary school. The menu varies from week to week which is nice- who wants to have the same menu year in year out? The waitstaff are also hospitality students who are doing their best to learn the trade, overseen by Daniel. With limited openings now, because of you know what, it can be hard to get a table.

Going to the Discovery Room IS a special occasion. Beautiful view, lovely and relaxing atmosphere provides a unique
dining experience. The service is exceptional without being intrusive. It is a perfect restaurant to enjoy with good
friends.

The Discovery Room is a wonderful gem of a restaurant in Nanaimo. The food is superbly prepared and the student servers are gracious and even though they are just learning, they are very polite and efficient. Our lunch was amazing and the value for what we got was the best in Nanaimo. We will definitely be back!

We were very impressed, right from being greeted at the door. Exceptional food, compliments to the chef. Wait staff, super friendly.

Eight of us went to celebrate some birthdays. We were seated at two different tables as per Covid guidelines with one other table occupied in the restaurant. The menu choices were excellent - something to suit everyone’s choice. The prix fixe included a three course meal however we were treated with a lovely morsel of smoked duck before our appetizer course. With our group of eight, we were able to give critiques on all offerings and without exception, the presentation and taste were top notch - as per quality in a very high end restaurant. For example, I chose mussels for an appetizer (best I’d ever had), beef tenderloin for main (so tender and flavourful with interesting vegetables and mashed potatoes with carmellized onions on the side) and tiramisu for dessert. Others had vichyssoise, tomato avocado salad for an appetizer and for main, rock cod, Dijonnaise chicken and papardelle Quattro fromaggio. All reported exceptional meals! Now for price, without wine or beer (which by the way was very good and well-priced), the entire food portion was under $60 for two persons! Just can’t beat it! We would have paid at least twice that much anywhere else. Thank you, Discovery Room!

Very much enjoyed returning to the Discovery Room. Still one of our favourite places to dine. Thank you.

Even with directions the restaurant was a little difficult to find but worth the seek. On arrival we were seated right away. The quality linens, glassware and cutlery did not go unappreciated. Although a small menu there was plenty of variety to appeal to each pallet. We ordered appetizers of beet borsht, mussels and creamy broccoli soup. While we waited for our orders we were treated to a local mussel in the shell. Its was firm, fresh and sitting in a hollandaise sauce that I felt should have been warm for dipping but was cold and set in the bottom of the shell. We sampled each others appertisers and were particularly impressed with the depth of the flavours in the borsht. I had not had mussels since my last visit to the east coast and have to say the flavours added made them better than those I had there. Entrees were salmon on rice, beautifully presented with colour and decorations on the plate. The salmon was cooked to perfection, still flaked with the fork and was served on rice with a smoky tomato sauce which quite dominated the plate; loved the smoky flavour but maybe a little more subtle. Braised chicken presented on mashed potatoes. The potatoes we lumpy which added to the textures in the dish and melded with the flavours. The third dish at our table was spaghetti vongole. Volgole we learned meant served with clams and a light olive oil. It was also well presented, clams were fresh. A good dish to order if you are a big eater as it was very plentiful but the spagetti sauce had no piazza at all. Daniel took care of our table and all the other tables although we felt it was just us as he was always there when we needed him. With the California wild fires the view down to the ocean, that I know is there, was lost in the smoke.
All-in-all we will definitely go back soonest.

Gourmet food, elegant presentation. A great place for a special occasion. The seafood taco trio appy was incredible!

Always a pleasure. Food was wonderful and service was good as well. Thank you once again.

Excellent service, food, presentation, all for a very reasonable price for fine dining.